Picnic 野餐

Outdoor events recently seem to depend on the uneven weather we have been having, but I am happy to report that weather for our picnic cleared up天晴了 just as we were beginning. It was a success in that we had a lot of fun, got to know some new friends and shared some testimonies with them. We even had a little drama at the beginning as someone, for some reason unbeknownst to me, threw his keys 鑰 匙 high up in a gum tree and had to climb up to get them. He was able to get them without injuring himself even before we could bring the fruit picker around.

This first photo is of some of our people wielding plates and food. The second photo is of our daughter whacking away, I believe her third or fourth shot, at the piñata. The third is of some of our friends talking before the meeting, and our pianist for that day warming up.

Borrowing and mixing between cultures, or hybridity is one of those academic jargon terms I hate to hear and use but it seems appropriate to what you see here in this second photo. It is very common for people to borrow from other cultures. Our term ‘ketchup’ is actually from the Cantonese term ‘catsup.’ The famous Japanese cuisine ‘tempura’ 天婦羅 is actually from the Portuguese 是葡萄牙來的, since the Japanese tended not bread and fry their foods. Now we see here a piñata girl hung up to be beaten to pieces by a group of Chinese who here seemed to have adopted this fun tradition in their birthday parties for children. We got her as a present from a friend.