But Ms. Jing doesn’t go for that; she says she’s “completely Chinese.”

Lou Jing – "completely Chinese"

You can expect a bumpy, bizarre road if you don’t look “white” in the U.S. and you say that you are; confusions, misunderstandings, and even hostility will come.  If you look brown or even darker, if you have a broader nose, lips, or ears (or if it’s the opposite) and call yourself “white…”

But 20-year-old Lou Jing a recent contestant in China’s “Go Oriental Angel” (their version of American Idol) has left the country with questions about how it sees itself – particularly what or who is “completely Chinese.” You see while Ms. Jing’s mother is Chinese, her father is African-American.

Ms. Jing recently declared herself “completely Chinese.”  While this seems bizarre to many people, most particularly if you’re “white,” this isn’t so very new.  Paul Seriodio is the “white” South African who chose to call himself African-American when pressed about a form.

Of course the U.S. must contend, and make clumsy peace, with the remnants of the African Holocaust (the Atlantic slave trade).  China doesn’t have that history, that experience.  It and Japan discovered their own biases against each other centuries ago, but that was very different.

Lou Jing as she poses for "Go Oriental Angel" – China's "American Idol"

Ms. Jing’s decision reminds me of when I chose to stop – or at least stem the flow of – my anger at Anglos.  While people routinely break the inter”racial” down to a binary of Black and white, which just doesn’t carry much water anymore – to put it politely), I rebel against that.  But that’s a whole nother story; a digression for a later time.

My heritage, as with most other peoples’, no matter whom they are and where they’re from, is more varied and complex than that.  If I were angry at Anglos, and their heritages were a part of mine, then doesn’t that come back to me?

In my own multicultural or multiethnic experience, I’ve wondered, and mentioned in this journal, how surprised I am to be embraced as African-American.  So I understand Ms. Jing’s choice, even if I can’t actually relate to it.

Here Anglos and people of color alike might call Ms. Jing nuts or deluded.  But you have to ask how “race” operates in China.  There are some scholars perspectives on Chinese biases or bigotry. While it only represents on, point of view and there is probably some bias, it might shed some light on a barely and rarely comfortable question.

What happened when she went to school?  “She used to wonder why she had black skin,” said one classmate. “We thought about this question together and decided to tell her it’s because she likes dark chocolate. So her skin turned darker gradually.”  Another classmate weighed in, “We said it’s because she used to drink too much soy sauce,” according to Cnn.com

Why did she not ask about her color or her father, who she’d never met, until she was 16-years-old?  These are natural questions in the United States; they are a part of a coming-of-age.

The notoriety that Ms. Jing has received makes the way she describes herself so much more important.  As with questions about what makes someone Black, or how they chose to describe themselves so, if they don’t look it, the same must be asked about being Chinese.  These are questions that must be answered about how color biases work in China where there are very few people of color.

Apparently coming-of-age stories may be as foreign to China as the idea of a pretty, brown, Shanghainese woman calling herself “completely Chinese.”

i can’t believe i still haven’t blogged about my favourite restaurant…. anyways.. Jesse (吉士) is my favourite restaurant… i go there everyday when i’m in shanghai…

my uncle (the one who introduced me to Ding Tai Fung) also introduced me to Jesse as it is his “canteen” and i fell in love with Jesse..the best Shanghainese food in the world! it is also the reason why i keep going back to Shanghai..

The restaurant is located in the French concession and inside the charming brick house, is a two level restaurant…it has only 10 ish tables (and there’s another dining room located next door and has only 3 tables) ..therefore.. you need to reserve a table a couple days before … it’s quite famous for its authentic cooking… Time Magazine listed it as the best restaurant in shanghai..celebrities are often seen leaving the restaurant… despite its star appeal.. the restaurant is quite down to earth.. with attention paid only to the food… there’s hardly any service…

anyways.. onto the food…

my favourite shanghainese appetizer.. kao fu (braised wheat gluten)… it’s served warm.. and the spongy wheat gluten is soaked with the ultra tasteful  like sauce ..so flavourful!!!   Jessie has the best kao fu!

another appetizer..salted chicken…the skin is crunchy and the meat is tender… you can’t have this chicken anywhere else..

my mom’s favourite appetizer.. jelly fish head in vinegar.. crunchy!

mmm.one of my favourite dishes @ jesse.. braised sea cucumber with shrimp roe…it’s braised until soft.. but still springy..and the shrimp roe adds to the flavour of the sauce..(sometimes.. the sauce is a bit too salty)

this is the most famous dish @ jesse… braised pork with bamboo shoots and cuttlefish…the thing that makes this special is the sauce.. yes.. the RICH and dark sauce.. i can eat a bowl of rice just cause of the sauce!! the pork has the thick later of fat on top.. then the meat.. then fat.. then meat again.. i usually don’t eat the fat.. but this fat is so good!  and the meat’s so tender!!!

