China -- Revisited 2013 [#6]

On Soups, Meatballs, and Tofu

On the evening we arrived in China after 24 hours of varied wakefulness, 18 hours of which involved flights and airports, Rochester to JFK to Hong Kong, followed by transport via car from Hong Kong to Edward's family home in Shenzhen, including two border crossings and a "random" but extra stop to have our luggage X-rayed, we were greeted with enthusiasm by Edward's dogs.

The whole Zhang family turned out, actually -- father, mother, grandmother, brother, house maids -- with apparent enthusiasm for the American guests. Maybe the brother did not look as thrilled as everyone else, but who noticed.  At that point we were thinking bed, mostly bed, simply bed. But the family, hospitable as ever, was thinking dinner.

Dinner is a specific form of hospitality, a welcoming gesture in most cultures, and China is no exception, so dinner it was.

Our first dinner in China consisted of snails, shrimp, beef, tofu (raw and cooked), three or four kinds of greens that included spinach and lettuce of several varieties in chicken soup, octopus, potato, a vegetable root with holes, beef meatballs and fish meatballs. The potatoes, root, and octopus were in the soup.  Maybe the meatballs were in the soup, too, but my notes don't report that detail.

Sadly I have very few pictures of the food we were served.  I knew I would regret the absence of photographic evidence, but my efforts, especially at the beginning, were aimed at avoiding cultural missteps that I would regret later. Better to err on the side of sensitivity and respect.

This molded fish, swimming among pineapple chunks, was made of something like tofu with a sweetness to it -- not sweet in the American way, but sweet-ish none-the-less.  (It came, actually, as part of our last dinner in Shenzhen rather than our first night.)

Still, this gold fish was very good. No bones.  I ate it, head, tail and all. 

The snails were a special delicacy, a treat I'm sure for this special meal.

Meat always comes in strips and usually with other things, a vegetable, for example, or bitter melon. These may be part of soup or they may be added to the soup or they may be eaten alone. A whole piece of meat, like a steak, or meat cut into slices (like roast beef or slices turkey), would be a western thing rather than Chinese. We did have steak once, but I think it was provided as a kindness to the Americans.

Tofu, which has never interested me much, being predisposed like many Americans to dislike it on principle, can be fixed in a variety of ways.  It is quite good when it is cooked, bland when raw. Much was bland or mild; very little came to the table spicy, although you could make it that way if favor burning sensations.

Shrimp, too, are often favored.  I have at least one good shrimp story I will save for later. Octopus as we had it generally means little pieces of baby octopus, which I found easy to eat once I determined to eat without inspecting. The red octopus on ice in this photograph is for display.

"Vegetables" refers to a variety of greens.  They look a little different than American varieties of greens, especially lettuce, which the Chinese boil. I had never seen boiled lettuce before YuSi, our first Guangzhou home stay daughter, cooked it for us at home. The texture changes but the taste, or what there is of taste, stays the same.

The vegetables with holes tasted very much like potato. We learned later that it was lotus root. I couldn't have guessed.

Apart from the number of soup dishes, the real departure from American expectations are the meat balls. Over the course of the first three or four days we had lots of meat balls that were beef or pork or fish. Here again it is not the taste -- although I must confess I have not eaten fish meat balls anywhere else. The chief difference is the texture.

Chinese meatballs are dense little things.

American meatballs (that is, those of European origin) fall apart easily, sometimes with no prodding. Chinese meat balls or fish balls, on the other hand, stay together. They are solid as well as dense, and they are little -- about the size of a ball on a paddle-ball toy, with the consistency and mild taste of a round hot dog.  Pretty much like round hot dogs, if we had such things.  Often they are in soup, as they might have been on our first night in China.

Often, too, meals are served without tea or water. One simply drinks the soup.

I have recounted this meal in clinical detail because it proved to be typical of what we were served frequently. For the record, I ate everything that was offered in our first real Chinese dinner.

