Canadian Food Two Ways

At the risk of turning this into a foodie blog...

I like to cook. A lot. I find the whole process relaxing, from the planning to the shopping to the preparing to the cleaning up. Those who know me well can attest to the fact that I pretty much ALWAYS have food on my mind, so I suppose it's a natural extension. Which is how I ended up cooking in two different kitchens in the past two days.

Cooking in your own home is one thing. Cooking in someone else's home is an entirely different proposition. Especially when you're trying really hard to impress someone. Without burning the house down.

'Canadian Food' take one: Hamburgers and sweet potato fries, with a side of pear salad.

Rationale: Everyone likes hamburgers. Hamburgers are easy to make. All of the ingredients are readily available and reasonably cheap. Watching people attempt to shove an overloaded bun into their mouth inevitably makes people smile.

Process:

Shopping: Go with Mabel to the local 'supermarket' - a two-storey warehouse with dim lights that resembles a farmer's market back home but without the health code keeping things tidy. Choose a slab of (unrefrigerated) beef hanging from the ceiling on a rusty metal hook, dripping blood all over the counter (upon which said slab is henceforth thrown). Have butcher run slab through meat grinder. Pay, and walk happily away with bloody sack. Haggle over the price of onions, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, walnuts, and pears, eventually making some vendors happy and upsetting others. Dig through a pile of medicinal dried stuff (herbs? fungi? roots? bark?) looking (successfully) for cinnamon. Choose appropriate honey from a row of gleaming, stainless steel vats (whose labels I can't read). Buy a bag of crusty muslim round bread to stand in as buns.

Preparing: Carry the groceries up 4 flights of stairs. Dust off coffee table in living room and counter in kitchen to spread food on. Take ALL plates and bowls out of the cupboard, and double up ingredients since there are still not enough places to put them all. Scrub potatoes in sink, then use bent coat hanger to unclog drain so downstairs neighbours aren't flooded out (again). Peel and slice pears with miniscule swiss army knife. Chop everything else with massive meat cleaver roughly as sharp as a plastic spoon.

Cooking: Light gas range and step back far enough that the enormous flames don't singe your eyebrows off. Put gigantic cast-iron wok on left burner, put tiny frying pan on right burner. Fill both with (peanut) oil. Juggle the cooking of ALL ingredients in the same 2 pots, flames leaping and smoke further blackening the soot black tiles. Serve in plastic face-washing basin, in lieu of adequate plates, long after everyone is half starved from the wait.

Eating: Crusty muslim bread is not a good substitute for buns. It's like trying to eat 3 hamburgers simultaneously rather than just one. The bread doesn't squash down at all, making everyone's jaws pop (not just mine), and since it's heavier than the meat everyone feels like they're eating the entire cow. The sweet potatoes are mushy, not crispy, for reasons unknown (though they taste good). The pears are divine, but we eat so much other food that shovelling them in makes us all half sick. Mmm, mmm, good.

'Canadian food' take two: Rotini with meat sauce, side of pears (the pears were really stellar the night before...).

Rationale: 6-year old Paula specially requested 'Canadian Noodles' for dinner. Paula's mother Lily specifically asked for 'NOT noodles'.

Process:

Shopping: Take a bus to the gleaming French chain 'Carrefour World Store'. Pick up a can of tomato paste and some whole wheat rotini in the imported food section. Buy pre-ground beef, inspected and dated, from the refrigerated meat section. Fill an enormous bag with tomatoes and pay by weight. Pick up real French baguette. Throw in some impulse buys to round out the sauce, and just for fun (Chinese medicine flavoured Crest - yummy!).

Preparing: Dig around in Lily's well-appointed cupboards like I own the place, use everything I can find.

Cooking: Simmer the tomatoes with 'Italian Blend Herbs' (thank you imported food aisle!), meat, garlic, onions, trying all the while to remember if it's tomatoes or beets that you can peel just by throwing hot water at. Relish the scent of really good homemade sauce filling up the house hours before it's needed. Reheat sauce just before serving, toss with freshly boiled pasta.

Eating: Dish up steaming mounds of pasta loaded with sauce, hand out crusty, garlic coated baguette wedges. Watch Paula do a little dance of joy as she dives in with both spoon and chopsticks simultaneously. Laugh as she says first in Chinese then in English (repeat ad infinitum) how much she LOVES 'Canadian Noodles'. Eat, eat, eat. Put leftovers in refrigerator and prepare to eat again for breakfast.

　

Fire in the Hole

Breakfast this morning was a reheated bowl of hot green chilis fried with ground meat. This is something like starting your day with a flame thrower shoved into your mouth.

The woman I'm staying with, Lily (who was my roommate in the Philippines), cooked it up last night so it would be ready to go first thing. She started with a huge bowl of spicy little chilis, sliced into single centimeter lengths, and a giant wok of smoking oil. The first frying wasn't too bad - fragrant, but not deadly. They didn't stay in the oil long before being removed to a waiting platter. Then into the wok, a few of the distinctly Sichuanese black peppers (hua jiao) that make your mouth feel numb, a few slivers of fresh ginger, and a whole lot of fresh oil preceding the ground pork pre-mixed with an egg, some starch and some salt.

It was the second frying of the chilis that got me.

Once the meat was cooked, which only took a second, Lily tossed all those little green devils back into the wok. When I started to cough, I switched to breathing through my nose. Every intake of air felt like some brutal new method of nasal hair-removal...those suckers BURN! When my face started to turn purple from the combination of coughing and holding my breath, Lily nodded and pitched more seasoning into the wok, telling me 'Very spicy, need extra salt.' Shortly after that I stumbled from the kitchen into the fresh air of the living room, choking and sputtering and spewing snot everywhere. Lily's husband looked bemused.

After Lily opened the window I tried again. I REALLY wanted to see the whole process, start to finish. When even she started sneezing I was done for. The second time I fled, I didn't try to return.

