Only in China

My time in China has been immense. I came with the intention of improving my Mandarin (which has come on leaps and bounds), but the big thing I am taking away is how easily I feel I fit in here, how it's so nice to understand why things are, even all the annoying inefficiencies of living in a Chinese city. I will stop being emotional though, and share some funny moments during my time here:

Right, seeing as I am supposedly learning Chinese, some of the more 'educational' phrases I've come across - the first three are all from my textbooks:

• 如果畫家是個男的，老漢一定會把畫家請到家裡，喝上兩杯。畫家是女的，老漢只能用毛巾包上幾個新雞蛋，給女畫家送去。(this comes from a story, from a contemporary Chinese story book no less, about an artist who comes to a little village and changes the perspective of all its inhabitants, the phrase talks about how one of the old villagers plans to invite the artist round for a few drinks if he's a bloke, but will give the artist a few eggs if she's a woman. It's not so much the sexism, but why eggs?!)

• 元元在幼兒園上著美術班和體操班，星期六在外面學電子琴，星期天學書法，所以一到周末比平時還忙。吃過苦的人才知道什麽是甜呢。(an illustration of how competitive Chinese childhoods are nowadays - this describes how a kindergarten kid already goes to art class, fitness class, piano class, and calligraphy class. Apparently kindergarten kids needs to learn what is the bitterness of life before they can learn what is sweet (!) I feel for both the parents and the kids)

• 咱們一起去 OK 一下兒怎麼樣？(literal translation - let's go 'OK' for a little while, i.e. go sing some karaoke - I just love the phrasing!)

• 輕輕一按就 OK! (more gratitious use of the word OK)

And there were just some moments where (as Yinne has pointed out to me before), you just think 'only in China':

• Man riding his motorbike wearing slippers (the pink fluffy kind)
• Woman riding her motorbike with a bowl of noodles between her legs (soup noodles at that!)
• Man carrying a big box of fireworks with a fag daggling from his mouth
• Child pooing on the side of the pavement (mum had kindly laid out a crisp packet for him to poo on)
• A pirate DVD shop located right next door to the police station
• Staff at the local restaurant doing their exercises en masse right at the beginning of their shift

• Man wearing Hello Kitty apron - I just love the fact that men are masculine enough here to unashamedly declare their love for the kitty
• Me getting very excited upon finding another sit-down loo in Kunming - in my 2 months here, I have found a total of 2!

Shilin

This is officially my last weekend in Yunnan, and I shall treat everyone by doing a few posts that have nothing to do with food! It's partly due to the lack of camera, but also I'm truthfully getting a little sick of the repetitive food here now. Plus I've been trying to avoid chillis because it gives me 熱氣 (hot air, apparently it makes me cough), which means there's not a lot of new stuff I can eat anyway!

Today I went off to 石林 Shilin, literally a stone forest about 2 hours out of Kunming. There are literally acres and acres of karst stones poking through the earth, some as tall as 30 metres high:

Although it's well known in Yunnan, I'm surprised this place isn't more well known in China. I was rather mesmerised by the place, helped by the fact that the cherry blossom is just blooming here, who needs Tokyo eh?

That is not to say that Shilin hasn't had its fair share of the Chinese tourist trail treatment. The entry fee is ludicrously expensive at Y140 per person, the paths are beautifully pathed, and there are tour groups lemminging behind those compulsory little tour group flags. There is also the fun of going round 'famous' stones which have been given silly names like 'Moon-Gazing Rhino' and 'Wife Waiting for Her Husband', which really does test the imagination.

But if you just walk a little past the tour groups, it is amazing how easy it is to be completely by yourself with not a soul insight. It reminded me of the slightly eerie quiet of Ayers Rock, but I thought it was a lot more charming (I will stop dissing Australia sooner or later). I also really like the folklore story about how the place came about. Geologically, the area of Shilin used to be a big mountain range, and the story goes that the gods broke up the mountains in order to give lovers a labyrinth of privacy. Aaaaah...

