It wasn't just vegetables that got our attention though. Steve bravely told Daddy to order anything he pleased from any of the restaurant menus, the more exotic the better. Daddy took him at his word, and Steve learned to eat stomach of pig, intestine of pig, blood of pig, feet of pig (everything but sqeal of pig) and only missed out on ear of pig because Jacqueline finished them off while we were in Shenzhen. He also had goose intestine, chicken feet, fish lips, and a fish head, but when he realized that the thing that just went squish in his teeth was a fish eye, he had to spit that one out. He was no match for Jacqueline, who was happiest goring out the brain of a pigeon with her chopsticks, and who, last year, on the advice of good friends, had to eat snake boiled in soup for her eczema.
Tung Men, meaning East Gate, was just a few blocks away from the folks' apartment in Shenzhen, and the site of many a frenzied shopping trip. The kids made out like bandits here (though they wouldn't know it until we got home with the loot). In years past, the streets were crawling with people, but this year, the hordes were relatively sparse, and on most occasions, Steve was the whitest person on the streets. Not only that, he was also the tallest person on out there, challenged only by the billboards of Yao Ming. It happened often that young girls would be walking along the street, giggling amongst themselves, then catch sight of Steve. Their mouths would drop and one could see their eyes traveling up to the top of his head, and their eyes would get big and round, just as if they'd seen Godzilla.