12 hours later, the spicy chili smell still burned the nostrils. I was skeptical about putting anything that could wreak so much havoc with my airways from the PAN into my MOUTH. And yet, isn't trying new things most of the joy of travel?

The first bite felt like someone had used a flame thrower to blast the inside of my mouth. I almost stopped after the first bite.

The second bite spread the fire down my throat, making me wonder if I would survive this whole food experiment.

And the third bite...felt normal. Totally, blissfully normal.

Unlike Korean spices, which tend to just overload your taste buds and make everything uniformly hot tasting, these little chilis somehow ease off into a complex of tastes and feelings inside your mouth the more you eat of them. This was a big revelation to me, after having always taken special care to pick the chilis OUT of my food before. But how can you pick out the chilis in a dish that is ALL chilis? Lily and her husband first looked worried, watching me eat, later elated. On her way out the door, me in the freshly aired kitchen doing the dishes, she said instead of goodbye, 'I hope the flavor of my chilis will live in your mind a long time!'

Basketball Humiliation (or, glutton for punishment)

I am a half decent shot with a basketball, but have not actually played the game since junior high. At which time I would go to try out for the team, jam a finger or twist an ankle in the first week, and not end up on the court again until the next season.

Timothy loves to play basketball.

In the Philippines, Timothy and I would often take a ball over to the court near the house and shoot some hoops together. He would always beat me in the end, but I could give him a run for his money. Keep it close enough that he would sweat a little before sealing the deal. So when he suggested playing here yesterday afternoon with his roommate and friend Roy, this is what I had in mind...a friendly game of 'HORSE' or something similar. I did not imagine 3-on-3 with the junior NBA.

There are 2 double rows of about 16 courts each inside a fenced off area near the dorm. Each court is packed with guys...not a woman in sight. I ask Timothy why no women play and he shrugs and says that here they 'spend their time looking good'. On some courts there are pick-up matches in progress, on others the guys are just sharing a ball, taking shots. This all looks far more intimidating than I was expecting.

We ask a smallish group of 3 near the entrance if we can join them. I mostly just hang back, keeping out of the way. I know when I am outclassed, and I am SERIOUSLY outclassed. On other courts that I have watched Timothy play on this trip, play has always started with a long period of shooting before any kind of actual game develops. This I can handle, I think. But no, instead they go straight to the game, motioning me over to round out the 6 and off we go.

I do not embarass myself approximately twice in the entire time we play. Mostly I do my best just to avoid stepping on anyone (they move so fast!). Roy is fun to play with - even though I clearly suck (so not a strong enough word for exactly how bad I am compared to these men）, he still passes me the ball and keeps me in play. Mostly Timothy just avoids me whenever possible. The fast little guy on the other team is suprised enough when I get the ball from him (once) that he at least makes a show of keeping his eye on me. And then there's the big guy. The guy who is far and away the best player on the court. The one who, when I have the ball (no matter how close to the net) doesn't just NOT engage, but actually puts his arms down and physically turns his back to me. Like a robot on a power sensor, programmed to shut down each time he sees me.

15 minutes or so in, nowhere near the end of the game, Timothy simply walks off the court. He says he sees some friends on another court. WTF????? He doesn't come back. The guys all mill around for a few minutes looking confused, then reform themselves into the basic shooting I had expected all along. Once I step off the court.

Now don't get me wrong. I know how bad I am. I know what an absolute ass I am making of myself with these guys, skill wise. But I also know that no matter how bad a person is, you still show enough respect that you bring your game. It's not my (lack of) skill that is so utterly humiliating, it's the condescension emanating in waves from the other players.

When the wind picks up (in direct proportion to my anger), a lot of the courts empty out. Timothy drifts from his game to an empty court with just one other guy. He tosses me the ball half-heartedly on my way over to meet him and is shocked when I sink it easily from the free throw line mid stride. The other guy on the court doesn't see him pass to me and says something distinctly unfriendly in Chinese before Timothy tells him that I'm a friend. A few minutes later their game opens up again and they leave me alone with the ball. Fun.

A skinny, shy looking waif of a guy comes over and asks if he can join me. He is a biology major from one of my favorite towns in China. We take turns passing to each other and taking shots, a respectable number of which both of us make. Ocasionally we talk. This is the basketball I had in mind when I came over. Roy is still playing with the first group, fast and furious but fun. Timothy is playing with the second, red-faced and serious.

When Timothy is done playing he comes over to me and barks 'Come, dinner now.' No friendly 'hey, you hungry? ready to go eat?' This is not a language problem, this is an attitude problem. I feel like a dog that he is calling to heel. Walking back to the dorm, he says to my icy silence 'You must be really hungry. You're not smiling.' Uh huh, that must be it.

Shower Power

I am naked, balanced on a tiny pair of brown plastic sandals in a little cement box. All around me, the sounds of water springing from the rows of identical cement boxes. But in my box, nothing. I look around again. 4 metal hooks on the left. Two shelves. Two pipes leading to a standard metal shower head on the wall. 2 metal valves, neither of which works. I turn and turn and turn. Nothing. I poke my head out of the box, look up and down the row of other boxes. From each one, steam rising. Clearly I am missing something. Who would ever have thought that taking a shower could be so difficult??

Our flight from Shanghai arrives in Chengdu just after lunch time, 3 hours and 18 minutes to cover just over a thousand kilometers of land. Is it my imagination, or is that really slow for a plane? The flight is smooth and uneventful, but wearying in the way that commercial flights always are.

To get to Pudong International Airport in plenty of time for our 8:45am flight, Timothy and I meet at the gates of Fudan University at 6am. I spent the few previous hours sleeping in the rain-wet dorm bed of his colleague, waking damp and congested and very, very tired. He spent the few hours of night with his old classmate 20 minutes walk away. We take a taxi (such luxury!) to Pudong, mostly I think because after missing our train from Hangzhou to Shanghai the day before (hour long bus ride took 90 minutes, getting us to the platform just in time to watch the train pull away) he is worried about missing the plane.

