Chinese Cuisines

My apologies for not posting in the last couple days. I've been quite busy prepping for Beijing, working, and writing. I have to write up quite a bit for my mid-term evaluation for school so that I can get credit for this adventure to China, and I think it's due today :-)

Wednesday was an excellent opportunity for me to learn all about many new foods that I had never known much about before. As we went through the market, taking pictures and writing down names of foods, Linda explained all kinds of things to me: how Chinese people commonly cook the foods we were examining, how they relate to Chinese culture, little stories about the history of the food in the country, etc. It was great. Maybe we should consider hiring Linda as a tour guide for 3 Dumplings!? I think she'd be great. I'm sure she makes some good money as a Mandarin tutor, but maybe she could be a part-time guide for us. Hhmmm, interesting...

Here are some foods (I currently have a catalog of 47 different foods) that you may not know much about, or maybe you do already, either way, they were new to me!

[[ I may be wrong about what some of these are, as I'm still trying to straighten out all of the specifics on many of them, so if you are more knowledgeable than me on this stuff, please share your wisdom! ]]...

^^This is called 'Si Gua' in chinese, which translates to 'Silk Melon' but I believe it is commonly known as a Luffa or Sponge Gourd. It's a vegetable. From what Linda tells me, once the si gua is mature, you can remove the skin, seeds, and pulp to leave a sponge-like bundle remaining which is then used to create kitchen and body sponges, such as the Luffa (loofah?) shower sponge.

^^Bai He: Lily Bulb. Apparently it is often called 'Bai he' in English as well. I guess it peels apart and you use shreds of it in cooking or just to eat.

^^Sheng Jiang: Ginger. I have personally never seen ginger before. Maybe that's just because I'm not much of a cook, but here it is.

^^I know that this is called 'Shan Yao', but I do not know the English translation or what the heck this thing is. It appears to be a very organic vegetable.

^^Dong Gua: Winter Melon. I'm not exactly sure if this is a fruit or vegetable. It seems to be a mix between a cucumber and a melon. I think it is a fruit. It's HUGE though, and you purchase it in pieces.

^^This is 'Zong Zi', Chinese rice dumplings. They are small bamboo leaf-wrapped dumplings filled with rice, meats, beans, egg, and other exciting treats. They are commonly eaten in celebration of the Chinese Holiday 'Dragon Boat Festival Day' or 'Duanwu Jie'. Linda tells me that this holiday is celebrated to honor a man named Qu Yuan, a famous Chinese scholar and government officer during the Zhou Dynasty who committed suicide after being accused of treason for opposing an alliance that the Emperor had built with some other state. Qu Yuan killed himself by drowning himself in a river. The local people paddled boats into the river and threw zong zi into the water to distract the fish so that they would not eat Qu Yuan's body. And so now, people around here eat zong zi and have dragon boat races to celebrate the holiday! Quite an interesting piece of Chinese culture. The holiday actually just happened a month ago. Unfortunately I did not get to see any dragon boat races, but I did eat some zong zi...it's pretty delicious.

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I'm heading off to Beijing in an hour!! Paul, Ibbi, and I are taking a 12 hour night-time train ride up there...should give me some good time to finish up my mid-term evaluation for school. I'm very excited to go see the capital of China and the Great Wall and everything else that the city has to offer! Organizing a way back to Shanghai was tough, but we got it done. All of the good train options were all sold out, so we're taking the crap train...apparently it has no air conditioning, hard plastic seats, a TON of people (standing, sitting, laying on the ground, etc), and it's going to be a 24 hour ride (it must go about 30 mph max, I don't know why it takes so long). Around here, they often sell tickets to people even after all of the seats have been filled. So people stand or sit on the ground for some rides. I really hope we have a seat!! Ibbi got the tickets, so we'll see on Tuesday I guess :-) The three of us all get along really well, so it should be a lot of fun either way. Nonetheless, it will certainly be an adventure...

I believe our hostel has internet (i'm going to take my computer), but it is $4.50 per night to stay there, so you never know what you're gonna get with a price like that! People always say 'you get what you pay for'...we'll see! I'll try to make some posts to my blog from Beijing if I get some time, but don't be too puzzled if you don't see a post again until Wednesday.

Chairman Mao, I will soon become a man! :-)

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PMM