Food

Apologies for the long amount of time since my last post. For a while, I was experiencing some internet issues (see The Great Firewall if you feel like I'm being too vague). I eventually found a solution to my problem, but this setback, combined with general summer laziness, are my excuses for not posting more often.

But I'm back now! I'm in the middle of a two month summer vacation and I feel like this is the first time that I'm finally able to relax in my (not so) new environment. By this point, I'm firmly settled in to my life here (scary thought) and I finally seem to have a sense of familiarity about this place. While I am thankful for that, familiarity can be bad news bears for the creative process. This made thinking of a subject for this post a difficult task. I became frustrated as writer's block began to take hold, until one day I was given a gift...food poisoning. As I laid in my bed, in between my frequent trips to the bathroom to puke my guts out, I thought, "That's it! I'll write about food!" After a hellish three days, I was finally able to eat a full meal without sprinting the to bathroom immediately afterwards. I then decided that the time was right to start brainstorming about how to attack this subject.

Sweaty old man in a dirty kitchen dumping a bunch of shit
into a wok, drowning it with oil, and stir-frying the hell out
of it

When considering how Chinese food is made, the image in my mind is that of a sweaty old man in a dirty kitchen dumping a bunch of shit into a wok, drowning it with oil, and stir-frying the hell out of it. And in many places around here, that is exactly what happens (and it's pretty damn good). But, as with many things in a culture as old as this one, there is more to the process than meets the eye. A lesson that I've learned since I've been here is that you cannot define Chinese food under one umbrella (well maybe you can, I guess a tree with many branches would be a better metaphor here). While a lot of it looks the same (at least to me) there are very distinct regional cooking practices observed here. Chinese food can be split into eight distinct cuisines which are practiced throughout the country. The regional allegiance that people have towards their style of cooking is quite strong. Just about every native Chinese person I've met here has been completely convinced that the food from their hometown is the best in the country. All things considered, I'm still a newb when it comes to this stuff and I'm still learning the distinguishing tastes between the different cuisines, so I won't pretend to be an expert.

While I am proud to say that I have tried many different international cuisines, I wouldn't say that I'm a very adventurous eater. I'll find two or three dishes that I enjoy and stick with those. And I'm Ok with that. I'm already an official resident of this country so I don't feel like I need to start eating small octopus balls and drinking horse penis flavored baijiu (a real thing) while sucking down a pack of dirty cigarettes in some misguided attempt to prove that I'm "down" with local culture (that's what we in the biz would call "forcing it.") Instead, I've found that having a routine in a place where I am clearly an outsider has been beneficial to my overall mental well-being, even if it's something as small as eating similar food.  So, while there are a lot of dishes I could talk about here, I'll keep it short and limit the post to three categories: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good:

1. Mifen (Rice Noodles)--This dish is what Guilin is most known for throughout China. By itself, it's pretty bland and uninteresting. What makes it good is the fixins' you put on it. There is some sort of stand or small restaurant selling this stuff on just about every street block.

On this I put beef, garlic, peppers, hard boiled eggs,
peanuts, and chives

2. Tang Bao (Soup Dumplings)--Hands down my favorite Chinese food. Most of you have probably heard of dumplings before and that's what these are; except there's soup and whatever meat or vegetable you want inside. Because this isn't typical food in southern China, I spent my first few months here unsuccessfully searching for a place that made them. I had pretty much given up until miraculously one of these restaurants opened a block away from my apartment. In an average week I eat there at least three or four times.

3. Xinjiang Muslim Noodles--Say what you will about the embattled Xinjiang region, those dudes can cook. These restaurants are pretty easy to point out. People from Xinjiang have Turkic ancestry and therefore have a more central Asian complexion and also speak a different language. I am unable to provide my own pictures of their food because it's Ramadan and those selfish bastards shut everything down for a month or so because of the whole fasting thing; leaving me without my fix. But, when they are open, these places are known for their noodles and lamb, my favorite meat. When I go, I order a noodle dish with lamb, onions, tomatoes, peppers, and a fried egg.

4. Fruit--They have great fruit markets here.

The Bad:

1. Stinky Tofu--I don't get it. I really enjoy regular tofu but this stuff looks like you took the regular stuff and left it behind a running exhaust pipe for an hour. Also, the smell is almost too bad to describe. It's like raw sewage mixed with BO; enough to make you lose your appetite. And it's not as if Chinese people think it smells good either. The word for this food in Chinese is "Chou Doufu" which means stinky tofu. Despite all of this, stinky tofu is a very popular snack around here. I feel lame for discounting something without actually trying it, but if the smell is bad enough to where you don't want to get within fifteen yards from where it is being made, I'm out.

Nasty

Animal feet--I say animal feet because it isn't just limited to one kind of animal. There is a woman with a stand right outside my apartment who sells pig feet; and in just about every convenience store chicken feet is sold in airtight packaging. It is also not uncommon when ordering a roasted duck at a restaurant to get its feet (and head and eyes) on the plate with the rest of its body. As somebody who enjoys eating hot dogs, I realize that I have most likely willingly put worse parts of an animal in my body. It's just that, to me, presentation goes a long way.

3. Fish--I've never been a big fan of fish to begin with, but if I ever had to I ate it; but over here, I do my best to stay away at all costs. The reason is that I don't trust the water that these fish were pulled out of. China's problems with pollution have been well-documented. The Li River is one of the longest and prettiest rivers in China; however, the section that runs through the middle of Guilin is filthy. It's a toxic shade of green with trash, raw sewage and who-knows-what-else floating downstream. Despite the obvious poor quality of the water, you see dozens of people on any given day fishing in these areas. Most of the restaurants where I eat are small, Mom and Pop places and I'm reasonably sure that they aren't receiving large shipments of product that have passed standardized health tests. Because of that, it seems pretty likely to me that they are getting their fish locally. Best just to stay away.