Yunnan noodles

I have made the fundamental mistake of breaking my blackberry whilst in Kunming. The good thing is that I will have to kick my crackberry habit, but the bad thing is that I can't take any photos right now, and all the photos I did take before are stuck on the memory card. I've been wanting to do a post on Yunnan noodles for a while, and have been diligently recording my noodley efforts, but I've had to cheat and google some pics here instead. But at least you'll be treated to good quality pictures for once.

You can't avoid noodles in Yunnan, it's appears to be the premier choice of snack here, and when I first got here, it was frankly a bit boggling. If you go to one of the local places, the 'menus' are only taped to the wall, and are highly unhelpful - normally just stating what how much a small or big bowl of whatever your choice of noodle is, no idea what comes with it.

Anyway, here is my little guide to Yunnan's noodles, with the caveat that I probably have no idea what I'm talking about.

First off, the easiest of all is the 麵條, which is the most recognisable for those of you used to Sharwood's back in Blighty. A simple yellow wheat noodle, often containing egg, often round, with a slightly chewy texture. Made well, I consider this still the king of the noodle:

Next up is what Kunming is noticeably famous for, the 米線, literally rice threads, made of rice flour, and round in appearance. Texture is very soft, and often likened to overcooked spaghetti - not very exciting in my opinion, but the most oft eaten noodle in Kunming:

Next up is the 粉片, flakes/squares of wheat flour, kind of like eaten wonton skins without any filling. Ironically, my homestay mum made it for me one day, with minced pork in the soup, which was just a bit like eating wontons that had unwrapped themselves:

卷粉, literally rolled noodles, is wide rice noodles, very like the 河粉 we have in Hong Kong, to the extent that I'm wondering whether they are actually the same thing:

The next one I really haven't seen anywhere else, and is apparently a Dali specialty - the 餌絲, which I really can't translate. It's actually long shreds of a big rice cake 年糕 (imagine a big round of rice flour cake), making the texture really quite stodgy, such that you feel as though it will get stuck in your teeth. The Kunmingese like to have it stir-fried as well as in soup, but I haven't really been converted:

Finally, there is what the Kunmingese call 粉, which appears to be very transparent rice noodles, slightly thicker than 米線, but even less chew in the texture. It normally appears as part of a 酸辣粉, sour and hot noodles, which I think is from Chongqing 重慶:

I have noodles every day here, sometimes for more than one meal, but my absolute favourite thing to eat at lunch is the humble 餛飩, or wontons! I found this little local stall on 文林街, round the corner from my university, which make the most incredibly simple but incredible 酸辣餛飩, wontons in a sour and hot sauce. I've never really had wontons that are not in soup before, but what they do here is to put the wontons quite a thick sauce, it's highly, highly addictive:


I watch them make it everytime I have it, and still haven't quite figured out what is in it. Something like chilli oil, soy sauce, vinegar, sesame seeds, 韭菜 Chinese chives, and some special dark thick sauce that I can't figure out. I've tried this exact dish in other places, but nowhere does it quite so well. The woman laughs at me now when I go there, mainly because my pronounciation of 餛飩 is less than perfect, I need to take her back to London with me for this dish.

Only one more little week left in Kunming! I am starting to get sad :(

Chengdu part 2

We loved 錦里 Jinli in Chengdu so might, I thought it warranted a long post all by itself. Definitely the best street food 小吃 I've had since I left Hong Kong, and it was a bit ridiculous how happy we were leaving the place.

Jinli is basically a gentrified historic district, a tourist attraction next to the Wuhou Temple and Shrine in Chengdu, but it has been done so sympathetically and with so much thought, you'd think you weren't in China (Lijiang should take note on how to make your town look interesting). The district is chock-a-block with little shops and stalls, but no two seem to sell the same thing, and there was definitely a lot 風味 about the place. I'm not a shopping person, but it was a joy to walk around here.

