amorousodious (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
amorousodious) wrote2011-09-04 06:51 am
amorousodious) wrote2011-09-04 06:51 am
China part 2 – Culture shock sets in
I walked into my room at the hotel to a very frustrated roommate whose conditioner had split open in her bag. Our hotel room now has a lovely smell to it, but it ruined a few of her books and it was a mess to clean up. It’s a tribute to how well my mom knows how to pack that my checked luggage made it all the way from Detroit through Chinese customs, and into the hotel room without incident. I extracted a change of clothes from my bags and took a quick shower before heading to the cafeteria on the second floor (we’re on the tenth) to have something to eat.
I was lucky enough to have one of the guides, a lady named Jasper, to assist me in ordering some food from the café, as they understood my basic Chinese “我不吃肉” (wo bu chi rou, I don’t eat meat) but seemed somehow unable to fathom that it was true. After the fuwuyuan (waiter) engaged in a 20 minute conversation with Jasper (I wish that I were joking about the timing) I ended up with some steamed carrots and lotus root, which were delicious, and some bok choy cooked (soaked) in oil.
After the meal Katie and I felt up for exploring so we headed out and chose a random direction to walk in. We ended up attempting conversation with a few people working at KTV (their most popular Karaoke chain) and then wandered right into an open market.
It took me about 30 seconds to figure out that this market was very authentic. Reason one: there were a ton of old Chinese ladies yelling at me to “看一下” (kan yi xia, polite way to say look at this). Reason two: the smells were… pungent. Reason three: there were live animals that were clearly not being sold as pets (well, they were mostly live. There were a few exceptions, but you get the point). The Cantonese motto is apparently “anything that walks, swims, crawls, or flies with its back to heaven is edible”. I can say that this is definitely practiced in Nanning.
The paragraph herein should be read with discretion. The young and easily squeamish should skip ahead.
As if to drive home the culture shock, Katie and I found ourselves looking at the fish in the tanks at the edge of the market when suddenly the vendor, a small Chinese woman, throws a huge (and clearly heavy) blue fish to the floor where it flops around for a moment. Then, she reaches for a club (a legit, spikes on the outside club) and whacks the fish on the head. We had both turned away at this point, but there was an easily audible thump and crack.
We walked away for a bit and found a stand where we could buy water bottles. We looked at the array of snacks, but decided that the assorted dried meats (it’s anyone’s guess as to what animal and part thereof that they belonged to) and the pickled chicken feet (those were recognizable) were not our style.
Heading back toward the open market, we did find a place that sold hot baozi (rolls with filling) and bought some with a coconut paste inside. They were pretty good, definitely something I would eat for breakfast or dessert. We walked around, and continued attempting to convince people that we were just looking. It didn’t work very well.
We ended up back at the fish tanks, looking at the adorable turtles. These are a different species of turtle than the ones that we are used to, and they have a cute little nose that looks like the end of an elephant trunk.
I cannot imagine why they want to eat these turtles. Then again, I can’t imagine why they want to eat a lot of what is eaten here.
A little girl was standing around the tanks and started talking to us about the different kinds of creatures that we were looking at. I was actually able to learn the names of a lot of them by using my very limited simple Chinese. She told me a lot about what the different creatures ate too, and I was surprised at how much of what she told me that I understood. (Score for Chinese language learning!)
We headed back to the hotel to meet up with everyone to go to dinner. We went to a place that served pretty simple dishes, all really typical, everyday, Chinese food things. One of the dishes was an egg and tomato dish that is the Chinese equivalent of macaroni and cheese. My favorite was the vegetable dumplings, made with leek and eggs. There were a whole bunch of leftover dumplings, and I made a joke about taking them home. Katie thought I was serious and said “dao bao” which roughly translates to “in a bag” or “to go”. So, somewhat embarrassed, I ended up with a bag of dumplings to eat for breakfast the next morning.
At this point in the day I should have had the urge to write this all into a post and put it up right away, but between fighting with the internet and attempting to wrap my head around the fact that I was in China I didn’t have the energy to write anything in depth, so I jotted down some notes and went to bed.
I was lucky enough to have one of the guides, a lady named Jasper, to assist me in ordering some food from the café, as they understood my basic Chinese “我不吃肉” (wo bu chi rou, I don’t eat meat) but seemed somehow unable to fathom that it was true. After the fuwuyuan (waiter) engaged in a 20 minute conversation with Jasper (I wish that I were joking about the timing) I ended up with some steamed carrots and lotus root, which were delicious, and some bok choy cooked (soaked) in oil.
After the meal Katie and I felt up for exploring so we headed out and chose a random direction to walk in. We ended up attempting conversation with a few people working at KTV (their most popular Karaoke chain) and then wandered right into an open market.
It took me about 30 seconds to figure out that this market was very authentic. Reason one: there were a ton of old Chinese ladies yelling at me to “看一下” (kan yi xia, polite way to say look at this). Reason two: the smells were… pungent. Reason three: there were live animals that were clearly not being sold as pets (well, they were mostly live. There were a few exceptions, but you get the point). The Cantonese motto is apparently “anything that walks, swims, crawls, or flies with its back to heaven is edible”. I can say that this is definitely practiced in Nanning.
The paragraph herein should be read with discretion. The young and easily squeamish should skip ahead.
As if to drive home the culture shock, Katie and I found ourselves looking at the fish in the tanks at the edge of the market when suddenly the vendor, a small Chinese woman, throws a huge (and clearly heavy) blue fish to the floor where it flops around for a moment. Then, she reaches for a club (a legit, spikes on the outside club) and whacks the fish on the head. We had both turned away at this point, but there was an easily audible thump and crack.
We walked away for a bit and found a stand where we could buy water bottles. We looked at the array of snacks, but decided that the assorted dried meats (it’s anyone’s guess as to what animal and part thereof that they belonged to) and the pickled chicken feet (those were recognizable) were not our style.
Heading back toward the open market, we did find a place that sold hot baozi (rolls with filling) and bought some with a coconut paste inside. They were pretty good, definitely something I would eat for breakfast or dessert. We walked around, and continued attempting to convince people that we were just looking. It didn’t work very well.
We ended up back at the fish tanks, looking at the adorable turtles. These are a different species of turtle than the ones that we are used to, and they have a cute little nose that looks like the end of an elephant trunk.
I cannot imagine why they want to eat these turtles. Then again, I can’t imagine why they want to eat a lot of what is eaten here.
A little girl was standing around the tanks and started talking to us about the different kinds of creatures that we were looking at. I was actually able to learn the names of a lot of them by using my very limited simple Chinese. She told me a lot about what the different creatures ate too, and I was surprised at how much of what she told me that I understood. (Score for Chinese language learning!)
We headed back to the hotel to meet up with everyone to go to dinner. We went to a place that served pretty simple dishes, all really typical, everyday, Chinese food things. One of the dishes was an egg and tomato dish that is the Chinese equivalent of macaroni and cheese. My favorite was the vegetable dumplings, made with leek and eggs. There were a whole bunch of leftover dumplings, and I made a joke about taking them home. Katie thought I was serious and said “dao bao” which roughly translates to “in a bag” or “to go”. So, somewhat embarrassed, I ended up with a bag of dumplings to eat for breakfast the next morning.
At this point in the day I should have had the urge to write this all into a post and put it up right away, but between fighting with the internet and attempting to wrap my head around the fact that I was in China I didn’t have the energy to write anything in depth, so I jotted down some notes and went to bed.