Brown Sauce Bemuses Chinese Shoppers

One thing I have found myself doing a lot in China is asking Chinese friends, "what's this food?", "what's that?", "is this nice?", "do you really eat this?" before trying things in cafes or sometimes just when noticing some of the many strange looking packets, bottles, jars or boxes in shops or outdoor foodstalls. Of course there is a huge, huge difference in food products generally available as snacks, ingredients or dishes in Asian foods compared to those in Europe, more than I imagined and so many of which I was barely or completely unaware of before.

This I found out yesterady of course works the other way too, when I read an article about Tesco opening their new store in Beijing. Here's an excerpt

Most of the products on sale are Chinese, including soy sauce, sheep's feet and even live turtles.
There is one rather forlorn aisle selling food from the United Kingdom, including sage-and-onion stuffing and mint jelly.

A tin of baked beans and a bottle of Tesco's brown sauce seemed to perplex the early customers."I'm not sure that these are the baked beans, and it might be a Chinese-style yellow bean sauce," one person said at the opening. "This brown sauce, I think it's probably a fish-egg sauce or maybe a banana sauce."

It made me laugh and was comforting to see Chinese people also having the same bemused thoughts about European food products at times.

A friendly visit

It's been a busy time the last week or so, I had a few friends from Wales come over to China for a bit of a trip. Phil, Stuart and Perry, arrived last Sunday in Guangzhou, where we watched the Arsenal v Man Utd match in the Elephant & Castle, not very Chinese at all... Guangzhou in fact has a bit of an ex-pat community, including British style pubs, serving foreign style pub-food, the first time I have seen this kind of environment for a very long time. To be honest I can't say I have really missed it as there's usually been some acceptable local alternative whenever the need arose for an evening in the pub, though of course I did enjoy it.

After Guangzhou we went to Yangshuo to show them the limestone hill scenery around Guilin and Yangshuo and stayed there a few days. After that, next stop was Macao and I am now in Hong Kong as my Chinese visa expired and I have had to organise a new one to get back into the 'real China'. Meanwhile Perry and Stu have returned home and Phil is back in Guangzhou, I may catch up with him tomorrow before he leaves for a quick drink in the classicly named Irish Bar, "The Paddy Field".

all for now....

Backlog of Updates

The network connections are a bit better now, so have been able to publish a backlog of updates, here we go:

--> 31/12/2006: Welcome to Nanning!

--> 01/01/2007: Chili picking, Karaoke and Jiangtang

--> 07/01/2007: Guilin

--> 10/01/2007: Yangshuo, Xingping & the Li River

Yangshuo, Xingping and the Li River

Yangshuo (阳朔) is an hour mini-bus ride from Guilin, there are boat trips that cruise down the Li river to here, which sounds an idyllic way of getting there and was my original plan, but the high prices, the fact that during winter, due to low water levels, the 5-6 hour trip is reduced to about one and a half hours without any discounts and the gloomy grey weather all convinced me it would be better to save it for another time. A good decision that turned out to be too. Arrived in Yangshuo and as usual greeted by someone trying to sell a hotel room at the bus station, which on this occasion I took a look at and found a nice room in the 'Fawlty Towers Hotel'. (This shows the amount of tourism that has hit Yangshuo). So after Sybil showed me a room, Manuel checked me in and I had dumped my bags, I went for a walk around Yangshuo, (I didn't see Basil anywhere).

Yangshuo lies in the shadow of 'Green Lotus Peak' and other limestone hills to the south. A small town turned into a real tourist centre, lying in a beautiful setting on the river. It's quiet vehicle free central street contains rows of art, craft, textile and clothes shops, mixed with coffee shops, cafes, restaurants, bars, and tourist info places trying to sell boat trips, tickets to evening dance shows, rent bicycles and tour guides. Despite the blatant commercialism, it's green, natural setting and peaceful, relaxed atmosphere (at this time of year at least, in summer I suspect it's completely packed with tourists) gives the feel of a little paradise in a rural part of China. Despite a few exceptions, even the tourist touts are quite relaxed and don't really hassle you, one was even really pleasant to chat with, giving no real pressure at all, just wanting to talk about my home country. In the quiet streets you see women walking around knitting, or cafe staff playing badminton while they wait for customers, it's a really laid back place to stay for a while.


