I am pleased and honored to have a guest blogger for the next couple of entries: Denny. As many of you know, he made the great leap forward to come visit me and check out the joint. He wrote down his impressions and was kind enough to let me reprint them on my little blog. So, without any further ado, but with a few pictures to show (click to enlarge), I give you the first installment of:
Biting China: DH in PRC '06
I spent nine days visiting Curtis in Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Ningbo, China this summer.
Curtis lives in Ningbo which is about the same latitude and proximity to the ocean as Houston, Texas. Think hot (95 - 97F) and humid. Here are some of my observations before I forget them.
On the way to China my flight from Akron-Canton Airport passed right over Orrville and Wooster, which gave me a bit of homesickness as I headed for the other side of the world. You then fly over northern Canada and Alaska to get to China.
As a child I thought of China as the place that you get to if you dig deep enough. I was surprised to find that a Chinese friend, Shane, used to dig in his back yard to get to America!
Although the flight to China is long, my impression is how small the world is. And although you can not find a culture and history much different from our own than China's, I found more similarities than differences. People are people and cities are cities. Just substitute Chinese people and Chinese writing.
China is more developed than Cuba and Jamaica.
Curtis was waiting for me at Shanghai Airport. "Helmuth!", he called. "Curtis!", I called back. Curtis was a huge help getting acclimated to this new country. My first surprise was when Curtis was text-messaged by someone he called his "roommate", which turned out to be his girlfriend, Cathy. Cathy is Chinese, Chinese name Yao Hai Ya. She jokes that she is a cousin of Yao Ming. Cathy is sweet, expressive, genuine, and a good cook. She speaks some English and Curtis speaks some Chinese, so somehow they communicate effectively.
We spent the first night in Shanghai, China’s largest city. It was dark except for street lights. They turn off advertising lights at about 10pm to save energy. When we returned the following weekend I saw Shanghai lit up in all its splendor. We had our first drinks at Captain’s, an outdoor bar overlooking the Whangpoo River.
The first day in Shanghai we had Western style food for breakfast and lunch, but that would be my last Western food for the trip. If you wanted to, and you could afford it, you could eat at McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Hagen-Das, Starbucks, or Pizza Hut, but why travel 7400 miles to do that?
Chinese restaurants are not like American Chinese restaurants. The dining process is as different as the food.
First of all, because there are so many young women looking for work in the cities, the service is lavish in every restaurant, from the hostess who opens the door for you to the waitress who doesn’t leave your table until she receives your instruction. Often there was just one menu, which was fine because there was often just one person at the table who could understand it. That person picked out about seven dishes. Before long waitresses were delivering drinks and setting dishes of food in the middle of the table.
People eat by grabbing bites from the middle of the table with chopsticks. It's fun sharing food in this manner, although germ-phobic Americans might find it a bit disconcerting. Second-hand smoke phobic Americans might also object to the Chinese custom of pausing in the middle of dinner for a smoke break, right at the table. No ashtrays? No problem. The floor or a little food saucer works as well.
Many of our manners are optional in China. To eat you just put a bite of whatever in your mouth. You work it around in there and if there are bones or hulls that you don't want you spit them on the table. Then you stick the next bite in your mouth and repeat.
Typical dishes are shrimp (shells on), seaweed, tofu, pork, stringy mushrooms, peanuts, green soybeans (hulls on), eel, fish, and sea cucumbers. Items are marinated in some kind of soy sauce. Much like the US, southern styles are spicier. The best part is the bill. Four people can eat and drink like royalty for about $18 -- and there is no tipping in China.
Taking one bite at a time from the center of the table with chopsticks leads to less caloric intake and is equally satiating compared to our method of dining, which is basically to put large mounds of food on a large plate in front of you and shovel it in. I usually gain weight on vacations, but this time I lost a pound and never was hungry. Of course, walking a lot in 96 deg heat may have had something to do with that, as well.
