sybarites

Traveling gives me many opportunities to be reminded of my language ineptitudes. At least I’m no longer shy or nervous about it. I just throw myself into the situation and do my best—quite the opposite to the seven years I spent not learning French. Given time I can learn the words and grammar. However, my complete inbility to speak with accents regularly entertains Janet.

“Was that suppose to be Italian?”

After days of practice I can now do a passible impression of one of the characters of Little Britain saying, “Yea’ I Kno’.”

I haven’t quite been able to say “píji?”, beer, correctly in Chinese. We usually simply order our favorite beer by brand, Tsingtao, pronounced “ching-dow”. The label aptly states, “The Famous and Popular Beer of China in the World.” I had not heard of the beer before, but Janet tried it at a restaurant in Canada.

Our final destination in China is Qingdao, also pronounced “ching-dow.” Qingdao is known for it’s six beaches. The senior party officials have summer homes here. Many Koreans take the direct ferry from Incheon, which we will board for Korea. We came to lay in the sun for a few days before leaving China, but it’s been foggy, though the sun managed to burn a hole through the haze to color my legs and back an uncomfortable shade of pink. Qingdao was a German colony until World War II and German archiecture influenced many of the buildings in the city. We have theorized that this influence may have extended to the notion of making beer: did I mention that Qingdao is also famous for making Tsingtao?

At one time, I became entranced by transliteration, lecturing uninterested friends and dinner guests on why Peking is now Beijing. Transliteration is the process of writing a language in a foreign alphabet or writing system, such writing your name in Chinese or writing Chinese cities in Latin letters. Often many systems compete and new systems gain popularity. In China the official system for writing mandarin in Latin characters is called pinyin. Korea recently adopted a new system which removed the need to include accents on vowels. Such a system tries to balance the need for English speakers to read the words and the desire to convert the words back into the native writing system.

So this is why it took me two weeks to realize that Tsingtao is an older tansliteration of Qingdao. Tsingtao was originally a German brewery. A Canadian saying “Tsingtao” in a Qingdao restaurant is like a Chinese person asking for a “Canadian” (i.e. Molson Canadian) in Canada. “Um yes, but what can I bring you?” Fortunately, Jan can say “pijiu” (Mandarin for ‘beer’) with an intelligible accent.

In Qingdao cold kegs are delivered daily to the sidewalks in front of small shops. The locals can pick up a plastic bag full of foamy draft beer for four yuan, about 55 cents, on their way home from work.

Of particular importance during our visit to Beijing was the opportunity to try Beijing duck. Being the milquetoasts that we are, this turned out to be more of an adventure than we anticipated.

First, there was the question of how we were going to make a reservation. Our guide book (without which we would have been hard pressed to function well) suggested a restaurant but made it clear that the staff insisted upon a reservation. Had they not used the word ‘insisted’, we might not have bothered but, in the end, we decided to just call and see if we could bludgeon our way through the language in order to book a spot. Marc lost the rock-paper-scissors and so he made the call. “We may or may not have a table for two at seven.”

Now the second challenge: find the restaurant. Our obstacles were the following: different spellings of the name of the restaurant depending on which map we consulted, an inability to pronounce the name of the restaurant properly, an address within a maze of hutong (small alleyways) which didn’t appear on any map we had, and a city in a frenzy of destruction and reconstruction of great areas of itself in anticipation of the 2008 Olympics. We had tried to find a bar the day before and were completely unsuccessful owing to the fact that not only had the bar changed its name and moved, the building it was in, and almost the whole street it was on, was in the process of being torn down. We gave ourselves a 30-minute window to this restaurant that looked to be approximately 5 blocks away. 28 minutes after setting out, Marc returned breathless to the spot I had been waiting while he scouted out the area for the restaurant. It had been an unsuccessful mission. Also, after 20 minutes of waiting , I started worrying that he had fallen into an open excavation and that, while standing there alone on the street corner in my only nice outfit, people were probably beginning to think I was a lady of the night.

As a last ditch effort, we approached a rickshaw driver and pointed to the name of the restaurant written in Chinese characters. He was happy to offer to take us there for what amounted to quite an inflated price. We in no position to bargain very much and so settled on a price quickly and jumped into the back of his converted motorcycle-rickshaw. A few weaving alleyways later, he stopped to ask for directions and we exchanged a glance that asked “should we turn back now or let ourselves become even more lost than we ever have before?” Just then, Marc spotted a sign for the place “Liqun Roast Duck Restaurant” and we hopped out in front of a place that truly lives up to the description of being a hole in the wall. Though these often prove to be where the best food is, so I was actually a little encouraged, if extremely over-dressed.