another dish that taste better in shanghai.. stir-fried freshwater shrimp..shrimps were so fresh and sweet…plus! the shrimps’ deshelled!

pan fried fish.. the fish is huang hua yu.. crispy, no fishy taste, sweet fish meat.. yumm! no other pan fried fish can be compared to this

vegetable tofu crab meat/roe soup...soothing soup..hao qing…

other delicious plates (sadly.. no pictures)

chicken soup

crab fried with salty egg yoke (once..they ran out of salty egg yoke and couldn’t make the dish..but seeing how dejected i were.. the lao ban niang told one of the waiters to run out and buy salty egg yoke to make the dish!!)

crab meat/roe with jelly noodles or crab meat/roe with tofu (xie fen dou fu)

fried man tou

dates stuffed with glutinous rice

typing this made me salivate…. and i can’t wait to go back to shanghai in june to eat @ jesse again!! counting down!! D-6 months!!

FAIM? OUI OUI!!

Jesse 吉士

No. 41, Tianping Road, Shanghai

Tel: +86-21-6282-9260.

Aah, The Crystal Mall Food Court. To me it’s an eternal paradox. An endless variety of stalls offering up flavors from all over Asia. Unfortunately, cheap, low-quality fare is more than often the norm. Although, I’m willing to bet, each of the thirty or so stalls has at least one or two really decent items. At Wang’s, the Xiǎolóngbāo, is one decent item.

Xiǎolóngbāo is a steamed pork dumpling that contains a cube of frozen meat gelatin. When steamed, the cube melts, creating a juicy, extremely hot, soup-filled dumpling. The dangers and perils of quick consumption can be nasty.

Ground pork is seasoned with ginger, soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine, salt and pepper. The dumplings are created before your eyes.

The Xiǎolóngbāo served with Chinkiang vinegar. This is where decent chopstick skills come into play. One wrong move and it’s game over. Luckily I’ve been practicing! This is also where the “hot juice in our buns” warning comes in really handily! A few minutes of patience can replace a week of mouthburn.

The Dan Dan Noodles were a tasty yet gloppy mess of way too much peanut butter and nowhere near enough chile oil, vinegar and mustard greens. I hoped they would go with the traditional Sichuan version instead of the Americanized one. Oh, well. The search continues.

All told, for a food court, this is pretty decent fare. There are no steam tables…everything is made to order. You would be hard-pressed to get five made-to-order Xiǎolóngbāo for $3.75 in these parts.

Shanghainese Restaurant at Citic Plaza
Address: 3rd floor, Citic Plaza

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One night we were in the mood for Shanghainese food, so we headed to the Shanghainese restaurant on the third floor of Citic Plaza. Sorry, for again I have forgotten to grab and business card and as a result have totally forgotten the name of the establishment…But Citic Plaza…it’s not that hard to find.

The restaurant was fairly small in Chinese standards and on that weekday evening it wasn’t very crowded either. The atmosphere was quite all right but I was a little peeved that the table next to us was producing an unpleasant amount of cigarette smoke; I hate smoke.

Anyways, on to the food. First, tea was served. Their tea cups here are quite unique, as can be seen by the photos. However, I think it only had an aesthetic appeal, as the taste of the tea wasn’t enhanced in any way.

Then came two appetizers (which we didn’t order but weren’t free either), salted peanuts and marinated vegetables, suan cai. The peanuts were somewhat unique; instead of simply roasted peanuts crusted with salt these ones had a layer of some other spice added. I can’t remember how they tasted anymore, but there was something different about them…and the suan cai was just suan cai, nothing special.

<img src="http://a4k2nw.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pIov9YDaVOAeJHh8VuproKsjy9SLh6sVnCSuqRtCZ4YI6vYRgZK-tKYaWAov-XIDoG8OZinV8V

Nope, I haven’t popped over to the mainland unnoticed by the sentries but I have been to a Shanghainese restaurant called Beautiful Shanghai in Cyberport for a spot of lunch this week.

What can we expect from Shanghainese food I hear you splutter in between mouthfuls of Doritos?!
I really don’t know….perhaps a mixture of pleasurable taste sensations from my humble lunch time experience.
Here are some pictures:

The dumpling on the left had a piping hot soupy mixture inside it which could have been nasty if I were not warned well in advance. The right side dumplings were mixture of veg and shrimp. Just popping in to shot some pork strip.Nice. Next!

Hmmm Shanghai Noodles. Tasty thick glutinous noodles with a beefy oily sauce and a smattering of vegetables. The word smattering can only be used in the context of food.

Didn’t have much of this. Stringy noodles in a bath of peanut broth. It was so peanuty don’t bother stepping foot inside of Cyberport if you have a peanut allergy. You’re in danger.