I was not able to say I always ate everything; but at the beginning I was determined to eat anything that didn't look back at me.

China Revisited -- 2013 [#5]

Real Chinese Food. Stage 1

Yi Dong -- or as he is known in China, Dong Yi -- one of our former homestay sons called Donna's Chinese dishes fake Chinese.

For Donna, who is widely recognized as a great cook and who has learned to make Korean dishes that taste Korean, Yi's pronouncements were puzzling as well as funny.

Now that we have been to China, we understand the distinction. Well, maybe it is more accurate to say distinctions, plural, because there are many ways that Donna's Chinese dishes are American rather than Chinese.

Anyone who has been to Chinese restaurants in America will know that there are several categories of food available, either identified by region (for example, Szechuan) or by the menu spice-meter (little red chili peppers beside the entry). In American-Chinese restaurants, generally, both geography and spicy-ness are factors that are multiplied and complicated in China, which is a huge country. Because it is huge, it has many regions and regions within regions; thus, it has many different foods and food styles that are all authentically "Chinese."

In order to get a real grip on how we understand this set of differences, we need to consider how American geography influences "American" food. Many of our food characteristics exist as remnants, no doubt, of our mostly European immigrant people groups. I am from meat and potatoes  people who arrived from Scandinavia and Germany in the 19th Century to settle in the upper mid-west.  My wife is, roughly, from English or Irish immigrants, the story depends on who is telling, who settled New England and made do with beans and franks (hot dogs) in addition to meat and potatoes.

Neither the Zollers nor the Deans moved far from these staple choices, all well within the bland range. The chief difference in our culinary heritages might include the occasional lobster (in her case) and sauerkraut (in mine).

Our trip to China was entirely in the south, near the coast -- Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and the Zhang family village all lying roughly within a short drive of salt water. Consequently, and not surprisingly, seafood is part of every meal, although little of it is spicy.

Every morning of our stay with Edward's family began with rice porridge, which is basically white rice soup. It tastes, basically and not surprisingly, just like boiled rice. It arrived at the table in a cooking pot covered with an interesting wooden top.

We might call this the base of the breakfast. It not only substantially fills you up, it also serves as your hot beverage, since you drink the juice (the soup). We showed our cultural awkwardness in that we were provided coffee and then, following our cold-sniffles, orange juice.

To the porridge one might add something to give it some specific flavor, since boiled rice isn't spicy.  It fits well onto the bland end of the bland scale, too. These additional items are found in dishes placed on the lazy susan that one can pluck with chopsticks as needed. On the particular day shown in the photographs here, the additions include (left to right) ginger slices, garlic, "vegetables" (here, spinach), noodles with egg and sliced meat, and pork slices with bitter melon.

One might also have tofu, raw or cooked, boiled eggs (the Zhangs had their own chickens who produce pint-sized eggs), dumplings with meat or vegetable filling, and scrambled eggs with tomatoes. This is a partial list, of course, and breakfast in a restaurant is another matter altogether.

The breads that made their way onto the table by our second week were a concession to our American tastes, purchased specifically for us once Edward's mother discovered that Donna is a bread-eater the way some people are meat-eaters or potato eaters.

By the end of our stay, the only element of breakfast that proved challenging was the bitter melon, which does in fact have a bitter taste. I believe bitter melon is an acquired taste.

Now when we think of Yi's fake Chinese remarks it is with whole new appreciation.  Adjusting to Chinese breakfast was a mutual task.  In the end, both of Edward's Chinese mom and his American mom were happy.

China Revisited -- 2013 [#4]

WHERE ARE WE GOING?  WHERE HAVE WE BEEN?

In October when we were invited to spend the Christmas Break with Edward's family in China, we named a few places we would like to visit: Beijing, Xian, the Great Wall.  Tibet, via the week-long train ride from Beijing.