The Ugly:

Many of you have heard the stories about the Chinese eating dogs, and sadly, it's all too true. While it isn't a particularly mainstream practice, it does exist. This region, in particular, is known for that kind of stuff. I have had several conversations with people from different parts of China who tell me that the southern regions of the country have a reputation for eating just about anything. In addition to dogs this includes: cats, rats, bugs, etc. The so-called dog meat capital of China, Yulin, is only a couple hours south of Guilin. Every year they have a dog and cat festival where people go and buy these animals to eat. Needless to say, as someone who grew up in a society where people go to jail for that sort of thing, this whole practice is appalling to me. People have explained to me that the relationship that many Chinese people have with dogs is different from that of people in the west. Here oftentimes dogs are seen as livestock instead of a companion. As a meat eater, I can begin to understand that, but what makes me cringe is the method of execution. In China guns are illegal and the electrocution equipment often used by the big food distributors is expensive so less-humane methods are employed (for example beating an animal with a blunt object.) On several occasions since I've been here, while walking down the street, I've heard what sounds like dogs being killed. I have two dogs back home who I love very much, so this kind of thing is pretty rough for me to hear and I try to do my best to put it out of my mind. However, while I don't agree with this practice AT ALL, I stop short of doing something about it. The reason being is that I have no idea what these people's lives are like. I was raised in a privileged environment where I have never had to worry about where my next meal comes from. Because of that, I have always been able to be picky about quality and decide what I will and won't eat. That's a luxury that not everybody has. While China continues it's upward trajectory on a global stage, it is still home to over 1 billion people and there still is a lot of poverty (especially in this area). These are factors that lead to food scarcity. So while it's offensive to me that people would eat a dog I also see it as equally offensive for a wealthy foreigner with no perspective confronting a poor farmer and telling them to change their eating practices without providing them with any alternative. To me, I see consuming dogs as a symptom of a larger problem that China faces (AKA there's too many damn people!).

"Going Native" Experience of the Week

Our IV bottle

The waiting room

 I Had my first hospital experience, and thankfully I was not the patient. About a month ago I was playing a pickup game of soccer with a group of friends. While going for a loose ball my forehead accidently collided with the side of my friend's face. While I received nothing more than a bump on my head, my friend suffered a broken cheekbone (In my entire life I've never even come close to injuring somebody that badly). It immediately became apparent that we would need to go to the hospital. As you might expect in a country as crowded as this one, the ER was pretty chaotic. It wasn't really clear where we needed to go to sign in, where we needed to wait, or who we needed to talk to. At that point we weren't sure if he had a concussion or not, or what the extent of the injury was. To make matters worse, about 45 minutes after the collision, his nose started bleeding. We were desperate to see a doctor as soon as possible, but, given the heavy ER traffic, it didn't seem like that was going to happen for at least a little while. The triage nurse told us to get him an IV and go sit in the waiting room. Yes, you read that sentence correctly, WE were in charge of finding an IV. Meaning that we had to go to one end of the hospital to buy the bottle and then go back to the other end to find a doctor to hook it up. After about a two hour wait we were finally able to get somebody to examine the X-rays. It turned out not to be too serious (you know, except for the whole broken face thing) but my friend did have to fly to Thailand to get a plastic surgeon to realign his bone. In unrelated news, I haven't picked up a soccer ball since.

Mandarin Improvement Sign

Sometimes it's hard to be able to gauge your own improvement. Oftentimes it seems like everyday is the same but then, all of the sudden, you realize that things are a lot easier for you know than they used to be. I have a job where two nights a week I tutor a four year old. This job requires me to go to this kid's house, eat dinner with his family, and then do my best to teach him English. Nobody in his family speaks English so, when I first began, our dinner conversations were extremely limited; however, recently I've noticed that we are able to talk about a much wider variety of topics. Progress!!!

Funny Sign of the Week

In keeping with the food theme I've decided for this section to show pictures of funny food menu items. Menus are often where I see the most egregious mistakes because restaurants try to be descriptive about their offerings.

Honest pizza with fake ingredients

Interesting name for a restaurant

This description was next to a picture of a steak.
I have no idea what they were trying to say.

Cocktails? More like CockFAILS

Reason Why I Like This Place

I have transportation now:

At first I was a little reluctant to buy this. Driving here is much different than what I'm used to. Crossing the street is like a real life game of Frogger, the sidewalks are often seen as merely an extension of the road, and stop lights are simply suggestions; however, this bike has revolutionized my life here. Not only do I now have more access to places within the city, now I'm also able to take this on trips to the surrounding countryside. I've mentioned before how I need to take more time to appreciate the landscape outside the city, now I'm able to do that.


Random Tangent

Four years ago, my school created an international program geared towards attracting students from other countries in an effort to put Chinese and foreign students in the same classroom. In addition to a normal elementary school curriculum, this program offers an advanced language immersion environment which includes both foreign and Chinese language teachers and numerous activities throughout the year which are designed to give young kids a solid bi-lingual foundation in English and Chinese.

Recently I have undertaken the task of promoting this program so if you, or anyone you may know are planning on living in this part of the world and would be interested in learning more, check out our Facebook page here. This page is also useful for anybody who may be considering teaching in China or if you just want to see more of what my life is like here.

Hope everyone back home is healthy, safe, and Ebola free.


**If you have any ideas for future blog posts that you would be interested to read feel free to get in touch with me. I'm always finding new things to write about over here but if there is something specific that you want to know more about I would be happy to check it out. Certain subjects are out of bounds (politics, religion, territorial disputes, etc.)