Left: A boat trip view of the Li River
Centre: Relaxed Yangshuo: Card game in the middle of the street
Right: Relaxed Yangshuo: Knitting in the middle of the street.

Along the roadside overlooking the river there are also many interesting souvenir stalls selling typical Chinese art, scroll paintings, decorative Chinese fans, anything silk, coins and jade. Food is also always easily available in cafes or on the streets where locals are selling fruits, corn on the cob, fresh sugar cane among other things, the most abundant of which is the pomelo, a fruit something like a grapefruit, but bigger and sweeter, which must be in season during winter as heaps and heaps of these could be seen all around town and neighbouring countryside.

Left: Another view from the Li River boat trip.
Right: Yangshuo's "West street" at night.

On my second day in Yangshuo, the weather changed and it was almost like summer again, sunny, clear skies, warmer, though still a bit cold. So, having not done the boat trip from Guilin, I checked out the options available here and found that it was possible to arrange one from here for a lot less cost. Although you could take a bamboo raft along the river here, it would not go far, so a bus ride to Xingping was necessary, to where the water levels were high enough and from there I joined a 90-minute trip which is along the most scenic of the Li River and its limestone peaks. The bonus was knowing that I was seeing almost all the river route of the journey I would have seen had I taken the shortened (bus-aided) boat trip from Guilin to Yangshuo. It cost 70 yuan including bus to Xingping, instead of 240 yuan (or 410 yuan for English speaking tour boat!) from Guilin. So that's a useful tip for anyone travelling these parts during winter, in summer, maybe it's worth the extra for the whole trip, but I don't know yet.


Left: View as our little boat starts its trip.
Right: View from Xingping dock at end of the trip.

Guilin (桂林)

Guilin (桂林), lying in a lovely setting on the banks of the Li River, has long been a popular tourist resort for foreigners and nowadays more and more Chinese. It gets its name from the tree that lines its streets, the osmanthus, Guilin means literally 'osmanthus forest'. To be honest I had never heard of the osmanthus tree before, I always thought trees had simple, memorable, monosyllabic names such as elm, oak, fir, gum or ash, osmanthus doesn't sound like a tree at all ;-) so I learnt something new by coming here.

It's quite a touristy place which means there are some people who speak English making it easier to get around and discuss what to do in the area, but, it also means you get lots of hassles from tourist touts, many of who will just not give up chasing you. I also had many random people stopping me in the street wanting to speak English, English students, English teachers, or just those working in the tourist industry wanting to practice English with a 'westerner' who as far as they are concerned are all native English speakers!. Usually this was an innocent, friendly practice but occasionally they turned into touts trying to take me to a tea-tasting shop, an art gallery or sell some tickets for an evening show. I did the tea-tasting anyway as I wanted to and tried a few teas including osmanthus flower tea - which is good for the skin - and osmanthus leaf tea, which had a bitter, sour taste. This bitter taste in the mouth felt quite appropriate when they then tried to force me to buy some of their tea at silly prices and then asked for more silly amounts of cash for the usually free/small fee tea-tasting. Others I met were more pleasant and I had interesting chats with a couple of students who wanted to know absolutely everything about differences between Chinese and European cultures.


Left: Guilin's two pagodas at night.
Right: Osmanthus trees line the road and water sides in Guilin.

I arrived in Guilin on New Year's Eve and during the evening wandered around the lake area with its two pagodas, many bridges, trees and quiet paths all nicely lit, which creates a relaxing atmosphere. Each evening there is also a street market selling all kinds of clothes, art, food, souvenirs and many more such things which I wandered around before searching out a bar in which to have a couple of new year drinks. Pubs/bars are not common place in Chinese cities, but luckily Guilin, due to its touristic nature has a couple and I spent this new year's evening in one with a singer/guitarist playing some decent music.

Guilin's popularity is due to its location on the Li river, among many limestone peaks, that are familiar to many worldwide from Chinese scroll paintings or photos that are often seen depicting this strange scenery. It was interesting to see these peaks on the roadside travelling through Guanxi towards Guilin for the first time with my own eyes. The town has many peaks, which you can climb for views of the city and surrounding countryside. One of the more famous peaks is called 'elephant trunk hill' which remarkably, does in a way resemble a crouched elephant with its trunk drinking from the river, this has given rise to an elephant theme across the city, with 'golden elephant', 'elephant trunk', 'elephant hill' hotels, restaurants and shops all over. One peak within the grounds of the palace is less imaginatively called 'Scenic View Peak'.

