Showing posts with label NOMS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NOMS. Show all posts

Friday, August 5, 2011

Top Chef Harbin

If you know me well enough that you're reading my blog, you probably know that I LOVE food. I love to cook and eat, explore restaurants and farmer's markets, peruse food blogs and devour cooking magazines...basically anything related to food.

So when it came time for me to pick my 1-on-1 tutorial topic for the CET program, it was an easy decision: CHINESE FOOD CULTURE

In addition to learning a lot about a topic of your choice, the real purpose of the 1-on-1 is to improve reading and writing abilities, so my classes have been in a classroom, reading, discussing, and writing (while trying to prevent myself from drooling all over my essays). This past Friday was my final 1-on-1 class and my teacher decided that I should get a full, authentic experience by making the food myself.

My 老师 and I set off for her house. After a cab ride and a short walk, we reached a large, gray, cement apartment building. We hiked up to the 6th floor and entered the apartment, which she shares with her parents and her son. Although her father was not home, I was able to meet her son and her mom.


老师's mom was a small, elderly woman who, I quickly realized, would be my sous-chef. My 老师 had told me she was not a good cook, but I figured this was just the characteristic Chinese modesty. It seemed, however, that her mom shared this view, as the menial tasks like washing vegetables were left to her, while her mom and I did the real cooking.


The menu for the day was a combination of her suggestions and my own, all 炒菜: stir-fried dishes. The dishes were 西红柿炒鸡蛋 (tomatoes and scrambled eggs), 辣椒炒牛肉(stir-fried peppers and beef), 鱼香茄子(spicy eggplant), and 干煸豆角(spicy dried green beans). Once the ingredients were out on the counter, we quickly got down to business. 老师's mom would give me instructions and I would work. At first she was apprehensive, especially when she handed me their chopping cleaver. I've worked in a professional kitchen before, so I'm used to using big, sharp knives. But when this little old lady pulled out a cleaver, I was a little concerned too.


I began to chop and she breathed a sigh of relief before turning to 老师 and saying, "she chops much better than you do." Not awkward at all...

After chopping, I moved over the giant wok. Beside the wok were a large ladle (ok, no worries) and a pair of LONG chopsticks. WHAT? Chopsticks are apparently a cooking tool, but only if they are about 18 inches long. I've mastered using chopsticks to eat, but that's for small foods with small chopsticks. This was picking up entire eggplants with foot-and-a-half long knitting needles chopsticks. In other words, long enough that I had absolutely no control over what they were doing. I waved the sticks around like antennae, until 老师's mom yanked them away, handing me a pair of tongs. Chopsticks-1, Emily-0.


We kept on going at a fast pace until all four dishes were done and laid out on the table. And not going to lie, the dishes looked pretty (cue self back-pat). With the four dishes, a pot of tea, three small bowls of rice, and homemade zhou, the table was all set.


The three of us sat silently, hunched over our bowls of mifan--white rice. "吃多菜。吃多菜。" The silence was punctuated by 老师's mom demanding encouraging me to eat more. In Chinese culture, when a person has guests over for a meal, they are supposed to encourage their guests to eat more, and more, and more, far past the point of comfort. The guest, once full and done with the food on his/her plate, can politely refuse by saying, 我吃饱了--I'm full. The host will usually insist three or four more times before accepting the polite refusal. Even though I was the cook at this meal, I was still a guest in 老师's house, so it was only appropriate that her mom would make sure that I ate. A LOT.

The meal ended with fresh watermelon. I got up to leave and profusely thanked both 老师 and her mom. 老师's mom's response?

"Eat more. Are you sure you're full?"

I awkwardly smiled and insisted that I was full, before heading out back through the courtyard with the recipes that my teacher had given me.

As I work this weekend on my final paper for my 1-on-1 class, I can't help but thinking, can't I just cook? Anyone can write about Chinese food, but to make it, you've got to understand it.

Oh well, I guess I'll just have to finish my research by eating at a few local restaurants. It's a tough life :)
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Saturday, July 23, 2011

Old Harbin: Noms and...PUPPIES

This past Saturday, CET scheduled a trip to Old Harbin. When I heard the name and was given a map with highlighted "preserved streets," I assumed we were headed to Harbin's very own Williamsburg--we would see old buildings in mint condition and perhaps (my fingers were crossed), a few Harbiners clothed in fashions from the early 20th century.