Would I dine here again. Yes. I would feast down upon a big dish of Shanghai Noodles making growling barking sounds to ward off any table friends wanting to share.

from http://bonkersinhonkers.wordpress.com

I’ve started my business Japanese class. Time now has become precious.I’m enjoying myself in my business Japanese class, time always seems to pass back faster than my prep class. There’s much more interaction, which I enjoy, yet it’s more stressful.

Right now, I’m planning on what’s going to happen after my Japanese exam, which is in Dec. Being so busy has in fact its pros, because I’ve realised that I should continue to make good use of time even after the exam. As a result, I’m thinking of learning Shanghainese to better understand my roots, on top of that learn a European language, although I very much want to learn Korean, but due to time constraint, I can only do limited stuff (talk about opportunity costs~) The reason why I want to learn a European language is because I’ve already known Mandarin, Japanese and English. Knowing a European language is important, as least in this competitive world. I’m considering between French and German. There’s more people who speak German in the world, plus I’m very much interested in the German culture. I’m thinking about Spanish as well (it’s the 3rd most spoken language in the world, after English and Mandarin) Well, at the moment, I’m waiting for reply from the 2 places that offer Shanghainese to reply me, before I start making up my mind on which to learn.

Next week, I have to call the travel agency to check with them if the trip to Shanghai is confirmed. Can’t wait to go to Shanghai.

Shanghai is like my second home. Since I was seven, I’ve been here every other summer. And I still love it all. Okay, maybe I don’t particularly like always being covered in a sheen of sweat or having enough mosquito bites to look like I’m suffering from chickenpox again. But we will just overlook these two facts because it’s summertime.

For the past couple of days, I have just been wondering the streets and making the obligatory rounds to see relatives and family friends. My relatives are still as zany as ever. One of my uncles has decided that the unpredictable Chinese stock market is not for him. His mantra: “Who needs stocks, when you have eBay!” Yup, he’s taken to bidding for everything that is silver, old, or just plain weird off of eBay. I think appraisers would have orgasms at the sight of his apartment. He’s got a rock from the South Pole, a Tiffany’s china set, a Russian teapot that dates to 1887, a pure gold cigar box, lots of Chinese calligraphy, enough silver to make a life-size statue of Mao (sorry, I just want to use my commies tag again), and a German grandfather clock that’s currently being shipped from Boca Raton, Florida. And to no surprise, when I arrived at his apartment, he immediately whisked me to his computer and made me translate some phrases – “handpainted,” “silver on bronze,” and I had no idea how to say or mime “pendulum rod” in Shanghainese.

I spent most of today with my aunt (the one that lives on the first floor of my grandma’s house). We went to Pudong – the newer, financial district of Shanghai – which is now home to the second tallest building in the world.

The Shanghai World Financial Center at a whooping 1,614.2 feet! Here is a better picture of it. Doesn’t it look like a bottle opener?! Supposedly, the aperture used to be a circle, but the Chinese government deemed that it looked like the “rising sun” of the Japanese flag. Excuse me, I’m away laughing on a fast camel right now.

I am the 1,428,131st visitor to SWFC. What an achievement.

On the 5 meter per second elevator up to the observatory deck. It was kooky. They had this “calming” music in the background, weird lights, and these spinning rings that were hypnotizing me.

There were actually two observatory decks – one on the 97th floor(below the aperture) and the other on the 100th floor(above). This is the 100th floor.

Sorry, no witty/dull commentary needed here. Insert your own.

Ahhh, standing on transparent glass! What you see is the bottom of the aperture or floor 97.

The skywalk also had special viewpoints. Sears Tower totally ripped off SWFC…

I love me some pollution.

The Jinmao Tower, which is literally right across the street from SWFC. It used to be the tallest building in China. Construction is already starting on another building in Pudong, which is supposed to become THE tallest building in the WORLD. Oh man.

After all that tallest building excitement, we decided to go to the mall in Pudong! I forget what it’s called, but it’s somewhere along the lines of “New World Shopping Mart.” I used to love shopping in China. Unique clothes, cheap prices. Now it’s all Western names – H&M, Nike, Sephora, Zara, Coach, Miss Sixty… It actually kind of pisses me off. I appreciate how China is trying to “Westernize” itself, but I feel like the country and the people are losing their identity and culture in the process.

On a lighter note, we had lunch at a restaurant in the mall. It called its style of food “Neo-Tang Dynasty,” which I’m pretty sure they made up to sound artsy and hip. However, the tea I had was really refreshing. I thought the little green fruits were limes, but my aunt told me that they were actually unripe kumquats!

