Easter improvised
Some people I have met here are prepared for every holiday that they will celebrate in China. They have their dyes and baskets for Easter. They have their Halloween costumes. They have their Christmas decorations. They may have brought them with them on their most recent trip back from the States, or have arranged for family or friends to ship them, weeks in advance of the holiday, so everything gets here in time.
Yeah, that isn't me.
This week I have searched high and low for food coloring or egg dyes. I remember last year, when I arrived the week after Easter, one of the foreigner stores received a shipment of PAAS dyes one of my first days here. I didn't see any at all this week, so we had to improvise.
Saturday morning some members of the English-language Catholic group gathered to paint eggs. One of Myles' eggs ended up with an interesting effect. He rolled the eggs through the paint on a metal mesh picnic table. The rolling and the texture underneath produced a flower-petal design on his eggs.
Later Saturday night Randy and I experimented with making our own dyes. No, I wish we would have tried the natural dye path (with beets and onion skins). We took some cheap water color paints, dissolved them in boiling water and vinegar, and soaked the eggs for a very long time. Well, the paints didn't exactly go into solution.
More like tinted and spotted Easter eggs
Yeah, that isn't me.
This week I have searched high and low for food coloring or egg dyes. I remember last year, when I arrived the week after Easter, one of the foreigner stores received a shipment of PAAS dyes one of my first days here. I didn't see any at all this week, so we had to improvise.
Saturday morning some members of the English-language Catholic group gathered to paint eggs. One of Myles' eggs ended up with an interesting effect. He rolled the eggs through the paint on a metal mesh picnic table. The rolling and the texture underneath produced a flower-petal design on his eggs.
Later Saturday night Randy and I experimented with making our own dyes. No, I wish we would have tried the natural dye path (with beets and onion skins). We took some cheap water color paints, dissolved them in boiling water and vinegar, and soaked the eggs for a very long time. Well, the paints didn't exactly go into solution.
More like tinted and spotted Easter eggs
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