Wei Jie

claudiamente@hotmail.com

NEARLY 30 expats watched, laughed, and got their hands doughy during a lively morning class on the art of handmade noodles in Shekou on Friday.

The event, hosted by the Shekou Management and Service Center for Expats (Shekou MSCE) as part of its morning school program for expats, turned a simple cooking lesson into a cross-cultural celebration of food, technique, and community.

Anilo D’Angelo, an Italian resident, traveled from Luohu District for the event. Working in electronics, he has a strong interest in Chinese culture and hoped to learn how to make the dough from scratch at the class.

“I learned to make fresh pasta with my mother and wanted to see the difference firsthand,” he said.

Playful moments came with the cat-eared noodle (mao er duo) demonstration.

Enrico Bisello, an Italian-Australian who has worked in China for 15 years, quickly shaped perfect pieces under an instructor’s guidance. “This is quite similar to a kind of Italian pasta, gnocchi,” he said. “It feels like a link between China and Italy.”

When steaming bowls of noodles made by the participants, topped with fragrant sauces, were served, the expats eagerly tasted their handiwork.

“The noodles I made taste especially good,” said Sofia Lukiantseva, from Russia.

Zhang Yanying, a Shekou MSCE staff member, said the morning-school series aims to build a cultural exchange platform through everyday, hands-on activities. “Workshops like this one, along with traditional Chinese medicine classes, help foreign residents integrate quickly into community life.”