There is a lot more I could say about dining, from charcoal grilling in the middle of the table to live shrimp flipping on the dishes, but I'll leave some things for you to discover when you go to China.
(To be continued. . . )
Biting China: DH in PRC '06
I spent nine days visiting Curtis in Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Ningbo, China this summer.
Curtis lives in Ningbo which is about the same latitude and proximity to the ocean as Houston, Texas. Think hot (95 - 97F) and humid. Here are some of my observations before I forget them.On the way to China my flight from Akron-Canton Airport passed right over Orrville and Wooster, which gave me a bit of homesickness as I headed for the other side of the world. You then fly over northern Canada and Alaska to get to China.
As a child I thought of China as the place that you get to if you dig deep enough. I was surprised to find that a Chinese friend, Shane, used to dig in his back yard to get to America!
Although the flight to China is long, my impression is how small the world is. And although you can not find a culture and history much different from our own than China's, I found more similarities than differences. People are people and cities are cities. Just substitute Chinese people and Chinese writing.
China is more developed than Cuba and Jamaica.
Curtis was waiting for me at Shanghai Airport. "Helmuth!", he called. "Curtis!", I called back. Curtis was a huge help getting acclimated to this new country. My first surprise was when Curtis was text-messaged by someone he called his "roommate", which turned out to be his girlfriend, Cathy. Cathy is Chinese, Chinese name Yao Hai Ya. She jokes that she is a cousin of Yao Ming. Cathy is sweet, expressive, genuine, and a good cook. She speaks some English and Curtis speaks some Chinese, so somehow they communicate effectively.
We spent the first night in Shanghai, China’s largest city. It was dark except for street lights. They turn off advertising lights at about 10pm to save energy. When we returned the following weekend I saw Shanghai lit up in all its splendor. We had our first drinks at Captain’s, an outdoor bar overlooking the Whangpoo River.The first day in Shanghai we had Western style food for breakfast and lunch, but that would be my last Western food for the trip. If you wanted to, and you could afford it, you could eat at McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Hagen-Das, Starbucks, or Pizza Hut, but why travel 7400 miles to do that?
Chinese restaurants are not like American Chinese restaurants. The dining process is as different as the food.
First of all, because there are so many young women looking for work in the cities, the service is lavish in every restaurant, from the hostess who opens the door for you to the waitress who doesn’t leave your table until she receives your instruction. Often there was just one menu, which was fine because there was often just one person at the table who could understand it. That person picked out about seven dishes. Before long waitresses were delivering drinks and setting dishes of food in the middle of the table.
People eat by grabbing bites from the middle of the table with chopsticks. It's fun sharing food in this manner, although germ-phobic Americans might find it a bit disconcerting. Second-hand smoke phobic Americans might also object to the Chinese custom of pausing in the middle of dinner for a smoke break, right at the table. No ashtrays? No problem. The floor or a little food saucer works as well.
Many of our manners are optional in China. To eat you just put a bite of whatever in your mouth. You work it around in there and if there are bones or hulls that you don't want you spit them on the table. Then you stick the next bite in your mouth and repeat.
Typical dishes are shrimp (shells on), seaweed, tofu, pork, stringy mushrooms, peanuts, green soybeans (hulls on), eel, fish, and sea cucumbers. Items are marinated in some kind of soy sauce. Much like the US, southern styles are spicier. The best part is the bill. Four people can eat and drink like royalty for about $18 -- and there is no tipping in China.Taking one bite at a time from the center of the table with chopsticks leads to less caloric intake and is equally satiating compared to our method of dining, which is basically to put large mounds of food on a large plate in front of you and shovel it in. I usually gain weight on vacations, but this time I lost a pound and never was hungry. Of course, walking a lot in 96 deg heat may have had something to do with that, as well.
There is a lot more I could say about dining, from charcoal grilling in the middle of the table to live shrimp flipping on the dishes, but I'll leave some things for you to discover when you go to China.(To be continued. . . )
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