First Annual 饺子比赛

Tonight was the big competition. The Jaozi eating competition, or as it is locally known the 饺子比赛. The competition was inspired by the CET students' love for the tastiness that is jiaozi. Mike and Ian took the idea for the competition and ran with it. The plan was developed a few weeks ago, and had been bouncing around ever since. Finally, ground rules were set up and a date was set. The ground rules were as follows: The time period given for eating was 1 hour. The competition was about quantity and not speed. Secondly, everyone must use a meat filled jiaozi. The vegetable kind are too wimpy. Finally, no trips to the bathroom (unless you really have to go, then it is supervised as to prevent the offloading of consumed jiaozi).
The names were taken down for those of us wanting to participate in the competition a week prior. Zack, Muh, Dan, Ian, Mike, Kyle, and myself would be competing. Yesterday, Mike approached all of the competitors and asked for our desired type of jiaozi. Myself along with two of the other competitors chose pork jiaozi with chives.
Finally, at 7pm this evening all of the contestants and the audience met down stairs to head to the jiaozi restaurant. The audience for the competition was huge! Today we also had our weekly Chinese lunch table, where students must speak Chinese the entire time. We also sit with our teachers and teachers from all of the other levels of Chinese. So, word had spread to everyone throughout lunch of the competition. Two teachers (one was my grammar and drill class teacher) and around 25 students from a variety of the Chinese programs including one from England were in attendance.
We took a quick round of pictures and started our walk over to the restaurant. When we arrived, tables had already been pulled together for us outside of the restaurant and the first of many trays of jiaozi had already been placed on the table. Earlier in the morning Mike had placed an order at the restaurant for seven ins of jiaozi (roughly 50 jiaozi per jin). As we settled down for the competition, all of the contestants received their individual jins. So, began the contest. The first half hour was fairly uneventful. People were taking bets and fans were cheering for their favorite competitor. About 30 minutes into the competition, Kyle called quits and left the competition. At this point I had consumed roughly 27 jiaozi and was not feeling too hot. All of the other competitors stood up to stretch their bellies. This decision was the death of me. Minutes after standing up, I was hit with the pressure of 27 jiaozi and had the pleasure of decorating the street in front of the restaurant. However, the competition continued minus two competitors. As the end of the hour approached, Zack, Mike, and Muh were easily in the lead. 78, 61, and 54 jiaozi had already been eaten respectively. By the end of the night (we extended the time limit), Zack had eaten 90 jiaozi (good God.), Mike had eaten 70 jiaozi, and Muh had eaten a still impressive 61 jiaozi. The most impressive part of Zack's victory was that he had already officially won after consuming somewhere in the 80 range. However, he had set a goal of 90, and so kept eating after the competition was over. When he finally did reach 90, everyone was incredibly impressed, and he was incredibly sick. All in all, it was a great night, and it's always a nice bonus to throw up in front of your teacher. Check out the picture site for some action shots from tonight.