Expecting to find the Chinese Williamsburg, I was slightly disappointed when the bus dropped us off at a busy intersection, with the driver screaming at us to get off as people honked from behind...maybe not historical China, but certainly AUTHENTIC China.


Anyway, we hopped out across from a large, blue mosque. And when I say blue, I mean sky blue, baby blue, aqua blue...a pretty color, sure. But the color of a mosque next to an intersection in Harbin? Maybe not...

Passing by the mosque, we continued to walk along streets lined with old buildings. Despite the demarcation of "PRESERVED" on the map CET gave us, the buildings were run-down and decrepit. Some of them clearly had been beautiful and impressive at some point in time, but now they were sad and even kind of pathetic. The buildings continued in the same style until we peeled off into a smaller alley filled with food carts.



There were vegetable carts, fruits carts, seafood stands, butchers, bakers, etc...I love going to food markets at home and seeing fresh produce and goods with the people who make them. But China makes the experience even more real: crawfish crawling out of their containers, butchers slitting chickens' throats, ducks roasting over fiery flames. Obviously we were the only foreigners in the alley and most of the salesmen got a kick out of guessing where we were from: Russia? Canada? Sweden--Do Chinese people even know what the stereotypical Swede looks like? Because I'm pretty sure it's NOT me.






Exiting the alley, we continued down the road and headed out to the riverside. Moseying down by the river we walked through the "bird and fish market." By bird and fish, it really meant grimy little newts and tadpoles. Tupperware containers filled with water and small fish lined the street. The fish salesmen sat on sofas behind the containers and in front of enormous glass fish tanks. Given that the fish were so tiny, I can't imagine who would buy tank that could fit 3-4 people in it. Umm... WEIRD.



After we passed through the fish, we came to a puppy section. Let me repeat that: PUPPIES. As in tons of puppies of every kind playing, barking, nibbling, napping, etc...As in my heart melted and I turned into a sappy mess. I'll admit, I sniffled a bit when a saw a few that reminded me of Kim J (Oh, my Kim J)...but the small huskie nibbling on my finger made it hard to stay sad for too long.







We took forever in the puppy section and only left because we realized we had to rejoin the group for dinner. Still babbling about the puppies, we headed for dinner.

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Monday, July 11, 2011

Wedding Crashers Rule #71: No excuses. Play like a champion!

After celebrating the death of a chicken on Saturday, I had the chance to take part in a totally different celebration on Sunday: a wedding.

Ma Laoshi, one of the CET teachers, got married on Sunday and invited her students. Although I am not her student (in fact I had never met her before I congratulated her after the ceremony...shhhhh!), 魏德 invited me on her behalf. Apparently there was a general +1 invite put out to all the American students. Never one to turn to free food and a party, I jumped at the opportunity and began to refresh my memory of the immortal rules of Wedding Crashers.

On Friday, Ma Laoshi gave her students the address of the restaurant and said that it would be casual, but that was it. Casual? Like jeans? Or like "anything less than a floor-length ballgown"? I had no idea so I put on a dress and hoped that I wouldn't embarrass myself. Scratch that. I knew that I would bring my A-game. Rule #71: No excuses. Play like a champion.

To make matters more complicated, none of us could ask our roommates or other teachers about Chinese wedding culture because Ma Laoshi is a Huimin, a member of the Hui ethnic minority group. The Hui people are one of China's 55 ethnic minority groups, or shaoshu minzu. Most Hui are from western China and are Muslim, so their customs and ceremonies are pretty different from the average Han celebrations. Since the Han people make up 92% of the population of China, almost everyone here is Han, so not only was this MY first Hui wedding, it was also the first for all of our other teachers.

In any case, we had NO idea what to expect. So when 8 other students and I gathered in the dorm lobby at 9:45 AM, I glanced around the motley crew of Americans, pretty convinced that we were invited as the free entertainment.