But we had come here for the 好吃街, wonderfully named 'Tasty Street', and again, no two stalls seemed to serve the same thing. We really regretted having a big breakfast back at the hotel, but we still more or less tried everything the street had to offer. Far too much to put on here, I include only the yummy/interesting things to eat. (If you're going to visit, definitely don't try the 張飛牛肉, there is an entertaining 張飛 lookalike outside, but the expensive 牛肉 is a waste of calories).

We were still in search of the perfect bowl of dan dan mein, and found a place which specialised in it as well as 蕎面 buckwheat noodles- most of the places had English translations which were so bad that I include for entertainment value:

The buckwheat noodles were pressed from fresh straight into the pot, but still lacked the chew that we were expecting - all round a little disappointing:

But the dan dan mein was pretty good here - definitely the best we've had in Chengdu, but still not as good as that gorgeous bowl I had in Lijiang:

Keeping in spirit with looking for things made on the spot, we found a little stall making 波絲糖, which I've seen translated as beard candy before - basically very fine shreds of sugar wound together - very moreish even for unsweet people like me:

There was one stall which permanently had people queuing outside, and also had gold plaques commemorating its awards, and this probably was the most Sichuanese thing we ate (definitely the most mala), 綠豆涼卷 and 豆腐連子:

Away from the street, we also had a disappointing sit-down meal at a proper cafe. But we did try their 棒棒雞, Bang Bang Chicken, always the dish which caused giggles when I worked in Chinese takeaways in my youth. I actually no recollection of how they cooked this back in takeaways, but I know I've never really eaten it before - very 香, a mixture of sesame with the typical mala flavours:

Actually, we all agreed the very best thing we ate was not actually Sichuanese, but instead were the Uighur lamb skewers which are available everywhere you go - or more accurately, the red powder (probably a mixture of chilli, paprika, and MSG we agreed it was) that dusted it on top. We were always way too excited about eating them to actually take a picture first though - but imagine big chunks of lamb, with a nice layer of fat, deep fried, then roasted, then dusted with the magic powder. Mmmmm - I might actually go and find some more before I head to the airport...

Chengdu part 1

A trip to Sichuan 四川 during my time in China was pretty compulsory for a foodie: 食在中國，味在四川，'China is the place for food, Sichuan is the place for flavour'. My weekend with Caris and Rosy to Chengdu 成都, the capital of the province, definitely lived up to its foodie expectations, and we were also surprised at how much the city offered.

Given that it is one of the big gun cities of China, we all found Chengdu to be pretty calm and collected place. We stayed right in the centre of town near TianFu Square 天府廣場, and on the first night spotted people doing aerobics out in the open, you can imagine Paul Merton getting overexcited and joining in.

We'd all seen pandas before, so avoided what most people come to Chengdu for, and instead went to Qingcheng Shan 青城山 about 60km from the city centre. Despite the rather steep entrance fee (Y90) and steep hills, this was a gorgeous place to spend some time wondering around the holy Taoist mountains. The area also boasts a natural oxygen 'high' - apparently the ions mean that the oxygen is more pure than normal - I've forgotten too much GCSE Chemistry to really understand.

Despite it being the place for Chengdu daytrippers, we managed to find some really good food here. The area is famous for its preserved pork 臘肉, very morish, but really very fatty too - yes, the picture below is of slices of pig fat:

We also had some very good (but rather ugly so I didn't take a picture) gingko chicken soup 白果燉雞. Accompanied by some simple stir-fried wild vegetables, we managed to have an entire meal in Sichuan with no chillis!

