I was so hungry...

I ate a horse. Seriously. I ate horse meat tonight. I wouldn't have ordered it, and I don't feel so good about myself for doing it, but I believe in adapting and respecting a culture which includes eating pretty much anything (that's not obviously unsafe) that's put in front of me (with the exception of bugs). I had been invited to join another banquet in honor of an English couple and their son who are visiting to studying some of the chinese herbal plants. We went to a big multistory fancy "Uyghur" restaurant that's more in the Chinese style with Uyghur influence. The first restaurant I've been to here with security guards out front and a bag check before you walk in the front door. We were taken up an elevator to the third floor and ushered to a small banquet room where each seat had a hotpot burner with broth and the waitstaff passed out aprons.  What a scene. My good friend "Alice" (her English name) was instructed by the host to order, so a whole bunch plates of raw meat and vegetables came out onto the table. She seemed to take great pleasure in ordering some of the most expensive things on the menu knowing the host (a retired scientist and regional party official) wouldn't refuse. The meat and vegetables get dunked into the pot of boiling spicy broth until they're cooked and then fished out and eaten.  A small plate of what looked like sliced salami rolled around in front of me, and Alice gave a sly smile and said "horse". Really. Horse. So I took a piece to try it - in part so I can now say I've eaten horse.  It was already cooked - dry roasted and lightly smoked and tasted different from any other kind of meat I've had. Interesting.

Other than that I've just been spending my weekend in Urumqi arranging things to return to Fukang on Monday and dive into the dissections. I had to make a few solutions, so now all of that is done.  I needed to find a freezer and fortunately a professor here decided to buy a new small chest deep freeze for the lab and loan it to me first for a few weeks.  So we spent 2 hours yesterday and another 4 hours today running about between three different stores trying to find a freezer in stock that would be easy to get paid for by government money. As we were leaving the institute this morning, a throng of about 200 middle school students carrying pails of water rushed passed us led by kids holding red flags. I asked what in the world was going on, and my friends said it's international environment day. I thought they meant earth day, but that's not for a few more weeks.  I have no idea what was the holiday, but I saw so many ordinary people (not city workers) out cleaning things - street lamps, fences, bus stops. There was a whole line of about a dozen people with rags squatted down busy wiping the black grime off of a fence that runs between the street and sidewalk. All in business suits.  Common attire here.  Years ago I once saw a guy laying paving stones wearing a business suit and dress shoes.

And the first part of this week is the festival for the ancestors, so there are carts all over the city selling fake paper money, incense, plastic fruit, and small plastic trees.  The custom is to visit the cemeteries and give these offerings (burning the money) in honor of the ancestors. And since Monday and Tuesday are a holiday, everyone has had to work saturday and sunday to make up for the time. Fascinating...