Beijing, come to find out, is a four hour plane ride from Shenzhen, where Edward lives.  It is very cold in winter, which would mean packing extra winter clothes, which seemed prohibitive. And the smog this winter has been intense and debilitating.

Xian, site of the life-size clay army, is far from Shenzhen, too, and also cold. Ditto the Great Wall.

Tibet on the train was a joke, although we'd have done it if Edward and his mother had agreed.

Since Edward was not going to plan the itinerary until he had gone home for the break (he attends Syracuse U), we also gave him some general ideas about the kinds of things we would prefer:  old over modern, country over city, the seldom-traveled over the much-trampled tourist meccas, people over most alternatives, traditional Chinese anything over global or western or "fusion" stuff.

Especially, we made a specific request to visit the "home village" Edward has mentioned many times.

With a proper understanding of Chinese and a very detailed map, it is even possible to locate his home village. (To give you an rough idea of where to put your finger on a map of China, Taiwan is approximately behind Yujia's elbow and Hong Kong is approximately behind Edward's.)

With these interests expressed, but no clear sense of where we were going or when or how, beyond the JFK to Hong Kong and the Hong Kong to JFK parts, we departed for China. You might say this was "learn as you go."

Eighteen hours later, most of it in the air and the remainder in line at immigration in Hong Kong, we found Edward waiting for us.

You've got to love a city with buses that carry "sincerity" and "eternity" signs on the back.  From Hong Kong we crossed the bridge and stopped for another border crossing to enter the mainland.

The border crossing is more involved than this toll station, but not a lot more involved. It is rather like crossing into Canada from Buffalo, New York.

We rested from our long flights at the Edward's home, then from Shenzhen we traveled north and east about three hours drive to see the Yuanshan Temple in Lufeng.

Then on to Luhe, the town near the villages we would be visiting. Edward's family owns an apartment building there. Like their big home in Shenzhen, this building has room for much of the extended family. In fact, his father's older brother and family occupies the second floor.

From Edward's family residence in this town we took daily trips out to see the mountains and the villages that his parents were born and raised in.  First his mother's village . . .

 Then his father's . . .

I will have more to say about both of these villages in later blogs; but for this thumbnail sketch they must just be points on the map.

After three days of town and village life we drove back to Shenzhen.  From there we went to Guangzhou, as we did during out 2011 visit, where we ate with a lot of people we know, toured several old treasures, and sat in traffic.

At this point we were nearing the end. We went back to Shenzhen to pack and then to Hong Kong for a day before heading back for New York.

Day to day we knew generally where we might be heading, but often we waited for Edward to say, "We're leaving now," which was sometimes preceded by animated conversation in Chinese and sometimes came out of the blue.  Gradually as we became seasoned travelers, we knew the drill: grab your coat, put on your shoes, and wait at the door.

There it is in a nutshell, a succession of surprises and priceless experiences. In retrospect, the trip that rolled out before us one surprising moment at a time looks straightforward and easy.

And far too short!

China Revisited -- 2013 [#3]

TEA?  ANYONE?

Our experience so far in our Asian travels, limited though it may be to Korea and China, is that Asians are very hospitable people. National expressions of hospitality differ, of course; but we have been welcomed and embraced everywhere.

Hospitality in China begins with tea. Always.

 Come in. Sit. Sit here in the best seat.  We are honored that you have come.

When you are seated on the couch or in the good chairs in front of the tea table, the host will pull up a short chair or a stool that puts him at the height of the table, lower than his guests, for ease of handling the water, pots, cups, and loose tea.

The host will begin to make the tea. In every home we visited -- and we visited quite a few -- and in most restaurants, we were offered tea.

