The night that my Duke Engage team arrived in Luo Yang, we had not had a significant meal the entire day. Unfortunately for us, the nearby options for food from our hotel were limited to fried street snacks, undercooked meats, and other foods that we were most likely unable to eat due to the fact that our stomachs had not adapted to the cuisine of the area.
While the rest of my team had already given up, I made a last minute decision to give a dimly restaurant on the edges of the food strip a chance. Interestingly, I could not read the Chinese words on the dilapidated sign on the front of the restaurant so really, I had no idea what kind of food the restaurant even served.
The second that I and three other group members walked into the restaurant, however, we were greeted by warm smiles from an entire family: a handsome but tired father, a mother carrying her little boy, and a lively auntie carrying the leash to a small dog. Without even asking, I was receiving recommendations for some of the best foods on the menu that was indigenous to the Shangxi region. When the father saw that only I was eating the Liangpi that they had recommended for us, he took out extra plates and utensils and insisted that the rest of my group members could try out the taste of the Shangxi region. The hospitality did not stop there. The entire family, little boy included, became a part of our meal as my little Duke Engage group ate the delicious Liangpi while sharing stories and experiences of our trip with this new family that we had only just met. The father in particular was very intentional about making us feel welcome and never failed to boast about the many intricacies of the Luo Yang culture. When a little bit of the sauce from the Liangpi had leaked out onto the table, I had reached over to grab some of the tissues that we had brought with us. But the father had already rushed over with his own tissues from the restaurant and though I had tried to use my own, he ultimately insisted that he wipe it up for me, leaving me a simple, but heartfelt message: “This restaurant is your home too!”
Truthfully, I had never felt so at home and of all places, at a noodle restaurant in the middle of Luo Yang, but maybe that’s just another testament to the hospitality and unconditional acceptance that’s quintessential to the Luo Yang culture. This pride of being a person of Luo Yang wasn’t only embedded deeply in the restaurant owners. It was also a humble pride that I found in the many natives of the area, regardless of education and socioeconomic status, who were always ecstatic to share about the rich cultural history of their city and the simple, yet meaningful cuisines that had preceded many epochs of Chinese history. I thought about my own home state of Texas and wondered what there was to be proud of. Big houses, big cars, and big foods? 200 years of Texas history? Even if the standard of life might not have been the same in Luo Yang, the cultural history, the love for being one from Luo Yang - that was incomparable to whatever I had ever experienced or felt in the past. Because while Texas was rich in oil, software companies, and American consumerism, Luo Yang was rich with a people that really resonated with one another through culture and shared values, never failing to boast of homely restaurants and intimate conversations over a fresh bowl of Liangpi.