We arrived at the restaurant, or should I say wedding factory, and were ushered into an elevator as another wedding party was leaving the building. I should add that on Sunday we saw over a dozen wedding convoys. But in a country that has almost 1.4 billion people, I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that a few million people were getting married last Sunday. Anyway, as I stood in sardine formation, I suddenly heard "MiLi" come from the back corner of the mob jammed in the elevator. Only able to turn my head slightly, I glanced out of the corner of my eye and saw...Sun Laoshi, my 1 on 2 teacher. I know that at this point in my life I should be over the whole, "it's awkward seeing teachers outside of school" phase, but I'm not. I mean, how are you supposed to act? So with my jaw still gaping, I mumbled something that was supposed to be ni hao ma? and was pushed out into a large room.



The room had large tables that were filled with chattering Chinese people. The 9 of us were seated at our very own special foreigner--waiguoren--table which was OBVIOUSLY right next to the table with all of our teachers, most of whom were in jeans or casual casual clothes so we all looked like the overdressed jerks. Perfect!


When I sat down, I was first struck by the incredible wedding slieshow projected on a screen. It would have been sweet and cute if I wasn't so distracted by the lyrics to "Truly Madly Deeply" that were proclaimed across each slide. The lyrics, "I want to I wanna stand with you on a mountain, I wanna bathe with you in the sea, etc..." were misspelled and likely not understood by any of the Chinese people in attendance. Soon the emcee came out, dressed in a somewhat traditional Muslim outfit. The entrance of the emcee, who was as crucial a part of the ceremony as the bride and groom, was accompanied by music. But not just any music. The theme to Pirates of the Caribbean. Because nothing says wedding like a table full of Americans staring at the door expecting Captain Jack Sparrow to enter with his classic swagger. Unfortunately, the emcee was not a pirate :(. As the emcee began to work the crowd and our table slowly began to be swallowed up by massive plates of food, a young Chinese Imam eyed our table.

The Imam excitedly approached the table and began to talk about his religion and tolerance. He was clearly excited that we had come all the way from meiguo to participate in the ceremony and his speech was quite emotional. It sounded like the some bonus Chinese stanza off of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way". Essentially the English translation was,

"Whether Christian, Muslim, Jew,
we want to make peace with you;
You see our goals are the same,
That's why I'm glad that you came!

...Ooh there ain't no other way, baby, I was born this way..."

You get the idea...

Shortly after the Imam left our table, the first ceremony began. Two Imams and a Hajji presided over a combination of Chinese and Arabic. Both Ma Laoshi and the groom were dressed in more conservative Muslim outfits--although Ma Laoshi's red and gold outfit was pretty stylish. After the ceremony was completed, the star of the show (the emcee) and the bride and groom all left the room for a fast costume change. Meanwhile...NOMNOMNOM. For the 9 of us at the table there were about 18 dishes. By the time the emcee and bridegroom returned--this time in western attire--we were all stuffed. And it looked like we had barely touched the food.


Part 2 of the wedding was like a western wedding gone haywire, but there was an exchange of rings and I'm pretty sure something like vows were said. When it was over, we all got together for the requisite waiguoren photo op, before the restaurant staff hustled us out to let the next wedding party begin.


Overall the ceremony was beautiful and it was amazing to get the opportunity to see such an incredible event. But it wasn't without it's more bizarre, memorable moments. Some of the highlights:

1) Contrary to my initial beliefs (since it was a Muslim wedding), there was alcohol. And lots of it. Each table was given large bottles of hapi, Harbin's beer, and a handle of baijiu, China's lethal contribution to the world's liquor cabinet. In fact, the bridegroom and their parents all took shots of baijiu during the ceremony. Name lihai!

2) As the Muslim part of the ceremony came to an emotional close, the bridegroom and emcee all grabbed handfuls of prunes and peanuts (I'm not sure from where) and launched them into the air. The only problem was that our table was about 1 yard from the threesome, so the small, edible objects rained down on us, hitting our heads and splashing into bowls of soup on the table. Throughout the meal, as we would take food from the various plates we would discover random peanuts and prunes covered in all sorts of sauces and mixed with all sorts of ingredients.


3) The Hajji, an old Chinese man, gave a speech that, for much of the time, was focused on the American guests. Although the intention was sweet, it's kind of awkward to be featured in the wedding speech/toast of a wedding where you've never met the bride OR the groom--I'm pretty sure John and Jeremy (Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn's characters) would be proud.