Tea begins with a washing of the tiny tea cups.  Boiling water, which come from a small metal tea kettle on a quick-heat burner that is often part of the apparatus is poured into each cup, as you watch; or it is poured into the first cup and from there into the second, so that each cup in turn is washed in the hot water. The hot water is dumped onto the tea table itself, which is built as a slatted wood grating. The larger part of the tea apparatus, usually a rectangular wood device about four inches tall, consists of this grating with a platform for setting tea cups at one end and another for housing the hot-pot capabilities at the other end. We saw quite a few different tea tables, but they were all built with the same basic design.

The tea process is not women's work, as we observed it.  It was performed, usually, by the father of the house. In his absence, it was performed by the mother. In her absence, another adult relative took the honors. And so forth. Sometime the eldest available child steps up to the task.

In a restaurant, depending on the status of the establishment, it was performed by a manager or by a waitress.

The tea itself is made on the spot in a little pot.

 The tea is always loose. Boiling water from the hot-water kettle is poured over a small strainer containing the loose tea into the little pot and then, without letting it steep, directly into the tiny cups.  Traditionally, the first little pot of tea is also poured over the cups before the cups are filled and passed out.

The guests are offered tea first, then the others in an order that respects rank or seniority.  The tea cup is usually so hot from the boiling water that it must be grasped at the rim with the thumb and first or second finger. It appears to our western eyes as a strange way to hold the cups, but it is necessary.

Then, once you have sipped the tea or drained it, the cup is immediately refilled.

The hosts may also offer fruit, often sliced oranges or whole clementines. This is a particularly nice feature of Chinese hospitality since, for us at any rate, the timing of the next meal is indefinite.

On the other hand, I was frequently offered cigarettes by other men.  It was an informal, friendly gesture -- two cigarettes in an extended hand. One hates to offend, so in addition to jet lag I have come home with a terrible nicotine habit.

Just kidding.

Turning down cigarettes was not a problem, but turning down tea was not possible. By the end of a morning or an afternoon of visiting, we were on constant alert for restrooms.  We learned to take advantage of restrooms when they appeared rather than to wait until we needed them.

Another lesson we learned was simply to recognize how to handle the tea refills.  Since the host wants you to feel welcome, it helped to finish the first cup straight away.  That addresses the hospitality issue.  Then allow your cup to be refilled. It is OK to leave that second cup essentially untouched. The first cup seems to be the culturally sensitive one -- so, bottoms up!

China Revisited -- 2013 [#2]

The Chop Sticks Diet


Traveling to China may not be the big deal it used to be.  Every town in the U.S. -- well, in fact, in much of the world -- now has Chinese students from somewhere on the mainland. Chinese from Taiwan, once common, are now the exception rather than the rule.

Nevertheless, for anyone old enough to remember Richard Nixon's famous trip to Beijing,  China is the exotic center of the world. It seems somehow pre-historic. Before Nixon's visit, we understood Beijing's Forbidden City to mean, essentially, forbidden to Americans. Fixed in my mind are the Mao jackets, the small-brimmed caps with the red star, and the bicycle-crowded boulevards. The images are all in black and white.

Now, of course, the memory itself is an anachronism.

Still, the lure of China remains strong.  Thus, when the invitation to visit China was extended, we could not not say "yes!"

On the day before we were to leave, with bags packed, house tidied, fears restrained, we began to feel a bit of trepidation. What if the winter storm that was forecast arrived sooner than expected and delayed or cancelled our first, short flight to JFK?  What if Donna's cold, already creating a bit of congestion suddenly got worse?  What if?  What if?

What if we just don't fit in?

I had thought for a number of years that I would learn Mandarin, so that we could function once we made our long anticipated voyage.  But somehow my several attempts were brief, frustrating, and eventually abandoned. I got as far as "thank you."

During that same forward-looking period, I decided to learn how to use chopsticks. To do this, I first tried observing experts, which is to say, our Asian students. I discovered two things. One is that they all preferred forks to chopsticks. Two is that on the infrequent occasions they did take up the wooden skewers, they invariably told me, "Don't copy my style. It is improper."

