Crabs for Brunch!

Ever been to a televised crab brunch before?? Neither had Thomas and I, until we moved to China. Our school informed us that we were invited to a free crab brunch. We had no idea what to expect and didn’t really know what it was for so naturally we signed up for it.

The event started 9:30 in the morning. It was at a huge convention center with an elaborate set up: white linen tables, a huge decorated stage, gift bags, and cameras everywhere. When we first sat down a band started to play that can only be described as a wedding band that only played hits from the 90s. Then we witnessed a traditional Chinese wedding between a cartoon male and female crab dressed in costumes. The male crab walked down the isle to a Star Wars song, mind you. The wedding was supposed to symbolize the birth of many baby crabs to come, the baby crabs we were supposed to eat that very day. Then, after the wedding, they had girl drummers/dancers, children dancing with crabs, and they unraveled a huge painting of crabs and played the song “You are so Beautiful.” There was also a magician and a mask changing dancer. Once the show was pretty much over, they brought out the crabs for us to eat. At this point we figured crabs or no crabs this event was completely worth attending. Each person received two whole crabs and pair of chopsticks to eat them with. It was a bit difficult to eat the crabs with just our hands and a handful of cameras filming us eat but we managed just fine. It was a pretty interesting experience.

The next day when I saw one of our aunties (the older women who work at the front desk of our building and watch over us foreigners) she said she saw me and Thomas on TV at the crab event. So we are pretty much famous here in China! It was a bizarre and interesting experience, to say the least!