We walked inside, past the open, wood-burning stove, into a very crowded restaurant. We managed to charade that we had called for a reservation. A woman nodded and led us past a couple of other waiting fellows to our table in the back. Seconds later, the two fellows that were waiting at the front joined us at our table for four which, we guessed, meant that we were sharing. Not to worry, we ordered two of the ‘house specialty’ which looked to be roast duck with an assortment of appetizers (?) and beer. As the plated began to arrive, we learned that our neighbours had ordered the same thing and we found out that they were Japanese. A table of tourists!

And now the next challenge: figure out what we’re about to eat and how to eat it. We got six plates immediately: a plate of small, thin crepes, some broccoli, spears of cucumber, a dish with brown sauce and slivered scallions, a plate of ??, and something that looked like duck foie gras. We tasted each and, indeed, all were as we thought, including dish xyz, which was made up of a vegetable – more scallion? – and a meat – unidentifiable, slightly chewy, but not unpleasant. Normally, an unidentifiable meat would seem a bit disconcerting but I’ve lost track of the number of times we’ve been served something which we are completely unable to identify beyond being a part of either the plant or animal kingdom and we just have to dive right in. Most often, we eat the whole plate of miscellany without ever having been able to identify what it was, so we didn’t have much concern about tucking into this meal. However, at this point, I broke the number one rule of eating miscellany in China: don’t examine it. After a few bites, I had a closer look and it came to me that this was probably a plate of duck tongues. And then I was only able to to manage a few more bites before imaging the quacks that these tongues had once made and I pushed the dish aside. I didn’t feel too badly about it as our Japanese table mates hadn’t even touched their foie gras.

After some time, our neighbours’ roast duck arrived. It came whole, with the head attached, and we all took pictures before it was carved (which came as a relief as I was a little worried that we’d be presented with the whole thing and left to fend for ourselves armed only with wooden chopsticks and a sharpened bottle cap).

It was served on an enormous plate and there was enough lovely carved meat and crispy, fatty skin to have fed all four of us. They started in while our duck arrived for its photo session. It turns our that we were pretty lucky to have been sitting with these two as one fellow was living in Beijing and showed us the proper way to eat it: fill a thin crepe with duck and a little of each of the plates of what we had thought were appetizers, roll it up and dip into the brown sauce. With encouragement, further instruction and many napkins, we were able to eat our traditional Beijing Roast Duck and it was delicious, further strengthening the theory that some of the best food is served in the seediest joints.

Now that we had become friends, our table mates asked for a couple of extra glasses and offered us a shot of the beiju they were drinking. I had read about this drink, a traditional rice wine with over 50% alcohol content. Of course, we accepted. And again, and again- pause to order a second bottle – and again. It made the duck taste even better.

After all that adventure, and all that rice wine and beer, we figured we could find our way back through the maze to the hostel. Fortunately, our dumb luck led us straight there, where we could recommend this wonderful restaurant to other travelers.

With little pre-planning, we accidentally visited the Top 3 Things To See in China:  the 2200 yr old Terra Cotta warriors of Xi’an, The Great Wall and The Forbidden City of Beijing.

The first “Must See”, the warriors in Xi’an, was, I admit, our favourite.  We were part of a tour of 8: some Americans, an Indonesian, a German, a couple from Holland, and us.  We stopped at several other sites before arriving at the warriors in the afternoon and the joke among the tour-ed was that “these warriors had better deliver”.   The beastly heat, the souvenir gauntlets and the tourist restaurant all dimmed with the first breathtaking view of the site.  Through a short tunnel, we emerged into the great stadium-esque structure that protects the figures that they have so far reconstructed (1087 out of 3000 in the past 30 years).  To see the detail, the remarkable scale of the work put into the creation of these warriors was absolutely worth the trip.  2200 years ago these soldiers were made, modeled on the real life soldiers of Emperor Qin’s army, each with different armour, shoes, hairstyles, weapons, everything.  Even the facial features and treads on the soles of their shoes are unique.  We took an obscene amount of photos but this was one of the best.

The second “Must See” was The Great Wall. We’re already very familiar with China’s other Great Wall (the virtual one that bars access to many of our favourite websites) but of course, could not miss the physical version.   We elected to visit one of the less popular sections of restored wall called Mutianyu, that was supposed to have the least amount of tourists, great views, steeper climbs and some great views of the non-restored sections.  On all accounts, it exceeded our expectations.  We had picked a beautiful, sunny day to visit and took a series of public buses and private mini-buses to the base and back with our friend Rudy, who we met in Xi’an and who, lucky for us, speaks Mandarin.  I’m not sure we would’ve made it without him .  We shared a small picnic lunch on the top of one of the watchtowers and it was one of the highlights of our trip;  marvelous, fantastic, to sit in the sun and the breeze and just marvel at the vastness of the endeavour.