Undeterred, I taught myself, properly, from one of those red paper sleeves that bamboo restaurant chopsticks come in.  It was easy to position the chopsticks, hard to make them work.  While I was learning, struggling first to get food off the plate, then struggling to get it into my mouth instead of on my shirt, I became convinced that Americans would be thinner and healthier on the whole if we were all forced to use chopsticks. A nationwide chopsticks diet would address our obesity problem!

Gradually, however, I worked my way past the dropped rice, the stick flying off across the table, and the hand cramps. Technique and practice.  I can't quite snatch a fly out of the air like the Karate master, but I am, with quiet modesty PDG (pretty darn good) bordering on QE (quite excellent).  I can seize a rolling grape, pluck individual rice grains from a flat surface, and roll spaghetti as if it were a fork.

OK, so the chopsticks won't help me when I need to ask where the bathroom is, but it does make me feel a bit more at ease about the trip.

The night before we were to leave I mentioned to my daughter, the nurse, over the phone that I was hoping her mother wasn't going to get sicker.

"It's a cold, Pop." She replied without hesitation. "Give her meds and get her on the plane!"

After all, China is not an option every day.

China Revisited -- 2013

Beginning at the End

Travel is about many things. Even when we think we know what lies there, beyond that door, travel is a new way of knowing.

At the end of our trip to China in this new year 2013 – Tuesday in Shenzhen, Wednesday in Hong Kong, Thursday New York – I am newly impressed with two fairly obvious things about travel.

The first of these is difference.

China has been, for us, a revelation in this respect. 

The un-surprising differences include language.  My one-phrase-Mandarin-vocabulary, thank you (Xiexie), has increased to six or seven – incremental, not dramatic. I have learned not one but two forms of greeting – and the Cantonese expression for excusing myself from the table.

It’s not much, I admit, but you don’t need much when you have a translator, even if, like Edward, he quickly runs out of energy for the linguistic work. I have discovered, however, that I can establish a kind of rapport by trying out my words. Everywhere we went, I got laughs with my phrases, which if nothing else relieved some of the stress over expectations.

Even without understanding the language, it is interesting to watch people talk in a language you don’t know.  It permits you to watch for and listen to the “other” aspects of conversation we can easily overlook.  Tone, volume, enunciation or lack of same, the little grunting noises we make in conversation that signal our attentiveness, body language, eye contact, gestures -- in short, anything that embodies meaning beyond the words spoken.

“Aren’t  you  bored?” I have been asked many times via Edward, who is our host, driver, travel consultant, and general handyman besides being our translator.

“No,” I usually say, “I am listening and learning a lot.”

The food, of course, is different.  I will have more to say about food in another post. Suffice it to say, Chinese food as we know it from American Chinese restaurants, by and large, bears little resemblance to Chinese food in China. I suppose you could say that what we get in America is a translation of Chinese food.

Food and language are the two big embodiments of culture that are exceptionally different. To say this is to say the commonplace, of course; yet it cannot be overstated. Food and language are who we are: our present and future as well as our past.

There are many other differences, too – faces, for example. By this I do not mean the obvious notion that Asian faces look different from my own Germanic face.  I mean that Chinese faces are so different from one another. You will immediately understand that I am suggesting the recognition of individuals rather than of race.  It is amazing, nonetheless, to see such an obvious fact unfold in front of my eyes.

The second aspect of travel that impresses me now is recognition.

I suppose this happens both inwardly and outwardly.  A broom is a broom even if it is unlike any broom I have ever seen in America.

Babies and small children, whom I love to photograph, are the same everywhere -- as are parents and grandparents who attend, carry, fuss over or herd them.

In the village we visited, a little girl came out with her grandmother to see the foreigners.  She was shy, but after some (what I understood as ) coaxing from her grandmother she tried out her English on us -- "Hello" -- and then let me take her picture.

It isn't much, I suppose, but for us it was a way to open the door, to catch a glimpse inside this place we had come so far to see.