That evening, then, we had to go and find something to tease our 麻辣 tastebuds. We ended up at 公館菜 on 青華路. Outside, it boasts that it is 成功人的選擇, 'the choice for successful people', and we were all mightily impressed by its authentic Sichuanese fare. And we had all the following for Y70 each. First off, some cold dishes - the first was some kind of shredded bamboo shoot 筍, lovely flavours of sesame oil and the deep-fried broad beans on top:

Next, one of my favourite Sichuanese dishes, 夫妻肺片, which should be pig's lungs in a spicy numb sauce, but this one seemed to actually be meat, tasty, but disappointed there no actual lung:

Best dish of the night was the duck - I'm not sure what the Chinese name was, but it was basically duck with the crispiest skin ever, with a layer of glutinous rice at the bottom, which had been fried also so that there was a crisp bottom too. There is still some leftovers sitting next to me which I'm trying desperately not to tuck into:

We also had fried shredded potato with salted duck eggs, some regional wild mushrooms, and dan dan mein (of course). The mein here though was super disappointing - no chew to the noodles at all! But at least we felt like we'd ventured into some new ground in Sichuan food, and not all of it mala! The restaurant is also quite cute in getting each table to participate in a dice game - they give you 8 dice, if you manage to throw a certain combination, you get a discount! Rosy somehow managed to throw five 3's, and got us 20% off! Woo!

Non-food wise, we also went to visit 杜甫草堂, which when literally translated to 'Thatched Cottage of Du Fu' does not sound very exciting. 杜甫 Du Fu, as I discovered (I know so little Chinese history) is a Tang dynasty poet who lived in Chengdu for 4 years, and during this time, built a modest thatched cottage. The site is now an important Tang archaeological site, and even if you know nothing of Chinese poetry or archaeology, the grounds are so gorgeous and comfortable, it was a joy to wander around. Chengdu can definitely disguise itself from being the frantic Chinese city.

(In)authentic Kunming treats

This post is more of a celebration/excuse of the fact that I've finally downloaded some decent Chinese input software, so blogging will take less time now!! Simon - 很感謝你的幫助！

I'm still eating very well in Kunming, still not sick of the 米線 yet! But I ate some quite special things in the last 2 weeks, thought I would share.

The first would be unappreciated by most who read this blog except for maybe my dad, who I guess will show it to my mum, because this is right up her street. My homestay mum brought home some Chengdu chicken feet 成都雞腳, from a really famous place in Kunming (I forgot to ask the name). Even me as an uneducated non-雞腳 eater was lapping it up! You buy it with the sauce separated from the 雞腳 - I'm guessing it is this magic sauce that made it so tasty (laced with MSG no doubt):

The Kunmingese are also always telling me that their version of roast duck 烤鴨 is better than even the world famous Peking duck. And you do see ducks hanging out to dry everywhere you go in Kunming (poor vegetarian Chirag was a bit shocked when I was showing him round!), and they are so bargainous, around Y17-20 each! At first sight, it looks a lot like Cantonese roast duck:

Mmm, looking at that pic makes me hungry! As you can guess, I wholly endorse the 昆明烤鴨!! Admittedly, the ducks are as skinny as anything, and there is not much meat on them, but the skin is sooooo good, crisp, and not quite as fatty as the Peking version. Our dog 毛頭 refused to eat any of his other dinner after I threw him a few of my duck bones.

During our little tour around Kunming, Chirag dragged me to KFC (or 肯德基 as it known here). I have actually been meaning to go and check out the local specialties for a while (in the name of research for work, of course). The most popular thing going seems to be their deep fried crab claws (Y9), so I tried some:

Hmmm - not bad, but not great either - obviously they have padded out the crab with a ton of flour and MSG, I'm more disturbed at how many crabs it took to make this new promotional item. They also had purple sweet potato egg tarts - it sounded too disgusting to try, especially as they were Y5.50 each, compared to Y1 normal egg tarts!!

We also ventured to McDonald's that day, to try their localised desserts (very few other localised items unfortunately). I was pleased that they did not serve apple pies, but instead had red bean pie, sweet taro pie, and also pineapple pie (Y5 each, or 2 for Y7). We tried the two former ones, and I report that the sweet taro is very good!

But given that the KFC/McDonald's trips more or less used what normally is a week's food budget here for me, not going there anymore!! But I should remember to go to McD's in Hong Kong for their sesame ice cream!