From Chengdu's airport to his dorm in Sichuan University, Timothy and I take an hour long bus ride. And then ask several people for directions to the university, which we find on foot about half an hour later. The temperature is considerably higher than in Hangzhou or Shanghai, leaving us both sweaty and exhausted in our layers of winter clothing. Along the streets, flowering trees are in full bloom, weeping willows already green. Even the breeze is warm.

First order or business, food. Second order of business, clean up.

After last year's earthquake in Sichuan, all the students spent two weeks sleeping under plastic tarps on the university sports field. Campus housing across China is row upon row of cement apartment blocks that look sturdy but are not particularly shake-friendly. Timothy shares a 5-room apartment with 15 other men - 4 rooms with 4 men each, identical bunks mounted above identical desks, a common room (with nothing but stacked boxes and a door to the balcony), and a 3-stall bathroom area with 2 sinks. There is no hot water. To shower, all of the students (and there are approximately 70 000 at this university, a number that boggles my imagining) go to a central bathhouse open between 4 and 10:30 every evening. When we walk over (me with a borrowed student card from one of his classmates), it is 4:20.

'Ooh, bad luck,' says Timothy to me as we approach the building. He is smirking. It takes me a moment to realize that there is a line of women snaking about 15 meters out the door, while there is no line at all for men. The men's area is on the first floor of the building, while the women's is on the second. The line continues all the way up the double set of stairs and around the corner out of site. 'I'll meet you back here,' he says, skipping off into the steam, fully expecting me to still be waiting in line when he gets out.

The line moves quite quickly, faster than I expect. As I approach the front of the line I watch the other women carefully to see what they do. Each one holds her student card to an electronic screen mounted waist-high near the door, and then watches a series of numbers flash onto the screen like a crazy lottery. Each woman who does this seems very intent on the numbers displayed, and quite a few seem surprised that anything appears at all. Since all of the other bathhouses I've been in so far are just big common rooms with a row of shower-heads around the edges I'm confused by the numbers. Is it showing how many people are currently inside? Is their a maximum capacity? I memorize the 26-05 that flashes after my card (just in case) and step inside.

This is not like any other bathhouse I've ever been in. Instead of a common shower area, it is row upon row upon row of identical cement booths. Each one is numbered - first by block, and then, within the blocks, by individual stall. 26 is the final block. 05 is the last stall. Which means, I realize, that everyone in the line after me is waiting for one of us to finish. No pressure! Now, if only I could figure out how to turn the water on!!

Just as I am about to intrude upon some stranger's shower, suddenly I see the tiny white box mounted to the wall behind the shower head. It is flashing 'PASS' in red letters. Do I need to scan the card again, in here? I flash my card skeptically at the box, still holding the coat from whose pocket I have just taken it, and am immediately drenched from above with scalding water. The taps don't turn ON the water, they just adjust the temperature. And I have turned off the cold and turned the hot on all the way.

Aah, the beauty of hot water! For approximately one minute. Unitl it occurs to me that 1. I have no idea how long the water will last - is it on a timer? 2. I have no idea how to turn off the water if it's not on a timer. 3. Once I have turned off the water, how much time do I have before another woman comes barging into my little cement box? And, 4. Is my borrowed card being charged by time or water volume or both? I have never had such a stressful shower in my life!

The card turns the water off. No one else barges in. The stall does not become available for another woman until I click the card AGAIN outside of the building. My shower has cost 1 yuan, the minimum possible. And despite waiting in line for half an hour and taking forever to figure out the water deal, I am still finished before Timothy. And feeling pretty damn good about the universe too, both clean and triumphant over the system.

Hangzhou, first impressions

Aah, the beauty of payback. This is what I get for complaining so bitterly about hostel people...a crappy hotel at the train station. :)

The train from Nanjing was really nice - basically a jumbo KTX. It cruised along at around 200km/h the whole 4 hours, stopping only 4 times (once in Shanghai, making me nostalgic for my last trip to China, which was in that city). It was super clean and comfy, even in hardseat (with 5 seats across in the row), and there was even toilet paper in the bathroom. Let me emphasize the novelty of that...TOILET PAPER!!

Hangzhou does indeed look very, very, very nice, as everyone has been telling me it would. This is Timothy's favorite city. I think I'm going to like it here. Eventually. Not counting on that being tonight, however!

After making up my mind on the train to stay by the apparently stunning 'West Lake' in a twin hostel to the one I was in last night, after arriving I decided to first walk around nearby to see if I could find something closer. Ha! There are loads of hotels right around the train station, most of them glowing glass and steel towers with more uniformed staff waiting to open the doors for you than lived in the entire last village I stayed in. I went in one...best price, around $100...tempting, but a little out of my budget. So I crossed the street and followed the locals carrying luggage.

My hotel is a non-descript place that I would have totally missed if not for the steady stream of people going in despite it's labyrinthine proportions inside. It backs onto a brick yard, next to a Sinopec gas station, and has more hallways than there are bricks out back. In its favour, my room is very clean (except for the black mold in the bathroom and the sticky floor). Also, the staff is nice. There are no other foreigners staying there. And it is approximately a 1 minute walk to the arrivals area of the train station where I am meeting Timothy tomorrow morning at 6:35. Also, the entire street around it is lined with restaurants that smell good and have pictures on the walls, increasing the chances that I will not starve tonight.

Against, there are no other foreigners, so also no English. Or hot water. Or free internet. Checking me in was like a comedy show, since I couldn't read the mandatory registration form and none of them could read the English in my passport. And it cost roughly 3 times what I paid last night (though this time I have a private room, I think I'd trade the privacy for hot water...).

Despite all that, I think it was smart to stay near the station tonight. By the time I eat something and wander the neighbourhood a bit it'll be long since dark anyway. If I were at the hostel I'd probably just sit with my book until bedtime, so might as well do that here. I won't have to get up quite so early in the morning, and won't be worried about whether or not to take my bag, what to do if I miss him etc. And I think he already has plans for where to stay for the rest of our time here, so no point in worrying for 12 hours.

