Tofu

Well, it is my last night in Kunming, and I'm getting rather upset. I will especially miss the people - my teachers 涛涛，龙飞 and 飞飞 (for once I will use simplified Chinese for them!), and of course my wonderful, wonderful host family. They have been absolute diamonds to me, and my homestay mum made me all my favourites for my last supper: 夫妻肺片 (Husband and Wife lung slices), and a simple tofu stirfry.

Tofu is probably the most underrated and misunderstood Chinese foodstuff there is. Foreigners only seem to eat it if they are vegetarian, but it is the most wondrous wondrous stuff. I was brought up on tofu mixed with rice, the thought of it immediately fills me with cosy warmth.

However, I did want to warn people about the tofu in Yunnan and Sichuan. I first came across it on the trip to Chengdu with Caris and Rosy: after a few hours of wandering around in the mountains, we thought we would go and have a nice bowl of '豆花' which appears to be available everywhere, thinking it is just like the lovely dessert 豆腐花 common in Hong Kong (and which happens to be my mum's 拿手 dish). How wrong we were!!!

豆花 in both Sichuan and Yunnan are savoury, naturally served with chilli. In Chengdu, it appeared to be just a big slab of slightly wobbly tofu, with chilli on the side, presumably to be mixed with rice. A Kunming specialty is 豆花米线, which I definitely do not recommend: rice threads are quickly boiled, then drained, and topped with chilli sauce, preserved vegetables, peanuts, and then a big 'pet' of wobbly tofu on top. Even a tofu fan like me struggled through my bowl - bleugh!

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!

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 :(

(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!

Free time

My study schedule is pretty busy in Kunming, with full time classes from 8:30am to 4pm, and then another 2 hours or so private studying at home in the evenings. So it comes as no surprise that I'm enjoying my afternoons off right now due to Chinese New Year, and probably explains why I am posting so much at the moment :)

I'm currently sitting in a beautiful, extremely Western cafe drinking some beautiful Earl Grey tea. Prague Cafe appears to be something of a Yunnan guilo institution, with branches also in Lijiang and Dali, and it is packed out with us guilos all using the free wireless. There is quite a good book exchange here of both Chinese and English books (Clare - I finally find an Isabella Allende here! After all that time trying to track her books down in South America!), good collection of wines and teas, which almost makes up for the fact that they play Dido non stop.

For lunch, I munched my way through a spaghetti carbonara:

Now, carbonara is one of my comfort foods of choice, but this was really quite hard going. Maybe it's because my body has become so used to the lack of cheese and cream, that even now, 90 minutes afterwards, I can feel it just resting uncomfortably in my tummy. Maybe I should have stuck to the questionable Japanese food they serve here.

The other benefit of free time is that I've been able to wander around a lot, sampling the various street food on offer. Most of it is common to what you will find all over China - stone fried chestnuts, boiled peanuts, tea soaked eggs - and I have been indulging in some of my favourites. Nothing like a roasted sweet potato from the roadside on a cold day:

Although the middles tend to be a little raw (and if you're Chinese, you'll know the consequences :p)! I also like the 年糕 year cake, a cake which is about 80% pure brown sugar, sliced and lightly grilled. It's nothing like my mum's though - she used to make fried pieces of it dipped in egg after we came home from school, and sometimes even wrapped in spring roll wrapping and deep fried - how on earth was I not the size of a house when I was in high school?

The other thing I really like about being here is that no one calls me Connie - yes, that is the extent to which English is spoken!! Everyone calls me by my Chinese name, which is a bit weird (even my folks call me Connie, or Eric when my mum muddles us up), but also quite nice at the same time. Apparently I have quite a pretty name, my homestay mum in particular loves it. So pretty in fact, that I should start charging the number of shops that illegally use it without my permission, such as this one!:

It's just like when we were in Chile and kept seeing Claudia's name everywhere! Appropriately, this is the first time I've felt so happy and elegant in a long time, so long may it last.

Lunchtime!

Yunnan University is situated right by what they call 外人街, Foreigners Street, and there is no shortage of interesting food options for lunch between my Mandarin lessons. For the first week, I literally only went to one place, 胡九小吃, horribly translated to 'The No.9 Man in the City', a chain of Yunnanese fast food eateries specialising in Yunnanese spicy noodles. I literally still cannot get enough of them, especially as they are only about Y6-7 a bowl.

But I was starting to get strange looks from the staff, so decided it might be best to venture out to see what else was out there. One of the more popular places is Heavenly Manna on 文化巷Wenhua Xiang, popular with foreign students because it claims it doesn't use any MSG in its food. The menu is ridiculously long, specialising in homestyle cooking - I would love to go back with a few friends, because going on your tod really doesn't make sense here, given portions are huge and family style. The day I went, I plumped for 魚香茄子 (fish scented aubergine) and 家常豆腐 (family style tofu):


Both were pretty good, but I should have probably chosen something not spicy :p And of course I completely blew my usual lunch budget - this came to a grand sum of Y20!