The third “Must See” was The Forbidden City, also known as “Let’s Get Moving, I’m Hungry”.  Granted, it may be that we are currently “templed out”, but the center of Beijing, the former residence of 22 Emperors from the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Northern border of Tiananmen Square, the site of so much history and grandeur was, umm, pretty good.  In preparation for the 2008 Olympics, this city is in a flurry of construction.  One site we drove past on a bus had no less than 10 cranes busy at work on a new building, and the historic sites have not been spared this lightening-speed improvement. As a result, a few of the structures within the wall-ed forbiddeness were closed for repair so I’m certain we missed out on some excellent touristic opportunities.  However, what we did see was quite remarkable, very beautiful and the history that revolves around the lifestyle and daily existence of the Emperors was very interesting.  Also, it rained.  So now, we are the owners of what shall henceforth be known as The Forbidden Umbrella.

Worth an honourable mention are two things:  one, a sign over a doorway in Xi’an and two, a meal we shared in Beijing.

Imagine walking down the street of a rural-ish city in central China and passing by a doorway flanked by two men in dressy clothes with a sign above reading;  “Populace Direct Bus Eyeglasses Supermarket”.  Anyone care to offer an opinion as to the nature of this shop?

Two, we shared a pretty extraordinary meal at a Tibetan restaurant in Beijing where we happened upon a live performance of traditional Tibetan dance and music (we were seated right next to the stage) and were served  platter of lamb ribs with an unexpectedly artistic construction of a traditional Chinese tower made entirely, and very intricately, of vegetables.   I kind of have to wonder if maybe it wasn’t delivered to our table as a joke to “see what the foreigners would do!”.  We took a picture.

Now, we are off to Qingdao, home of the famous Tsingtao brewery and lovely beaches.   Finally, we’ll be able to even out our tans.

Kaifeng may not have been quite as rustic as I had hoped, but the markets were an unexpected spectacle of delights. The people were also very nice. In Shanghai people were pushy and always trying to sell us things. In Kaifeng people were friendly, extremely patient and knew a fair bit of English. After some confusion about price, one woman in her late fifties, who didn’t speak a word of  English to us, wrote “TWO” on a piece of paper.

On the first afternoon we passed through an empty square to access an alley filled with food vendors, produce stands and live poultry—such a contrast to metropolitan Shanghai. Another market consisted of  a few alleys filled entirely with consumer goods, like a Walmart broken into dozens of shops.

In two hours the empty-ish intersection of streets near our hotel coverts into dozens of outdoor restaurants with kitchen carts, tables and chairs. Vendors loudly announce their products and proprietors try to usher passers-by to tables.  Nibbling and drinking beer in the square made an effective substitution for a patio bar.

Although there are many vendors to choose from, there are only a few main types. The kebab vendors have charcoal grills and a wide selection of skewered foods, including chicken, octopus and unidentified brown insects. Dumpling stands may also have steamed buns and wonton soup. Other vendors sell thick pita-like bread stuffed with your choice of filling. It seems that a few stands will share a seating area and cooperate to offer a wider selection of food.

Our first choice was a kebab stand. The kebabs were fine, but we became concerned over the cleanliness of the beer glasses. Another man approached us with a menu which we were completely unable to read. He kept pointing at the 3 beside the first item which designated the price, as if that would make us buy some. We saw other people with soup and managed to order some from the man. The soup was warm, sweetened green tea with pears. It was almost like dessert. The next stand we tried had steamed dumplings and the beer was bottled and cold. It was noisy, crowded, hot, busy, dangerous (with fire flaring occasionally from underneath woks and inside kebab-BBQs), friendly and perfect.

We have made efforts to track down a few things from home. Our Shanghai schedule included regular trips to the Starbucks, but the heat made me long for the pre-made Barrista iced coffees we purchased at the corner stores in Taiwan. I regularly discuss the possibility of buying wine. We did buy one bottle only to discover that we need to spend more than five dollars for a bottle of wine. It went down the drain. The heat subdues my cravings for wine in any case. It has the opposite effect on my desire for gin and tonic.

We have had gin at a couple of bars. We decided to buy a bottle after seeing one at what Jan has dubbed a “vice store”, which is a government store selling liquor and cigarettes. We were ready to buy the first bottle for 10 dollars. However, we left because we didn’t know if we should wake the sales person who was sleeping on the counter. The next six stores we visited had no gin. The last store had cheap gin starting at twice the cost and the Bombay Sapphire was even more. Upon returning to the first store the next day, we found no sleeping lady to thwart our purchase.