4) There was a small wedding favor left on each table in the middle of the Lazy Susan. It was a small red and gold bag--about the size of a jewelry bag--that had a few pieces of hard candy, a box of matches, and his-and-hers boxes of cigarettes. Because nothing says "Congratulations on the Wedding" like a box that comes with a warning label because its contents are "harmful to your health."
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Friday, July 8, 2011

Tiger Attack: A Tale of a No. 1 Adventure Bus and a 50RMB Chicken

I, like so many other people, have watched the movie Jurassic Park with somewhat mixed feelings. Obviously the film is supposed to be an adventure, thrilling and frightening viewers by warning against the dangers of a dinosaur amusement park; however, on some level, the movie fails. Why? Because I still DESPERATELY want to go to Jurassic Park! While this blog post won't relay any tales of freakish science experiments or velociraptors (unfortunately), it will tell the tale of the Harbin Siberian Tiger Park, which comes pretty close.


Earlier today, three friends and I hailed a cab and headed to 东北虎林园, the Dongbei Tiger Park. About 30 minutes later, we climbed out in Tigerland: tiger figurines, paintings, dolls, stuffed animals, murals, statutes, etc... I would say some of the decorations verged on kitschy, but when I saw the top-hat-wearing, pipe-smoking baby tiger figurine, I quickly realized that everything was totally necessary and appropriate.


We lined up to buy student tickets, but were slightly distracted by a group of middle-aged Chinese men taking our pictures. Uh-oh. The paparazzi had been tipped off to our location and they were at it again. After answering the usual questions (ni shi eluosiren ma?--Are you Russian?), we politely posed for a few dozen pictures and then jostled back to the ticket counter. For 57RMB per person (about $9), we each purchased a student ticket and the split the cost of a 50RMB live chicken. SCORE.

Wait...What? A live chicken?

As we learned in our 1 on 2 classes this week, 入乡随俗...When in Harbin, do as the Harbiners do--which in this case means buying live animals to watch large Siberian tigers attack, destroy, and enjoy. NOMNOMNOM.


In case you've made it this far, I'll provide one last warning: If you find this sort of gruesome, carnivorous thing repulsive or offensive or you're a card-carrying member of PETA, I advise you to stop reading this post now (and to never accompany me to a steakhouse; I've been known to eat ungodly quantities of steak, my favorite food. NOMNOMNOM).

So with our chicken receipt in hand, we boarded onto a No. 1 Adventure Bus (according to the Chinglish sign). The bus, a sort of safari bus with bars on the windows, loaded up and headed towards the gaping mouth of a tiger that doubled as a gate into the park. The gate opened, letting our bus into a middle area between a series of about three gates, each 20 or so feet high and topped with barbed wire...Welcome to Jurassic Park.

We bumped along through what looked like pretty average terrain until I spotted some orange out of the corner of my eye: A TIGER! We kept bumbling along until we sided up right next to it. Up close, the tiger was both enormous and beautiful. It powerfully glided over the ground, gracefully placing its giant paws one in front of the other. After the initial gasps and squeals, the passengers of the bus collectively AWWed as the tiger laid down.


We passed tiger after tiger until we entered a new part of the park, where a small van rolled up next to our bus. Suddenly, a hand reached out of the van and placed a squawking chicken--OUR squawking chicken--on its roof. Before we knew what was happening, BOOM! A tiger jumped on the roof of the van and sank its massive teeth into the chicken. The chicken, which had gone silent--SURPRISE!--accompanied the victorious tiger into a bush, where the tiger proceeded to pull mouthfuls of feathers, meat, and bones off the chicken. NOMNOMNOM.


The people on the bus erupted in cheers. And I'm not going to lie, I cheered as loud as any other person on the bus (maybe louder...I was pretty proud of OUR chicken). Everyone kept buzzing about the tiger's snack until we entered yet a different area of the park--the LIGER section.

What's a liger?, you might ask.

"It's pretty much my favorite animal. It's like a lion and a tiger mixed... bred for its skills in magic."

If you're like me, your knowledge of ligers is limited to Napoleon Dynamite. The animals are, in fact, crosses between lions and tigers, though unfortunately not bred for their skills in magic (but then again, with the Chinese government ANYTHING is possible). The ligers, slightly smaller than their full-bred counterparts, were equally beautiful. We paused beside a pair grooming each other before heading back into Tiger world.