Lijiang

Lijiang 麗江 is the must-go place in Yunnan, and was really one of the main reasons for why I chose to study in Kunming. Unfortunately, I found it to be one of the most overrated places I’ve visited in a long long time.

The problem lies in its popularity. The government have obviously put a lot of effort into making Lijiang Old Town 麗江古城 an attractive tourist destination. The streets are ridiculously clean, the canals that flow through the town are so clear that carp fish seem to thrive in them, and there are gorgeously designed rubbish bins at every corner. As a result, literally thousands of Chinese tourists descend upon this little place, and the narrow streets of the Old Town are often crammed with people.

The crowdedness in itself isn’t too annoying – I come from Kowloon after all – but along with popularity inevitably comes overcommercialisation and rip-off merchants. It was actually pretty difficult to find places to eat here, counter-intuitively, because most shop fronts in the Old Town are tacky souvenir shops, everywhere you turn there is a desperate attempt to sell you something. The classic example was when we asked at the official tourist information centre about where we could find a massage (you can tell I was with peeps from the Hong Kong office) – the lady behind the counter actually left her position and escorted us to what was obviously her mate’s shop!! Even more ridiculous, the average beer in a bar is 40 RMB unless you haggle hard – that’s more than at home!

Don’t get me wrong – I think the Old Town is beautiful, and I guess it is the Chinese entrepreneurial spirit that has caused all this, so I shouldn’t really be complaining. And whenever you manage to get a little lost and venture into the tight alleyways, it really is a charming place, Roger is particularly right that you can just imagine them filming some oldie worldie TVB programme in the backstreets. The view from the top of the hill looking down over the Old Town is also worth the breathless trek up (Lijiang is elevated at 2400m):

I found it harder to find cutesy little places to eat in Lijiang compared to Dali, but there were still a few highlights. The best probably being when I got lost in the South of the Old Town (Lonely Planet’s map conveniently places Sifang Square, the main focal point of the Old Town, in completely the wrong place), and found a little Chengdu-ese place, and in preparation for my trip to Chengdu next week, I had to have a dan dan mein 擔擔麵 (keen readers will know I’m obsessed with dan dan mein). It was a husband and wife and daughter establishment, and the husband was making the noodles from fresh:

The mein itself was so so good – the noodles very fresh, lovely texture, set off by a sauce that had some sesame seeds running through it – not particularly spicy, but very 香. 5 RMB for a huge portion (you can also opt for the ‘add a hat’ version for an extra 1 RMB – which means adding a fried egg on top for those who haven’t watched that silly Cantonese movie from the 1980’s with 周星馳 and 吳君如).

During our stay in Lijiang, we had a mini daytrip to go horse-riding in 美泉. We were treated to a little ride on a steel gondola, where we had some lovely whitebaity fish grilled directly on a boat. We also went to have rainbow trout nearby at 山泉漁府 – it was a bit ridiculously expensive at 150 RMB per jin (about 300 RMB for an average sized fish – even more than rainbow trout at home!), but we did watch them catch it, and it was very fresh.

We also found ourselves in the Lijiang version of Prague Café for breakfast – the owners must think I’m weird, given how much I also go to the Kunming one. We were all very impressed with the Naxi 納西 breakfast – eggs with a huge potato pancake (very good, crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside), Naxi ham (very good, lovely texture), toast (weirdly sweet) and Naxi cheese (hmmm, not a fan):

I end with what I think was probably another tourist rip off. Right outside our hotel was a little stand which always had people queuing, serving 青蛙餅, literally frog biscuit, a kind of biscuity/bun thing stuffed with cold sour/spicy rice noodles. We never did figure out why it was called that, I wouldn’t put it pass them naming it something strange like that just to attract the crowds. Given that we didn’t see any other stall selling it, I wonder about its authenticity as a specialty 特產 of Lijiang.