Gin requires tonic in my experience. Tonic water is a beverage almost entirely a companion to gin, much like clamato juice and vodka. However, vodka can mix well with many things and gin’s options are more limited. Gin is not very popular in China, which makes tonic water rare, if not absent from stores. Bars seem to have little trouble acquiring it. I’m not even sure why they sell gin at the vice store.

This trouble forced us to consider substitutions. I had accidentally bought salted soda water, thinking it was regular water. After taking a swig, Jan immediately informed me, “This is not water.” It was sparkling and quite salty, like bubbly saline solution. We also discovered a lemon version. Our best bet is still to combine gin, salted soda water and 7up. On the train we settled for gin and warm, watery sport-drink. This was passable to us, but the smell of warm alcohol was not likely appealing to our potential roommate, who may have sought alternate accommodation for that reasons. Gin and cool 7-up in our hotel room was a bit more palatable. What both really needed was a large quantity of ice.

UPDATE: After visiting the Embassy area, we noticed the Friendship Grocery Store. Thinking that a grocery store in an embassy area may carry specialty import items, we went in. They carried three different brands of tonic water, two of them Canadian. They also had a large chunk of canned foie gras for $350CAD. The Friendship Store is better known for the giant Chinese gift shop which we were forced to walk through when exiting.

We have arrived in China (proper)! Shanghai is the first stop on our tour of the country and we’ve only just cracked the surface on checking out the city. However, in a short period of time, we’ve taken note of a few things to add my mental list of things that are different and/or interesting; relatively speaking, of course. Most recently, we’ve come across giant bottles of beer which are ¥3.50 (about 50¢ CDN) and are pretty tasty when sipped cold on the shared balcony of our hostel above the sounds of the Shanghai traffic, which consists mainly of honking and squealing of breaks.

Then, there are the intersections which, although they have traffic lights, are uncontrolled and pedestrians are expected to navigate thorough and around cars, buses, bicycles and scooters at will and as best as possible. Maybe the lights are only in use during rush hour?

While walking down the waterfront promenade today, known as The Bund, we stopped at a shady spot for a rest and a map consultation.

I left Marc with the map and walked over to buy a Coke from a man selling cold drinks and had to turn back when I realized that all I had were large denomination bills. I couldn’t have been gone more than 30 seconds and when I returned, Marc was encircled by three young women who wanted their picture taken with him. They left as I walked up and Marc commented that that was the best thing that had happened all day. How flattering for me. Then, a minute later, the same three returned and asked to have their picture taken with me. So we did, but I still can’t fathom why. Do we look that much stranger than any other tourist on the boardwalk? Are they collecting pictures of tourists? Were we the butts of a joke or being set up as marks? It was harmless and the motivation remains unknown. (BTW, I don’t even look like that much of a freak anymore because I got my lip ring removed when we were in HK. I look normal again.)

Anyway, to keep it brief and to act as a reminder for me later of some of the interesting things we’ve encountered so far, here is my Top 10 List:

10. Seen: seven wedding parties during one weekday afternoon near the Hong Kong Cultural Center- can’t imagine what a weekend is like.

9. Snoopyland.

8. On a menu: “Hot Lemon Coke” We didn’t try it.

7. In a restaurant: a table-top waiter control system (?) with buttons for “Order”, “Water”, “Bill”, and “Service”. Incidentally, this saved us from succumbing to our usual fate of being trapped at the table of a restaurant being incapable of requesting the bill. On the plus side, we’re getting really good at charades and my Chinese vocabulary has doubled (i.e. 4 words)

6. On a poster in the Metro: an ad for KFC with a woman against a red background holding a bucket of chicken and shouting, in a big speech bubble, “Casual wear!” It defies explanation.

5. Method of transport: the fabulous Aloha bus line from Taipei to Kaohsiung. The bar has been raised to a new high level after having taken this trip. All the huge, Lazy-Boy-esque seats were on the top level of a double-decker bus and featured personal climate control systems and in-headrest speakers to go with the private 12”, fold-out TV screens. One of the channels showed the route, the ETA and where we were on the GPS. Also, there was a Bus Attendant, offering free refreshments, blankies and pillows.

4. Method of transport: the Maglev train from Shanghai Pudong airport to the Metro station. It took less than 5 minutes to to reach our destination while we relaxed and watched the sunset at 300km/hr.

3. Method of transport: the longest escalator in the world in SoHo in HK. We’ve never escalated so much as in HK.

2. Food: Asaji Ichiban is a chain of shops in Hong Kong that sells only a phenomenal variety of ichiban-type noodles.

1. T-shirts: “Blondes are Great, Dumb and More Fun”, “Help me! My girlfriend wants access to my trust fund!”, and, above a picture of a chocolate bar, “Peanutbutter Mother^#*&$er”.

Off for dinner now. I think we’ll go for Chinese.