Hangzhou is SET UP for tourism...there are even little tourist info booths with English speaking staff. They were no help in getting a hotel nearby, but they were very nice in general. Oh! And there's one of those pre-wrapped tea joints downstairs, the kind where the tea has fun chewables in the bottom. I LOVE those! I'm looking forward to seeing the lake tomorrow, with or without Timothy (who has a big interview here day after tomorrow, which is the entire reason we are here...will he be in last-minute study mode or take a break before the big day mode?). And more of this city. The ride in was spectacular...water everywhere, little canals and old bridges, and a fancy downtown skyline in the distance. Nice. Seems there's a reason for that old Chinese saying 'There is heaven, and on earth there is Hangzhou' (or something like that).

Nanjing

Now that I have seen the other side of travel in China, I'm afraid I may be too spoiled to ever go back. Hostelling sucks! Interesting people, cool vibe, yada yada yada blah blah blah. I miss my Chinese friends!! Thank goodness I am meeting up with Timothy again early tomorrow.

After doing a load of laundry (which has miraculously, thanks to a very warm dorm room, nearly dried...the same of which can not be said for me), I braved the busses to go to the Confucius Temple. It wasn't difficult or terribly far, but with my poor Chinese I missed the stop by a long way and had to get off one bus, cross the street, and come all the way back on the same bus in the opposite direction. Still, I did find it and without the help of any taxis. :)

The temple itself, having recently been to the birthplace of Confucius, was not at all impressive and quite expensive. But I had fun wandering it in the rain anyway, and checking out the 'international lantern festival' that is inside it right now. Scenes from his life, made of silk and lit from within...pretty cool.

The big draw isn't the temple though, it's the insane tourist shopping area that winds through all the tiny streets all around it. For miles and miles. Cobbled streets, little booths, big chain stores...it had it all. I drank something hot and milky full of black jelly things that looked appalling but was actually good (ordering is severely limited by my illiteracy, so I just point and hope for the best - this time, success). Ate some sugar-crusted strawberries on a stick that cost 3 times what the same thing cost in Qingdao. And a hot sweet potato that cost the same as in Yangzhou but was a third the size. I guess they figure the atmospheric lantern light make the inflated prices worthwhile.

Street food aside, I didn't manage to track down anything else edible practically the whole day. Not a good thing for me at all. Everywhere else I've been there are restaurants and street carts everywhere, but here...nothing. I finally ended up in the same little dumpling hut near the hostel for both early lunch and very late dinner. Eating delicious, juicy sheep jiaodzi both times only because it was the only thing in her litany of choices that I recognized and could repeat. She was very nice though, and there's a good chance I will have that once more today before I head out for the train at 11:30.

Back at the hostel, soaked and looking to chill, I sat down with 3 others in front of a pirated copy of 'Live Free or Die Hard' (will Bruce Willis never stop??). About 15 minutes into the film, this big guy of indistinct origin pulled up a chair behind me and says 'Do you mind if I talk to you for a bit?' Engrossed as I was in the film (hey, it's Die Hard!), it took me a while to realize he was talking to me, by which time he was a little pissed off. When I told him i was watching the movie and so no, would not like to talk just then, he proceeded to give me a lecture about how 'In Britain this is something called a bar, and people go there to talk, so if you're here...' The Spanish woman beside me, who arrived the same time I did and is in the same dorm as me, just sat there with this amused look on her face like 'Thank God I don't have to talk to this idiot...'.

2/3 of the way through the movie this group of 3 very odd looking caucasions sat down behind us and spent the entire rest of the film giving each other a running commentary. The 3 of them were all very tall and thin, with matching caramel coloured hair that stood out a long way from their heads like those troll dolls that used to be popular. 2 men, 1 significantly older than the other, and a woman. They'd all seen the movie before. Suffice to say, no surprise ending (no surprises of any kind, once they sat down).

Back to the dorm room, enough of the whole foreigner socializing scene, the BHL Canadian guy living in Qingdao to study Chinese (with an enormous language chip on his shoulder...I mean, the guy wouldn't even talk to ME in anything but Chinese!) is in bed with his Korean girlfriend. Come on people, you're sleeping together in a single bunk in a dorm for 6??? You have got to be kidding me. You can get a private room at this hostel for the same price as 2 dorm beds! Why did I ever leave Yangzhou??

This morning in the dorm, someone's alarm started ringing every 15 minutes starting at 5 to 6. 5 people in the room, and I am the only one it woke up. Of course. After 45 minutes of that I got up and had a shower and went to find some breakfast. Dumplings again (from a different place), and lychees that are delicious but were very, very expensive. It's pouring, seriously pouring, and at 9am I am still the only person in the entire hostel, staff aside, who is awake. Another half hour I'm going to wake everyone in my room up with some VERY loud packing...

And if this terrible message makes it soud like i am totally miserable, well, that would be overstating it. The hot, private showers have been divine, and the sound of the rain on the roof is very, very soporific. The hostel staff are friendly and helpful to a fault, and there are animals here...a big golden retriever and (best of all) an extremely fuzzy caramel coloured lop bunny (who likes to lick the dumpling salt off my fingers). My clothes are now almost all clean, and mostly dry (except the ones I am wearing). And I was warm last night, totally blissfully warm, for the first time in days.

Today

Today is FRIGID in Yangzhou. Right around 0 Celsius all day, with a strong wind and no sunshine. It didn't rain, but it was overcast and damp feeling all day. I know zero is not all that cold in the grand scheme of things, but when you're talking indoor temperatures as well as outdoor it's really bloody freezing. Impossible to get warm ever, since there's no way to get away from the chill.

Last night I slept in both pairs of long john bottoms and down booties (so the best purchase for winter in China ever) AND my toque, and still had to wrap my coat around my head to get warm enough to go to sleep. Once I'm in bed and have warmed up the space with my body heat it's not too bad - I don't wake myself up from the cold or anything - but my nose hasn't been any shade other than Rudolph in 2 days and my fingers and toes are a similar shade. Crazy! I don't know how people live like this all the time.

