Those women, and the man in front of the Forbidden Palace had beautiful embroidery on their clothes.
I think I heard enough Chinese as a teenager between a good friend, and her parents at their house to tell that that older gentleman was seriously speaking Chinese with all it's various sound inflections.
I learned a year of Russian in a rare JHS that taught it. Then Spanish in HS.
As for Chinese food. Well, started out with your back in the late 1960's with your typical neighborhood Chinese restaurant. But then I had a Chinese friend where I had a bit of her mom's home cooking.
Further on in College had two more Chinese friends. We and others went down to Chinatown and had Sezchuan which was getting big at the time. I was the only left-hander using chop sticks, and had to be careful not to hit my elbow against the right-hander next to me!
Then I learned Chinese cooking by book (pre-Internet) and went to Chinatown, and got real ingredients, a wok, a steamer, and implements. Like back then you couldn't even get bok choy in a regular supermarket. Got shitake mushrooms, lotus root, hoisin, and oyster sauces, and more.
Then even a bit later I discovered dim sum! Ohhh, boy one of my favorite things was going down to Chinatown and eating at a big dim place.
I don't know when during that time I discovered sticky rice wrapped in lotus leaf! One of my favorite Chinese meals!
My druebds mom made sticky rice for her daughter for HS but I remember she wrapped it in banana leaves.
So as the name implies sticky rice is quite glutinous? Anyway they put any one of several ingredients in with the rice: chicken, Chinese sausage, shitake mushrooms, pork? peanuts? and more. The lotus leaf adds a subtle ?smokey flavor as it's heated in the cooking. Eventually I found a small chain of Chinese, and American sit diwn pastry shops that also had some dim sum including sticky rice with lotus leaves.
I'd say Chinese food remains one of my 5 favorite cuisines.
Thanks for inspiring fun memories!
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