My private Mandarin tutor 飛飛, Fei Fei has been raving on about this Indian restaurant near our lessons ever since I got here, adn I was interested to see the Chinese take on Indian food (trust me, the Indian take on Chinese food is not pretty!). The Indian Kitchen is on 文林街 Wenlin Jie, and is apparently owned by an Indian. Well, when I walked in, he certainly wasn't about, nor were any other Indians, and the walls appear to have been decorated by the Indian Tourist Board.

The menu though, is pretty much what you'd expect from a typical English Indian place - onion bhajis and pakoras for starters, lots of baltis and jalfrezis and tandooris for mains. This was the first non-Chinese meal I had eaten since I arrived here, so I thought I would plump for the most Western thing possible: our national dish the chicken tikka masala!!!

And it was pretty much like the ones we have at home, although this version (we are in Yunnan after all) definitely had a kick to it. I decided to be a pig and also had some naan bread:

This looked pretty underwhelming when it arrived, but it was actually very very good, you could tell it was straight out of the tandoor, even reminded me of the breads we had in India. I was completely completely stuffed though, and burped my way through my Mandarin lesson afterwards (poor Fei Fei). But I was starting to learn the lesson that non-Chinese food is ridiculously expensive compared to Chinese - this set me back Y40. Later that day I found Earl Grey tea at Y10 a pop - might turn into an expensive habit given that I drink buckets of the stuff.

After yoga one evening, I decided to continue experimenting and spotted a chain of Japanese ramen eateries right next door. I have seen 味千拉麵 Ajisen Ramen all over Hong Kong before, and don't think they've got that good a reputation there, and apparently it is huge in China now (67 stores in Shanghai alone, according to wiki). I was tired and hungry, with memories of Ryo's in Sydney in the back of my head, so I went for a 豬軟骨拉麵 (tender pork ribs ramen):

Again, very keenly priced at Y28 a bowl of noodles in China, but I must admit it wasn't all that bad. Given that the soup base must be mass-produced somewhere, it had a decent flavour, and the pork rib was very morish. Not sure why it is quite so popular though, given its price and you can definitely find more interesting noodles all over China. I will have to venture into a proper Japanese sushi place next to see what that is like here...

Yunnan's most famous dish - not very impressive

Every single guide book I've read (I've actually read one written by a Chinese person, you'll be glad to know) raves on about Yunnan's most famous dish, 'Over the Bridge Noodles' 過橋米線. The story behind it is kind of romantic I guess. It goes that there was a scholar, once upon a time, who had to cross the bridge to go to his lessons. His patient wife had to deliver him his lunch everyday (yes, I mean, wtf?!), but by the time she arrived, everything would be cold. But one day, she delivered him some chicken soup which had a thin film of fat on the top, and it remained warm, so she used this idea to make her husband a noodle dish each day.

So today, Over the Bridge Noodles is basically a bowl of hot soup (stewed with chicken, duck and spare ribs), accompanied by a variety of raw/semi-raw foods which you put into the noodles to cook at the table. Yesterday I went to try, and my version had quail eggs, chicken, several unidentified pieces of pork, beansprouts, and Chinese chives:

The woman next to me was laughing at me as I was assembling it all - although I look the part, they can always tell I'm a guilo really :) The soup wasn't actually all that hot, but the chicken was actually cooked, the pork really thin, so it did all cook very quickly.

But I must say I was pretty disappointed by this. It was a lot less greasy than I'd imagined, but it is pretty much a boring bowl of soup noodles, and the soup wasn't all that exciting. I was later told that I had to go to this really famous place in Kunming, 江兄弟, which is really famous, and most importantly run by some former students of my homestay mum's! I think I'm going to stick to my hot and spicy lunch noodles for now, until Caris and the crew arrive in Kunming for our eating fest anyway! :D

Home cooking

Living with a homestay family means I am being extremely well-fed in Kunmimg. I haven't had 2 meals the same so far. Spicy and oily food is pretty ubiquitous, and pretty much every day for lunch I go and have some hot and spicy noodles (my favourite!), so it's a good thing that my homestay mum cooks pretty plain food at home.