Not sure whether or not I'm going to Nanjing tomorrow. Despite the cold, Yangzhou is totally wonderful, and not just because of the company (which is very, very nice!). Today we went to an old classical garden, which would have been just so-so if this random oldish man who knew everything about everywhere in that (enormous) place hadn't started giving us the grand tour right at the beginning. We spent almost 4 hours walking around with him, and he knew the greatest stuff and the most insane hidden passageways. When he saw us back to the gate HE thanked US for letting him ramble on for so long! It would have cost us a fortune to hire a private guide from the tourist center at the gate, and I suspect they would not have been half as good.

At breakfast in the same little market area we've eaten most of our meals in, we had these huge bowls of fat noodles that even the others had never tried. I have no idea what they were called, but the sauce was dark and thick and they were REALLY good. The most entertaining bit though was the huge, bald 'chef' in the bright red apron and bulging biceps coming over only to my bowl right as it was delivered to the table, picking it up without saying a word, and proceeding to stir all the sauce into the noodles (when it arrives it's snow white, but it should be a sort of uniform soy sauce colour before eating) very, very daintily before seeing to any of the other orders waiting to be cooked. He also gave us a 1 quai discount when we went to pay, since I had only 7 in change for the 8 bill and our smallest collective other bill was a 100. I strongly suspect based on the number of other patrons rotating through the table's seats that he would have had no trouble making change if he'd wanted to. He was just being extra nice to us. :)

After the garden (boy my mind is retrieving things out of order tonight!), we walked through this fantastic old neighbourhood like the hutong in Beijing (but called something else here...a word that sounds like the Chinese for elephant, which is no use as a mnemonic for me since I don't remember the word for elephant either). I won't even try to describe the coolness of that street, but instead of let the pictures speak for themselves once I get back to Korea. There is NOTHING in the world like wandering back alleys in China.

For dinner we ate dumplings at this 80-year old dumpling joint at the edge of the elephant streets. The surly-but-nice woman who served us said that she ate at the restaurant when she was a child growing up in the neighbourhood and has been working there herself for the last 30 years. She is 60 now. From street level the place looks like every other little cement shoebox restaurant, but go down the stairs hidden in the corner and a maze of dimly lit rooms opens up. The vast middle level and 2 rooms in the lower levels are all seating, but beyond that is the enormous kitchen. The flour-dusted man folding row upon row of bread dough into double half-moon shapes was kind enough to show us around and talk about the history of the place. And who couldn't love the fat white cat guarding the vats of filling from atop a frayed cushion?

Which reminds me that yesterday morning in the neighbourhood where my room is a half-grown, VERY fluffy kitten and a half-grown VERY short-haired puppy were half playing and half fighting. They were exactly the same size. Totally adorable.

Which reminds me that this morning there was snow on the ground, and my laundry still hasn't dried.

My Favorite Day

Temperature hovering around zero Celcius all day, just enough on the plus side to ensure that the pelting rain never becomes anything more picturesque or less painful. Inside my temporary home, a borrowed one-room student apartment, the only major difference is dryness. Though not enough to allow 2 of my 3 pairs of travel underwear to dry 15 hours after washing them. Deprived of indoor heat, I'm sitting here at the computer in wool socks, long johns, heavy canvas pants, wool turtleneck, microfleece pullover, down jacket zipped into rain coat, and scarf. Yet my nose still runs, and my fingers are almost too cold to type. Welcome to Yangzhou!

Lest anyone should think from this description that I am not having a good time, and considering my last post, let me say in advance that the subject line of this message is not sarcastic. Today has been wonderful! In fact, the vast majority of this trip has been fantastic...just seems that the more traumatic experiences are the ones making it into print. No more!

It's hard to go wrong with a steaming bowl of wonton soup first thing in the day. Even if the wontons are considerably less delicious than the superb ones you've just had hand made from a respected grandmother's kitchen. Harder still to go wrong with a slender, deep-fried dough stick in your hand with which to sop up all the broth. Chinese breakfasts are invariably solid, meant to warm your bones after a cold night and fill your belly for the work ahead. Breakfasts that agree with me.

The restaurant, if a cement box with no door or windows just large enough for 4 card tables set nearly on top of each other can be called a restaurant, is mid-way through the tiny market area near my room. All of the cooking takes place outside, in a giant cast-iron wok inset into a rusty barrel with a big fire inside of it, alongside the various other giant woks inset into the various other rusty barrels with their own unique offerings up and down the dirt path. My presence still elicits quite a bit of staring, though most of it now bemused rather than stunned since I have been up and down the market quite a few times in the last 2 days.

After breakfast we are met by a small horde of college students, all friends of Chongchong's. 3 of her 5 roommates (for some perspective, their dorm room for 6 is no larger than college dorms I have seen in Canada that slept 2 and felt cramped - the bunk beds go nearly to the high ceiling) , plus 2 boyfriends, one Chongchong's who we've spent the last 4 days with. The other boyfriend is afraid to speak English and is a little miffed at being dragged along on this outing in the rain. The 7 of us pile aboard a city bus with half the population of their school and begin our expedition.

Crossing the street at the bus stop is a marvel. No lights. Traffic heading in 5 different directions inside the same convoluted intersection. Cars. Busses. Trucks. Taxis. Bicycle cabs. Motorcycles. Scooters. Bicycles (electric and old-school). Pull-carts. Pedestrians. All weaving seamlessly around each other on the rain-slick pavement like some kind of kamikaze ballet. I am in awe. No way would I try that in Korea. No WAY.

On our way to the park that is our (unbeknownst to me) destination, we walk through the campus of Yangzhou Normal University. The use of the word normal in the names of universities here has always entertained me, and here it seems particularly appropriate. Everywhere in the world universities have a very particular, very similar feel, this one no exception. I am struck by how like my university in Korea it is. How like the universities I attended in Canada.

