String Quartet fun!

In the last week I have learned several things about dining with Chinese. Saturday, my quartet (the Phoenix Quartet) had a gig. We performed the first two movements of our Beethoven quartet and the first movement of a Mozart quartet that we had only had for two days. Though a little frightening because of the short rehearsal time, it went extremely well. Later that evening, we met up at a hot pot restaurant for dinner. Three hours, several bottles of Tsingtao and several pounds of food later we are still sitting there. I don't think I have ever felt so full. I finally ate strange food though, some pigs ear...surprisingly crunchy, and pigs' brain...brain. I'm still not sure how I feel about that part of it. 

Since Saturday, I have been crazy busy. I basically practice all the time...at least eight hours every day. I think after one more month of working on my technique will really pay off. Today was hilarious though. I knew that we would have an orchestra rehearsal today at 1:30, I did not however know that we had a concert at 3:30. At least it's over for the semester. 

Later, I met up with my Professor, He Xuan and we walked to a Teppanyaki (I have no idea how to spell that) restaurant. There we waited for twenty minutes for the violist from my quartet and another ten minutes after that for our violinist and cellist. It's "Chinese time" which means that everything starts at least one half hour after it was supposed to. By the time we started grilling the various foods, it was almost 8:00. Everything was delicious, and I surprised myself by eating seafood. A lot of seafood. I probably consumed more seafood tonight than I have in the last several years of my life. I thought things were winding down around 9:00, but two decanters of sakae appeared along with several more plates of prawns and cow tongue (it's chewy). Around 9:45, I was getting kind of antsy, but everyone else seemed content to sit and talk and eat more, so I was patient. Finally the restaurant started shutting down. The waiters kept looking over at our table and finally one came by and forcably made us pay the bill. But Professor He kept chatting away...finally around 10:25 a lull came into the conversation and we finally made a break for it. I think it was the longest meal of my life. Delicious, but long. 

In conclusion...when invited out to dinner by Chinese, one must remember these very important things:

1. Dinner will start at least a half an hour later than scheduled. 

2. Come hungry...very hungry.

3. Finish anything you need to do before you go to dinner, it may take your entire evening. 

4. Come prepared with stories...or at least jokes.

5. EAT FIRST, ASK LATER (if you ask first, you may not be able to eat what they set down in front of you...)

GANG BEI! (cheers)

Here's my string quartet!

 (L to R) Shen Ting (first violin), Yie Zhou (cello), Wei Jin (viola), and me (second violin)...aren't we adorable!