 Chuan 串 (kao rou chuan) (3) |
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Chuanesday
It's "chuanr night": in the middle of the week! It's time again for beer, peanuts, and friendly banter. It is time again for yang rou chuanr (串儿). After a long day of work, just at the "hump" of the week for most, a group of laowai bei jing ren gathers at a restaurant that is particularly familiar. It's like at Cheers where "everyone knows your name." "Chuanr night" is something to look forward to, and keeps you going during the week.
The evening begins with only a handful of people eating dinner
It seems as if "most of the world lives their lives between Monday and Friday. We live our lives from Wednesday to Wednesday." Chuanr has become a tradition with a few simple rituals. No one will get angry if you don't come, but they'll always welcome you back! "No matter how long you've been away, chuanr will snap you back into China."
The contrast in the atmosphere accentuates the "homey" feeling one gets. Jonathan, a regular, insists that "it can only be at one restaurant because they have to be part of the family too for it to work." Angela, a newcomer this year, says the place "makes you feel comfortable. It's rough around the edges and imperfect." Chuanr is a place that will make you "feel instantly at home" when feeling lost in an unfamiliar place.
Lauren, Rocky and Jon set down their beers and take up their chopsticks
There was once a vote to move chuanr, only after a few incidents of breaking bottles, shouting neighbors and disgruntled customers. Ben, a diehard participant, voted "nay because I felt like the people who ran the place had somehow become part of the ritual…they knew what we wanted, and they laughed with us." That fateful evening, the lao wai and their friends did not stray too far, before returning home. The owners had not even asked them to leave.
Megan considers chuanr to be "a constant in our crazy world of change." Ben likewise describes the ritual as "an island of consistency, in what is otherwise a sea of change." As foreigners in Beijing, we are far away from our families. And so, we sit down once a week for our "'Sunday dinner with the family'...with a healthy helping of Chinese characteristics, of course." The group of 20-odd lao wai sit at the connected tables of the small restaurant, chatting with each other, their Chinese friends, the owners and the restaurant's other customers. This is where the family sits down for dinner.
Ellen and Ben "toast" to another chuanr night
Yang An Qi and Shi Wei like to meet different people at chuanr. It's a good way to make new friends and "the cheapest way to learn English." Cai Xiu Qi is the kind mother figure who provides for the group's every need from beer, peanuts and cucumbers to gu lao rou and the likely shot of bai jiu. It's good for her family's ten-year-old business. "The lao wai are very friendly, and their presence represents close international friendship." Whenever a teacher leaves China, she and her daughter, Liu Yang, give farewell gifts to their foreign friends. Liu Yang exclaims that "feelings are quite warm" on chuanr night!
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