Some examples of my dinners here - the first one was some simple vegetables in soup, with some fried pork - accompanied by hot sauce :)

This meal, we had pumpkin soup, tofu with carrots and chinese chives, and some Kunming roast pork - very much like 叉焼 (char siu), but less sweet:

Last weekend, I also had some time to learn some dishes and help with the cooking (normally I get home from school about 5pm, and dinner is already on the table - the Chinese do eat alarmingly early). My sister Yang was making a beef stew (need to find out the Chinese name), which involved orange peel, chillis, ginger, star anise:

Rough method was:

1. Frying off chunks of beef brisket until dry; add in some soy bean paste, then remove to a plate

2. Fry the above ingredients in the same wok, until the chillis change colour

3. Return the beef to the wok, and add about 3 large bowls of water and bring to the boil

4. Pour the whole thing into a slow cooker and slow-cook for about 3 hours

I was doing my homework with it all bubbling away, it made me darn hungry that afternoon! The resulting beef was just melt in the mouth, must try and cook more beef brisket at home.

That day for lunch, my honestay mum made us all wontons (餛飩/雲吞). Kunmingese wontons are a little different from the Cantonese ones I'm used too - much less filling for one thing, and wrapped different too.

And of course eaten with some hot sauce - I really liked the addition of Chinese chives in this one though:

Thank goodness it's all pretty wholesome and healthy food, otherwise I shall return to England the size of a house.

Some things I am missing though right now:
1. Cheese - which always happens when I'm in Asia, not a sniff of Stilton to be had here
2. Tea - obviously I am drinking buckets of Chinese tea here, but I haven't had a proper cup of milk tea since I arrived!!! I do actually have Earl Grey and PG Tips in my suitcase, but we don't drink milk at home
3. Alcohol - no, actually, I'm quite glad to be missing it (although a nice glass of Chilean red would definitely warm me up in the evenings). I haven't ventured out to any guilo bars yet, I don't really felt the need. Last week I managed to go the whole week without speaking a single complete English sentence. Today, some Swiss students arrived today - the first guilo students I've encountered actually, but they speak French!!! I will probably really confuse myself if I try to speak French to them too... :)

Kunming first impressions

I am now in Kunming for 2 months doing an intensive Mandarin course in an attempt to get at least conversationally fluent before I leave. People have asked me why I chose to come to Kunming to learn Mandarin (as Bernard said, it's kind of like going to Texas to learn English), but Kunming is in Yunnan province, which borders Burma (or Myanmar), Vietnam, and Laos, plus the province itself has some natural Chinese beauty spots in Lijiang and Shangri-la, I thought it would also be a good base to do some travelling. Kunming is also blessed with eternally spring-like weather - I had thought of going to Harbin or Dalian, where the accent is supposedly more accurate, but they are about -10C right now!!

I am staying with a lovely host family during my stay here, in the hope that I will get to practice a lot more than if I was staying in the university dormitory. The apartment I am staying in is really very nice, in the north part of Kunming, set in the middle of a modern, middle-class housing estate. I have a cosy room all to myself:

I also have a private bathroom, which I probably shouldn't go to after a few drinks...:

I have a lovely new mum and new sister who I am living with. My new mum is a retired primary school teacher, and my new sister, Yang, is currently studying for her Masters in Chinese ethnic minorities as well as training to be a high school teacher. She is about a month younger than me, it's lovely having a sister my age :) Here she is in the kitchen making her breakfast:

The apartment itself is really spacious, with 3 bedrooms, and a lovely open lounge:

The lounge opens up to the dining room which is actually on the balcony:

Overall, I am loving it, although it is a little cold at the moment. Average temperature around this time of year is 10-15C during the day, but it does get pretty cold at night, about 2-3C. It doesn't help that there is no heating in most apartments here.

Luckily, I have something to cuddle up to when I get cold! This is 毛頭 (literally translated as Fluff Head), who is my new dog!!! I am quite excited about having a dog. He is very very well behaved, and likes to look at himself in the mirror, which confuses him:

I am starting my Mandarin lessons proper tomorrow at Yunnan University, apparently the most prestigious university in the province (although I am also told that all universities in Yunnan are amongst the best in the country - arf!). Here is where I shall be having lessons with all the other guilos:

Obviously, the most important thing to be reporting on is the food - and I'm glad to report I am ecstatic at the quality so far. One of the best things about living with a host family is that I get to eat normal home-cooked meals rather than having to eat out all the time. This was my breakfast this morning, glutinous rice steeped in soy milk. As my mum will know, this is exactly the kind of stuff I love to eat, but will never be able to make back home, such a good start to the day:

The food options around the university are also pretty excellent. Given the number of international students at Yunnan Uni, there is a whole street of foreign-inspired restaurants right next door, but there are also tons of local eateries around. Yesterday, Fei Fei, one of my tutors, took me to have Beijing dumplings, at Y3 (about 30p) a portion! Today, I had a 酸辣粉 which set me back a grand sum of Y6!

The pricing of things here are a bit crazy - as you can imagine, anything slightly foreign is hiked up (I am currently sitting in a very Western coffee shop to take advantage of their free wireless, but a coffee here will set you back Y20, or about 3 bowls of noodles!). I am determined to stay away from white people whilst I am here though, which is probably help both my wallet and my waistline :)