By the time we reach the park we are already sopping wet. Though we all have umbrellas, the biting gusts of wind have already shredded a couple and rendered the rest just as useless in keeping out the stinging drops. In Chinese, the words for rain 'xiao yu' sound the same (to my untrained ears) as those for little fish. Everyone is joking that in America you are pelted by cute and cuddly creatures during a storm (cats and dogs) while here you are simply slapped about by wet scales. After coming all this way, I decide that the entrance fee (an equivalent in Korean won of about $20 US) is far too steep for a muddy wade along a nearly-invisible lake, especially considering I am apparently the only one scheduled to enter. The remainder of the party plans to sit at the gate and wait.

Foregoing the park, we walk around the neighbourhood instead. 2 of our number abandon the wandering for unspecified (hopefully drier) pursuits. The rest of us follow a rusty old sign on a whim that turns out to be the back entrance to the city's ancient 'bird and flower' market. All cities have them somewhere, often not well marked, and I am always delighted to find myself inside one. Often, thinking back, in the rain.

Very few things in the world interest me more than collections of flowers and animals. The first thing we see? A large glass case FULL of snowy white rabbits, still babies and yet big enough to be sold without eliciting one of my (infamous) soap-box rants. Better still, a whole family intent over the case, carefully picking out a bunny for each child, along with all of the necessary goods to accompany them. The old salesman handles the animals incredibly gently, and instructs each child how to do the same. He spends a long time explaining everything they need to know to take good care of their new pets, making my heart glow.

Beside the rabbits are mice. One tank of fawn coloured, another of grey. A surly cat. Puppies. And birds - so many varieties singing and squacking all at the same time it is easy to imagine the ruckus Noah must have put up with. Times a hundred, since here there are not only 1 pair of each bird but hundreds. Walking by the mynah birds we hear a chorus of 'Ni Hao, hello!'s. A big white cockatoo does a dance for us. A pale green parrot tells us we are beautiful. Canaries sing. Blackbirds whistle and trill. Fuzzy-headed chickens bob their disco-plumage up and down. And the big bird at the end whoops and calls fit for a 2 am strip club. Heaven.

Outside of the animal sanctuary, a veritable botanical garden of foliage stretches through the windy alleys all the way to the stonework canal. In addition to the plants, every kind of ceramic ware you could ever imagine needing is here, as well as decorative fish and turtles for the pretty pools your new gardens will certainly need. And everyone is so delighted that I am taking pictures of their things that they let me take pictures of them too, which is the real treat of the day. While photographing a display of the same giant bondaegi I ate in Qingdao (here to feed the birds), the ancient proprietor with the fish-bowl lenses obscuring his eyes whips out a tiny new samsung digital to showcase pictures of his grandson. When I leave the store, he is still there surrounded by a huge crowd of other market vendors all slapping him on the back and pouring him glasses of drink.

We eat in the market, in a stall that looks as if it should be illegal but which serves the most succulent dishes I have ever tasted. Then peruse the tables of antique books and gemstones that fill the courtyard a stone-staircase above the pets. My companions bargain on a petrified sand dollar that I want to take home as a gift for at least 15 minutes, frustrated by my refusal to pay the 15 quai the woman is offering. She explains to them in detail how precious it is, how rare, how trying it is for her to let it go for such a low price but how she is doing us all a favor since I am a foreigner. Sneaking back up the stairs to the table on my own, as everyone else heads for the main road, it takes me 30 seconds to get it for 10. Me to the man now at the table 'How much?' Him '20 quai.' Me '10 quai.' Him '20 quai.' Me, putting it down and walking away 'I don't want it.' Him 'Okay, 10 quai.' The young couple at the next table laugh and laugh and laugh. My companions don't try to bargain for me the whole rest of the day.

After the success of the bird and flower market, chasing a public toilet, we find ourselves inside a Museum of Buddhism that none of them knew existed. It is built inside the enormous temple complex of a Qing dynasty emperor, entirely new. Although the sign at the door says it is 40 quai to enter, the bored ticket woman lets us in for 10. We are the only visitors inside the entire grounds all afternoon.

The museum deserves an entire post all of its own, but since it's not likely to get one, here are the highlights:

-twin 250m long columed corridors running along each side of the spectacular series of ancient temples

-a 'Buddhist Life' exhibit that featured paving stones that bloomed lotuses when you stepped on them, an enormous sculptured buddha head on the wall that looked at you and talked, the first carving of Buddha that I've ever seen that actually looked like a man - incredibly moving, and a multi-media entrance in which buddhist deities fly around your head as if shooting stars while stories from the suttras are read

-sitting on floor cushions in the 'Buddhist Music' room, being serenaded from in front by the plasma screen recording of chanted sacred texts and simultaneously from behind by a uniformed policeman with a voice like an angel

-watching a video performance of the goddess of mercy, she of a thousand hands, accomplished by carefully synchronizing the movements of 21 people all in an invisible row

-examining the paper cut-out artwork in the long hall of the former monks quarters.

More walking the streets, more ancient pavilions and characterful alleyways, more market food (sweet potatoes, yum!), more rain. Then an overcrowded bathhouse (11 women, 7 nozzles...you do the math) with rough cement floors and water so hot it nearly peeled the skin right off us. And now, sitting at the computer in a quiet room, on my own, digesting it all. My favorite day.

Standing Room Only

The middle of a lonely street, 11:15 pm. The single motorcab (motorcycle engine and seat on front wheel, with metal box frame on two wheels secured to the back) too small to fit everyone in for the ride to the train station. Chongchong is returning to school, leaving her family. I am going with her.

I met Timothy at a church conference in the Philippines in November, came to stay with his family this month. I have only known his sisters and mother for a little over a week, and yet they feel like my family too. His mother clutches my hand forcefully, silently, and her hand trembles. His sisters cling to each other sobbing, making all of us cry.

Chongchong and I clamour aboard, filling the space completely with our stuff. She takes my hand and doesn't let go the entire way to the station. Even though she doesn't like Zoucheng, she doesn't want to leave. The others stay in the same positions on the pavement until we are out of sight.