Our No. 1 Adventure Bus tour came to an end, depositing us in front of a pathway that led over several other tiger areas. These areas brought us up close and personal with a few dozen more tigers. As we passed through the walkway, we came across a museum employee standing over a bin of live, clucking chickens (probably the siblings of the one we sacrificed to a tiger) and dangling a piece raw chicken meat into the tigers area. The tigers quickly spotted the meat and zeroed in on it. One jumped up on the fence, gnashing its teeth at the meat.

After being so wary of Chinese food safety and sanitation (or more accurately, lack there of), my instinct was to warn the tiger, "Zhuyi nide weisheng!"--pay attention to your sanitation--but I remembered that all tigers eat raw meat and watched as the satisfied tiger ripped the chicken chunk away from the employee and swallowed it in one gulp.


We continued our way through the maze-like walkway and exited back into the parking lot, unable to contain our enthusiasm: hao wan debudeliao!

Other than the fact that I still have yet to see a velociraptor, the trip was a success. I mean, I got to cheer with Chinese people as a 700 lb. mammal annihilated a chicken...what could be more exciting than that? (Please note the utter lack of sarcasm.)

And if you ignored my previous warning and are totally disgusted with my post and enthusiasm for tigers ripping live chickens to shreds, TOO BAD.

NOTE: All of the pictures from my trip to the Tiger Park can be found by clicking on the album link below:

Siberian Tiger Park, Harbin
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Sunday, June 19, 2011

Harbin: Three Days of Real Life(ish?) in China

The past few days have been a slightly awkward limbo between adapting to life in Harbin/Chinese culture and waiting for classes and the language pledge to begin. We have toured the 哈工大 campus, downtown Harbin, met our roommates, and explored the area around the campus. As I said in my previous post, the campus is HUGE and constantly filled with people. The cafeterias, classrooms, streets, and ball courts are always busy. In my state of zombied jet-laggedness, I was awake at 4:30AM and saw countless people playing basketball across the street. Maybe it's dedication to become the next 姚明 (Yao Ming), but it also might just be that with so many people on this campus, someone is always out and about.

The second full day in the city we took a bus to downtown Harbin to tour around. The city has a bizarre mix of Russian architecture and Chinese signs. Several official buildings have plaques in Chinese, Russian, AND English, but most signs are only in Chinese.


In fact, very few buildings have any sort of English. Without key landmarks like 肯德基, KFC, and 必胜客, Pizza Hut, to remind me of home, I might not have even recognized that I was on the same planet! Our RA, Eric, also gave us time to explore Fendou Food Store, 奋斗副食，a supermarket-esque place downtown. The market was AMAZING, with fruits, nuts, meats, fish, etc...The stand with the overflowing piles of dried fruits were across from the pyramids of steaming bāozi, which in turn were next to the chicken feet and goose heads.


The upper levels of the store had the requisite KFC, but also several clothing stores. Ever since arriving to China, I have noticed that young Chinese people seem to wear a lot of clothes with English words--but the words don't always make sense. The clothing stores as the shopping center specialized in this type of Chinglish fashion, with bright colors, large fonts, and total nonsense.



Later that day we met our new roommates, who then took us out for dinner. A small group of CET students and their roommates headed to dinner at a Szechuan restaurant. Szechuan food has a reputation for being spicy even in the US, but the spice there pales in comparison to the heat in China! One of the most famous Szechuan dishes is Mapodoufu, in which the ma means "to numb." So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when the dishes that had tiny peppercorns literally numbed my mouth.

Sunday we finally met our 1-on-1 course teachers. My topic--Chinese food culture--is pretty broad and my teacher and I began to figure out a way to focus on more specific subjects. But most of the lunch we had together was spent discussing differences between American food culture and Chinese food culture. My teacher was shocked when I said: 1) I rarely, if ever, go to McDonalds or KFC; 2) fast food restaurants are not considered "nice" American restaurants; 3) I don't fry all of the food I eat at home; 4) I don't eat soup everyday; and most shocking of all: 5) I like coffee (weishenme? she begged in response, tai ku le!)

Sunday morning was bittersweet since the language pledge began at 2PM. We all wanted to keep speaking in English, knowing that the pledge would be frustrating and exhausting. Yet, at the same time we all came for the pledge. Hopefully it will all be worth it.
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