Shanghai Delicacy And Extended Family Dinner in China

While waiting with my best friend to be picked up by her dad from Shanghai International Airport, I told her that I would need to buy a local SIM card to message my overly-worried-all-the-time parents that I reached China, safe and sound, accepted among the two billions of them.

Soon after, he picked us up. In the car, after a few minutes of an untranslated conversation between the father and daughter, I was given a brand-new SIM card and a public transport card. Both with balances.

I thanked him and offered to pay for it. He refused. Also, there were boxes of cakes and cold drinks in the car, which he bought on his way to pick us up.

Her parents invited me to a Shanghai delicacy lunch on my last day in China. I accepted, of course! I would love to meet my best friend’s mom for the first time: her and the home-cooked meal.

After taking a short bus ride from my Airbnb apartment, I reached their place.

We hung out in my best friend’s bedroom. I love seeing my friends’ bedrooms and their curiosities. Then we spent a good hour looking through her baby pictures. Her travel pictures were enlarged, printed, and displayed all over her room by her parents.

Shanghai Delicacy Lunch

And then it was lunchtime. Even though I loved all the spicy Chinese food I had been eating there, this was by far the best meal I had had in my entire time in China. We ate like a family; her parents kept bringing food from the kitchen and adding it to my plate. I was too ecstatic (and greedy) to say enough. It was a lovely afternoon of multiple courses of a Shanghai delicacy meal. The whole experience was heartwarming. It felt like I had a new extended family.

Thank you, Papa, Mama, and little Yin.

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