Turtle Soup (by Kiera)

One night my friends and I went to Ha-Ha's, a popular restaurant in downtown Wuxi, China.  We were seated at a large round table near the center of the room.  After patiently waiting for a menu which never came, we realized that the ordering process was a little different here.  After flagging down a waiter, we were lead to a back room.  

There, we were signaled to pick out our food--only it was still alive!!  There were cages and tanks full of turtles, snakes, pheasants, geese, rabbits, and fish.  Being a very adventurous group, a turtle, snake, pheasant, and fish were selected.  I screamed (I really did!) and covered my eyes as our little turtle was taken to the table and decapitated.  I ran back to our table, choosing not to watch the rest of the "show". 

The others soon joined me, and we waited for our freshly slaughtered meat to be prepared.  The lively Filipino band performing at the restaurant that night came over to our table and played American music including the song "Sex bomb", and insisted that we dance with them.

  

And then the waiters began to bring out our food.  The way they were hacking at the turtle earlier, I assumed that I wouldn't even be able to recognize what I was eating.  Not the case.  The turtle had been reassembled and was now sitting in a bowl of broth with big chunks of snake floating around it.  I didn’t want the poor thing to have died for nothing, so I picked up one of his legs and began chewing.  Yum.

Okay I’ll admit that we all went away from the restaurant still a bit hungry, but the memory of that night will last a lifetime!