Wow, what a huge post! And so much bile! Lijiang had an effect on me, definitely, mainly allowing me to reflect on how lucky I have been to be able to do so much off-the-beaten-track travelling in the last few months (Sotik in Kenya being probably the most interesting!). Chengdu next week, where I shall be reunited with my long-lost foodie/travel mate, Caris :)

Dali

On the spur of the moment (very P of me), I decided to go to Dali 大理 for the weekend, which is a convenient 5 hours away from Kunming. Poor Dali has been battered recently from the usual backpackers' trail, superceded by Lijiang, but it does benefit from being surrounded by mountains and being right by Erhai Lake.

I arrived very early into Dali, when most of the town was still sleepy, but I found a lovely little place to have breakfast. I'm not sure what it was, someone else was eating it and it looked good, probably some kind of rice thread noodles 米線 - not as spicy or oily as the ones I'm used to in Kunming, but a great start to the day:

I only had basically one and a half days to explore, so the first day hired a bike, and went on a big bike ride around the lake, and am so glad I did. A lot of the locals were staring at me riding along, wondering what the hell I was doing, but it was gorgeous to get away from the tourist trail and just bike through lots of little villages, seeing all the villages doing their farming. After about 2 hours at a gentle pace, I arrived in the town of 喜州, a Bai minority town locally famous for its traditional Bai architecture. So pretty, it even inspired me to take a non-food picture:

I didn't stay here that long, but long enough to eat their specialty, the 破酥粑粑, roughly translated to flakey skin 'baba', a bread with a flakey crust, stuffed with spring onions and minced meat, or there is also a sugary sweet version. The savoury version is not unlike a stodgy version of a 蔥油餅 - I really liked the flakey outer crust, but found the inside stodge a bit hard-going:

The reason why I impulsively went to Dali was because I keep spotting little street carts serving Dali cold noodles 大理涼麵 in Kunming, and thought I need to try it in Dali itself. I must say this was a food discovery and a half, I couldn't stop eating them after my first bowl. The concept does sound a bit off - clammy cold noodles doesn't sound appetising - but with the aid of some vinegar, soy, chilli, a few peanuts, and some coriander, it is so refreshing, very 開胃! My first bowl was at a place which has multiple branches in the non-guilo bit of Renmin Lu, which seemed famous for their 雞涼米線:

I indulged in another bowl at the top of Cangshan just outside the temple, this time with 麵條 wheat noodles rather than rice threads 米線 - must say I liked it better than the 米線, had a bit more chew in each noodle (and probably helped by the fantastic sunshine I was sitting in):

I met two British Indian medical students from UCL during my stay in Dali, so so so nice to speak to British accents, and we inevitably found ourselves in Bad Monkey, a bar run by a couple of guys from East London. But their experience made me realise how much the backpackers must miss out on by having to rely on the foreign cafes that serve a variety of both Western and Chinese food. I went to the supposedly recommended Bamboo Cafe in the guilo bit of Renmin Lu for dinner one evening, which supposedly served authentic Bai cuisine. How wrong I was! I ended up with very Cantonesey red braised tofu and prawns with vegetables - so disappointing!

I inevitably woke up on Sunday morning with a bit of a hangover (it's Kaj's fault for mentioning jage-bombs to me), and spicy food just did not appeal for once. But I remembered there was a 北方 Northern dumpling restaurant just down the road, and 餛飩 wontons sounded like a good hangover cure - pure, light, cleansing! The wontons themselves were nothing to write home about, but I really liked the broth they came in. There were little bits of seaweed floating in it, and also these cute little miniature dried prawns - very very tasty:

The non-food and mildly interesting spot (if you're part of Uncle B's wider family) was the awesome combination of shops I saw in Dali - in Berlin, we saw the infamous antique shop that was also a pet shop - in Dali, I spotted a travel agency that was also a place for you to shower (!), and also a travel agency which was also gave massages. I guess there is an element of customer-sharing (us tourists do like to shower after all)...

Next week takes me to Lijiang to see Roger and some newer members of Uncle B's family.