Taiwanese Potluck

Last weekend Maxime, Henri and I were invited by our landlord attend a potluck lunch in the common area of our building. Our building is owned by a family of five or six siblings – each owning one or two apartments. One of these siblings is estranged and so his unit’s tenants were NOT invited…  Anyway, they had a full spread of unfamiliar food, including pig liver and boiled chicken. The host accompanies you while you fill your plate – hovering and putting unspoken pressure on you to try EVERYTHING. So I filled my plate, stomach twisting at some of the dishes, and sat with the other tenants in a big circle with Henri crawling around in the middle entertaining everyone. It was explained to me that THIS was a very traditional Taiwanese thing to do. The family of owners was there with their grown children and their children… there was even an elderly matriarch sitting on the couch, reigning over it all. .. I looked around and said outside of what was being served this is how it would work in the States, as well… Well, we left and were upstairs for a few hours.  Probably four hours later, when Maxime and I reemerged around 5 p.m. we were surprised to see that the party was still going on. The elderly grandmother and four sisters (50’s or 60’s) were blasting music, singing karaoke (in mandarin, of course). Then when we came back around 7 p.m. with an exhausted Hen, the party was STILL going on.  So possibly this potluck turned karaoke fiesta wasn’t EXACTLY how my family would roll back home – it was pretty funny to see them at it.