Though all through town the streets are empty, the vast waiting hall of the train station is thronged with people. And more bags than seems possible, even for so many bodies. Many of the bags are enormous, people sized woven plastic farm sacks stuffed to bursting and tied with twine. I can't imagine how they will move without machine help. Our tickets are for standing room only. It is going to be a long night.

The toilets are at the far end of the hall, outside past the smoking room. I go into the single lit doorway to stare down a line of men at the urinals. It's late and I'm tired. With cigarettes dangling from nearly every gaping mouth, and a line of stalls behind them, I think dumbly that this is an extension of the smoking room, that maybe the mens and ladies are shared. I stand there far too long, alternately eyeing the stalls and eyeing the men, before turning around and going out without peeing. At the other end of the room is another door (unlit), into which a line of women are disappearing.

Back in the main hall, Timothy rises head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd. Jenjen is beside him in a bright yellow-green coat, bouncing up and down and waving. They've come to see us off. Timothy looks at the massive crowd like it is a dangerous animal, looks at me like this is a very bad idea. When the train is called we all ride the wave of flesh and baggage towards the two narrow turnstiles together. Chongchong and I are not worried. Timothy and Jenjen clearly are. People push and shove, elbows flying, straining for prime positions at the front of the platform. We are definitely not the only ones with standing room tickets. As the station attendents reach to let us through, Chongchong grabs my arm and tells me to run. Jenjen's bright coat is long since lost in the melee, Timothy's head bobs along on the sea of hats, getting further and further away.

We run to the 'northest' end of the platform, to the loading zone for the very last car. Although we are nearly alone before the train pulls up, once the doors open we are suddenly surrounded by a slavering beast of crowd. 'PUSH!' yells Chongchong, 'We only have 2 minutes!' All around us more and more enormous farm sacs appear, and frenzied people trampling each other to board. I have taken a lot of trains in China, but never one like this before. I put my head down, elbows out, dive in.

The car we are in is a 'hard sleeper' - pairs of 3 level bunks stretching from end to end with a narrow luggage rack running along the opposite side. Though the car already seems full, dozens of us (and all our stuff) pile in. Sacs are heaved onto the highest bunks, occasionally onto sleeping bodies, and stuffed into the gap between the raised middle bunks and the walls. The two of us join 3 others already seated on a single bottom bunk, 4 others across from us and a handful more perched on bags in the aisles. One of the men across from us has an enormous purple abscess protruding from the left side of his face, which everyone around him squirms away from making the space seem even more crowded than it is.

It is 8 hours from Zoucheng to Nanjing. The car doesn't get less crowded as the night goes on.

On the one hand, I am thankful that we are sitting. On the other hand, that puts the droning voice of the man beside me very close to my ear. Although we are packed in like sardines and thus inevitably pressed against each other, I have the distinct impression that he is closer to me than absolutely necessary. Despite my headphones, he continues to chatter loudly for the first 5 hours of the journey. About half the time about me. Around 4 am I start to wonder if crucifixion might be preferable to this kind of train ride (Mel Gibson's blood-fest Jesus film having played on TV just before we left fresh in my mind). Chongchong sleeps, head against my shoulder, about half the night. I do not sleep at all.

Finally off the train in Nanjing, we run first to the ticket window and then to another train. This time we have seats, and though they are the lowest class, they seems inexpressably divine. We watch a succession of quaint villages picturesquely reflected in still ponds pass by the windows and imagine the one we are going to.

2 more hours on the train, 2 busses (an hour each, first standing in the door well of one so that each time the bus stopped my right arm and backpack would be squashed behind the metal and then crammed into a mini-bus with broken windows with a couple of dozen other people) and a 20 minute taxi ride later, we found ourselves here. In a village whose only water is a filth-ridden swamp of canal where the raw sewage from all of the houses runs (and people do their laundry). At least in the dim light of dawn and dusk it looks charming.

Things that creep, things that crawl

My friend Jac, who has been ALL over the world, says that the most important question you can ask a potential traveller is 'Would your friends consider you an adventurous eater?' Although it has not always been true, these days I thought I would answer yes without hesitation. But when the description of the food just ordered the other night began with 'you know, insect, digs itself out of the ground on many legs...' I had to reconsider. Can someone who has been exposed to so few of the world's foods really know whether or not she is an adventurous eater? Cicada was the test...

Cicadas are big bugs. They start out in the ground, bug-eyes poking out of the sides of their flat, round heads, twin rows of hairy shrimp legs scuttling their armored tank bodies out of the dirt and into the trees where they shed their shells and emerge loud and winged. In the summer, their electric whine is so potent that some days I feel like I'm losing my mind. Koreans say that you can tell the temperature outside by the pitch of the humming. Apparently in China, the problem of noise pollution is solved by eating them before they can start to sing.

Sitting on calf-height folding wooden stools under an open tent at the side of the road, barbecue skewers piling up around us, waiting for our cicadas to come. Not for the first time this trip, the other diners are both confused and amused by my squeamishness. 'People all over China eat them all the time,' says Timothy. 'They're so delicious!' says Chongchong. 'They have heads,' say I. 'So do shrimp,' says Jenjen.

Now I am holding a hot metal spike upon which 4 distinctly buggy bugs have been seasoned and impaled then roasted, looking at them looking at me. What Jenjen says is true - shrimp have got to be at least as ugly as these, probably uglier. She takes the skewer from my hand, slides one delicately off using only her teeth, and crunches it into oblivion with a look of delight. 'Hao che' she says. Delicious. Mother looks on with raised eyebrows, saying nothing, while Timothy takes the spike and brandishes it in my direction. I pull the nearest off by hand, hold it gingerly between my thumb and forefinger while eyeing it thoroughly. Everyone laughs.