Left: Guilin and surrounding limestone peak landscape
Right: Elephant trunk hill (just the front bit)

Karaoke, Chili Picking and Jiangtang

One day from Nanning, Jane arranged a trip to the countryside, to a country home run by her sister's husband's family, where you can walk in the forest along a river, lunch, pick chilies and play mah jong in a lovely relaxed atmosphere away from everything. It was a lovely warm sunny day - which is great when it's just a few days to Christmas - and nice walking along the river lined with bamboo and other trees. After lunch, we were sent to work in the fields and had to pick chilies (to pay for the lunch I guess !!). After collecting a few bags full, it was back to the house and a bit of mah jong, which I kind of remember from playing at home as a child. However the Chinese play it a little differently, there are less tiles and some that are different or have different functions, you also have to play very quickly, a one or two second delay on my turn and everyone is looking at me wondering what's wrong ;) It's not a game for a learner/amateur in China.


Left: Jane2, Jane1's brother in law's mother, Jane1 and Liu in the countryside.
Right: Women at work in the fields, that's what I like to see ;)

Have also been playing a few sports during the stay in Nanning, a few games of 10-pin bowling, pool, and one day a badminton game and a 7-a-side football match on sand.

One day in particular stands out, where my sporting abilities were clearly on top form, first bowling with Jeff, Jane, Jane & Liu, I scored a 178 which has to be my best ever, including 6 strikes and 1 spare in the game, not bad for me ! Then just a short while later during a 6-0 demolition at pool I even cleared up one frame from the break, poor Jeff didn't even get a shot. Badminton was fun, such a log time since I played that and quite pleased that I could almost hold my own in a friendly knock around with 2 chinese, the football was the first time I played on a hard sand surface, kept misjudging the ball at first, quite fast and slipped a few times, was good game, but my lack of fitness showed and was out-run by the regulars.

One thing I'm definitely not so good at though is singing and on Dec 26 I went to a birthday night out for Ming. After dinner we went to a Karaoke bar, my first karaoke since Atyrau in Kazakhstan. You get your private karaoke room and system and waiters/waitresses bringing food and drink as you please, all very cosy and people just sing. It's not such a spectator sport as it is in Europe where everyone watches and listens, here, while someone sings, everyone else just chats, drinks, eats and then when they want a go, they sing and the rest chat, drink, eat, everyone just gets on with it with no great fuss, and if you're crap nobody cares. This though was already apparent to me from the screeching and squealing you regularly hear from KTV bars around town, those which have public karaoke sometimes have speakers on the outside of the building too, so everyone knows and can hear what's going on inside and sometimes it sounds pretty bad. Fortunately on this night, we had some good singers in the group.



Left: A bagful of chilies
Right: Ming singing at her birthday karaoke night.

Discos / nightclubs are different here, from about 11pm to 1pm there is usually a show of some kind, dancing, comedy sketch, acrobats etc, only after all this does anyone get on the dance floor and dance. You also get big dishes of nice fresh fruit delivered to the table, I'm not sure if someone keeps ordering this every time or if it's just a nice touch, but every table seems to have them.
My food and diet has changed a lot here, but generally I like Chinese food anyway, so that's been little problem, though it is of course at times quite different and certainly more varied than the Chinese cuisine in European Chinese restaurants. All those Chinese dishes I have tried before are available somewhere, but these and their variants are usually a small percentage of what's on a Chinese menu in China. There's plenty of meat dishes I haven't tried before, some camel's hump was put on my plate before I knew what it was, so I thought I'd give it a go, it tastes OK, but nothing special and a bit too chewy, frog is tasty but too many little bits of bone, paddy field fish is a tasty, small fish found only in rice paddy fields, not in rivers or seas. Pig's stomach and intestines seem popular, but I haven't tried any, though beer fish is a speciality around Guanxi which I must try sooner or later. I have avoided dog and snake so far and also did not go for the pangolins in a cage outside a cafe in Xingping, eating chicken's feet still makes me laugh for some reason. Taro, lotus root, rice porridge and a warm blended drink made from corn on the cob kernels are now regular in my eating, also frequent are roasted horse chestnuts, fire dragon fruit and my new favourite thing ever!! jiangtang, a stick of chewy sweetened ginger.