Launch: 21 Dishes (including a pig's head) + Fire Alcohol

The table with the largest Lazy Susan I'd ever seen.

After the finish of Stage 3 in Shangluo, I was invited (along with my Comm 2, Bill Clinch - an Aussie) to join a distinguished group of officials for dinner. The invited guests included members of the the Chinese Cycling Association, the Organizing Committee, and the local government. Sometimes these types of affairs can be dull, but this dinner was so fun!

There were about 20 guests, and we all sat around a large round table. Everyone's place was set with a small plate, chopsticks, a damp towel, a large wineglass with just a splash of red wine, and a miniature sized glass filled with a completey clear liquid. The center of the table consisted of an enormous glass Lazy Susan which was already piled with dishes. Unlike American customs for eating Chinese food (where everyone takes a scoop of each dish and arranges them on their own plate), eating in China is very communal. As the dishes revolve with each push of the glass Lazy Susan, each diner takes a mouthful of food with their chopsticks and puts the food directly in their mouth. If there's too much for one bite, then you can use your small plate, but typically the whole amount goes right into your mouth. If your plate does become "dirty," then a waitress silently glides in to replace it with a clean one.

We started the meal with a toast to the race and to me and Bill. As International Commissaires, we play a certain role in ensuring that the event meets the expectations of the UCI and that it sets the stage to showcase China as capable of putting on world class bike races (not that the Beijing Olympics didn't already prove that!). Bill was last year's race President and joined the Commissaire's Panel this year by invitation of the race organization. There are some outstanding commissaires in China, but not many Internationals - the requirement to speak English is a tough stumbling block. So Bill is providing some well appreciated consistency on the Panel. Anyway, back to the toast... They come in sets of three. So each person standing to give a a toast punctuates his delivery in three steps, and each step is followed by emptying the miniature wine glass of what I would call Fire Alcohol. Wow, this stuff is strong and burns going down! My interpreter, Sophia, told me that as a woman I was not expected to keep up with the men... But I couldn't give up so early in the game! The customs with this type of toast are interesting. It's considered rude to not completely empty your glass (and you should even tip your glass down a bit to prove it's empty), and it's also rude if you don't pour equivalent volumes in your neighbor's glass (if you pour him less, it shows you have less faith in his ability to drink his fair share).

The head... You can see teeth if you look closely.

With the first toast complete, we moved on to the food... which was amazing. It is custom to start with a variety of cold dishes, then move on to hot dishes, and finish with soup and fruit. The food was the best I've had yet, which is saying something (also, luckily for me, my stomach is fully adapted by now so I'm trying it all!). It's virtually impossible for me to describe the dishes since I really didn't know what most of it was, but a good summary would be lots and lots of beautifully prepared and presented veggies, tofu, assortments of bean curd, some rice noodles, sliced beef/fish/pork, and more. The highlight was the presentation of the pig's head... whole. I am not making this up. It was up to me, as the distinguished guest, to share the first bite of pig's head with the president of the company that puts on Tour of China. Verdict? Not bad! All the fat is on the top layer and they scored it in squares, making it easy to pull off and dip in the spicy sauce. Underneath the layer of fat was some very lean pork. I'm glad I didn't embarrass myself!

The food and drink was interrupted with some impromptu singing... I don't have the software to pull that off my camera now, so will post that later. It's worth watching for the cultural value! Tomorrow we have a 103km circuit race in Xiangyang. More to come!