It is crunchy at first. Salty from the spices, and crunchy. Inside it is soft, but not squishy or wet or gooey as I feared (the giant bondaegi were a little on the gooey side - blech). The texture really is similar to shrimp. It is not something that can be chewed quickly and swallowed without tasting - it is something with substance. I chew, and chew, and chew. Everyone watches me. The other impaled cicadas watch me. It doesn't taste much like anything I've had before, but it isn't bad. I chew, and chew, and chew, and swallow. And chase it down as quickly as possible with a spicy mutton kebab. As quickly as possible.

A little later in the meal I eat another one. A bigger one. It's really not bad. And yet I can't get the 'insect' bit out of my head and so don't really enjoy it. Rationally I know it's no different than eating any number of other things that I enjoy on a regular basis (not to be repetitive, but, shrimp anyone?), but in my gut it feels different. It feels like a bug.

Would I eat cicadas again? Yes, definitely. But how many will I have to eat before they stop feeling like bugs and start feeling like food? That is an entirely different question. I hope the fact that I would take today's 'Tofu, grass and clam' soup in a heartbeat over any more insects does not mean that I can't call myself an adventurous eater anymore. I would hate to disappoint Jac. Or myself.

Uninspired

It's amazing to me, sitting here in this grimy little internet cafe in the city at the end of two amazing days in the countryside, that I can't think of any way to begin this message. The last 4 days have been one constant tape-reel in my head, dutifully recording everything I wanted so desperately to tell. EVERYthing is story worthy - every single minute. And yet, now that I have the quiet and time to sit down and actually begin to tell I find the words have all escaped me. At least as far as words go, this evening I am totally uninspired.

Living with Timothy's family has been so far from any other trip I've ever taken (definitely in China, probably in any other country as well) . It's amazing how close to home a place that is utterly foreign can feel. Families are families all over the world, and this one has welcomed me in completely. I have surely been to more picturesque places and done more exciting things in this country, but I have never had 20 cups of tea with a pair of grandmothers in their home before, unfolding their miraculous life stories, or watched the sun set outside the oil-paper windows with a grandfather scrolling through the photos on my digital camera. Their stories deserve telling, but later, when my fingers and mind are not so lethargic.

Today's key words (for later elaboration): poker, 3-wheeled tractor, condom grab-bag, pit-toilets, beggar children, swivel skateboards in the people's park, smallest ever goldfish bowls, staring isn't staring if you're staring back, cream puffs, and ice cold inside and out.

No Time (like the present)

Things to remember to write about later...

1. Things I didn't do today: -take a bath
-become immortal
-eat a chicken head or foot

2. Things I did today: -eat enough to feed a couple of African villages
-wash my hair in a pair of buckets
-climb a mountain almost to the top
-visit the family home of Mencius, as well as a temple in his honour
-discuss great men (and learn about one really great woman)
-fall in love with Zoucheng, despite the grime
-take a city bus less than the distance of a pair of soccer fields (after waiting for half an hour to catch it)
-learn how to say my new friends names (sort of)
-take a picture of the chicken heads and feet floating in soup inches fro my plate.

Stay tuned for the continuing epic!

Both Feet Wet

I am not a good traveller. I do not effortlessly wander from place to place, full of awe and free of care. I almost never like a place with more than two streets on first glance. And I really, really, really dislike flying. And uncertainty. Really.

This afternoon, riding an overcrowded bus through the streets of Qingdao, China, wondering what on earth I was thinking (not) planning this 5-week adventure. Sure, every trip I've ever taken in China has been magnificent. Sure, I've never had any major trouble in China. Sure, this time I have friends all over the place waiting to welcome me back and wander around with me. And yet...I am not a good traveller. And maybe, just maybe, I am too old for this kind of thing.

The bus ride is really long. Long enough for the dilapidated buildings to stop looking decrepit and start looking...interesting.

And the company is excellent. Kathy, my ex-Chinese teacher from Qingdao living in Changwon, is a wonderful tour guide.

And Qingdao is...cool. Beautiful and gritty at the same time. Like someone put up a shiny new cutout city on top of an old industrial port and somehow made the seems disapear.

I am totally illiterate. Except for the internet symbol, I recognize that.

And then the symbol for country. And mountain. And people. And street.

I remember numbers. Greetings.

Smells. Smelly tofu. Sugar-crusted fruit. Street meat.

Around her family's dinner table, 7 people in a space built for 3 all happily yelling away at each other simultaneously in 3 languages (they intersperse their chinese with stilted korean just in case i can undertand more of that than their chinese). LOVING china. Again.

The main dish is handmade dumplings, with a steaming side of enormous silk worm larvae. About 10 times the size of the ones in Korea. Everyone pops them in like candy, chewing with blissed-out looks on their faces, then spits the exoskeletons onto the tabletop. Kathy describes them as 'wild bondaegi' (their miniscule korean cousins) and i imagine them sparring with little rapiers on the mountains. Her father says these bondaegi, called 'pong' in local parlance, grow on BIG trees and Korean bondaegi grow on little trees. They are as big as my thumb, and roughly the same shape, glistening darkly before me. Everyone laughs at the face I make when I pop one in (may as well jump in with both feet!) and chew, though actually the faces were more for show than for actual gross-out. Definitely milder than the tame little koreans, thank god.

Senior CitiZens center on the corner. I think my grandma is definitely a Zen Senior and would like this place.

Fireworks in the courtyard - light one with a cigarette and then run for cover squealing like a little kid.

Busses so full the door won't close and we cling for life to the rail beside the door and try not to breathe when someone farts.

More, more, so much more, and all this only the first 6 hours. Train inland in a mere 8 hours, with sleep not yet happening. I am SO going to love this trip!!

(and who knows, in another day or two, my travel tales may be coherent to someone other than me...)

Extra Eyes, To Travel Safely By

This afternoon I embark on a 5
week backpack trip around China.
It's been quite a while since I last
did this, so I'm very excited and
more than a little nervous. This is
NOT a goddess of travellers, but
something about her serene face
and many extra eyes seems to
bode well for those who jouney.
Dae...younggung Temple, Busan,
Korea, January 30, 2009.