Shaved ice with red beans! The best dessert ever in the Shanghai heat. My newest fear is that I’m going to get diabetes…

Now that I’m posting all this pictures, I kind of wish I had one of those fancy pantsy SLRs. Too bad I know nothing about photography other than the Rule of Thirds, but even that baffles my mind. I will post more of pictures and adventures later. I have to hit the sack early tonight since I have a badminton date with my aforementioned uncle. I should ask him if he got his clock yet…

My aunt and uncle tell the best stories. During dinner, they’ll tell anecdotes from their past. Who knew my uncle was such a prankster? Seriously, it puts me to shame. He would rub stinky tofu (that stuff is LETHAL) on his annoying roommate’s guitar strings. So when his roommate tried to impress the ladies, to put it mildly – it had quite the opposite effect. And my aunt reminisces a lot about her experiences in the countryside during rustication. She’ll tell me how on the “good” days, she’d only be stuck dumping out buckets of human waste. And she giggles a little bit when she recounts how groups of guys would serenade her and her roommates outside their cabin. The best part is when she talks about my dad in his younger days. Apparently, my dad refused to speak a single word of Shanghainese until he met my mom at college in Alabama. In my aunt’s words, “Oh, what love will do to you!” On the other hand, I think they really enjoying telling me stories. My uncle goes into full theatrics (miming, spit-flinging, facial contortions, etc.) to get laughs out of me. My aunt, I think, just likes having someone listen to her. People should write a journal or a book or just a collection of their fondest memories before they die. Then, these memories can be passed down like an heirloom or a folktale. And they would be much more interesting and personal to read than an 800 page history textbook. They would all be primary sources! Seriously, wouldn’t it be fascinating if all those centenarians wrote autobiographies? They’ve witnessed so much: globalization, the Digital Age, the rise (and fall?) of cars, decolonization, the World Wars, urbanization, vast changes in standards of livings, and so on. And even if you weren’t a celebrity, a pioneer, or a mogul in your lifetime, the record of these memories would make it all seem worthwhile, right? Maybe I’m just being a little history nerd, but I think that would be the coolest thing ever.

I think the only person who should be exempt from this would be my cousin. What would her entries be like? “Today, I saw a red Mercedes!“ “Hubby finally bought me an iPhone! You know those cost 5000RMB right?” “I’ve decided I need to lost weig – oh, ice cream!” Like most things about her, her vapidity scares me.

*quote attributed to my aunt, in the context of playing mahjong

This past weekend a few of us made our way out to the suburbs for the three B’s: buddies, BBQ and beer.  While out there, I feel like we got to a full taste of what life is like outside of the city.  We woke up fairly early on Saturday morning and grabbed brunch before making trips to Costco and Canadian Tire.  Costco is awesome!  Everything is HUGE!  After making the rounds we relaxed in the afternoon and went to pick up some meat for the BBQ.  I don’t know what the name of this butcher shop was but it is the reason we occasionally make the trip west to Brampton (aside from visiting our buddy of course).  The raw chicken is served on long skewers and taste like they have been marinating for days in a mystery array of Indian spices.  The thick and juicy thighs (or Thai as it is labelled in the store) stains your hands if you hold them for too long.  My buddy throws them on the grill and you can immediately hear the soothing sizzle of the meat.  As we wait around, having a few beers, you can smell the aroma of the cooking meat.  My buddy, who I’m now calling the Indian grill master, rotates the skewers around periodically to cook the meat ever so perfectly.  Look at the perfect grill marks on the chicken.

Once the meat come off the grill a few of us dive right in.  Even with a burnt mouth, it tastes amazing!  The Indian spices are spicy and rich.  The heat strikes a pretty high score on the, “How much is this going to hurt tomorrow morning” scale, but it is well worth it.  Our other friend brought a salad, for which we made fun of him at first, but were later grateful since it balanced out the heat.  It was a great start to an even better evening.  I won’t go into the details of the rest of the night but let’s just say there was music, flying cups, school rivalries, a broken screen door and some… well an inappropriately dressed (or not so dressed) individual.

We arose Sunday afternoon and grabbed some Hakka Chinese food before leaving Brampton.  Mmmmmmm.  Chile chicken, Manchurian chow mein, Garlic chicken, some weird fish thing that was really good….mmmmmm.  There is a place in Toronto that also serves Hakka food that I think is pretty amazing but I would like to try more dishes first before sending people there.  Anyways I arrived back in town and I get a call from a friend, “I’m hungry.  When are we going for pho?”  I said anytime is good so we left right away for Markham.  Now my friend has been raving about this vermicelli for some time now so I had pretty high expectations.  We arrive at Pho 88 (note, this location is much better than the ones in the city) and we order the pork vermicelli with a spring roll.  I felt the need to get some fruit in me so I also ordered a strawberry milkshake… I know, I eat like a five year old.  The vermicelli arrives and smells delightful.

I begin mixing everything together and then take my first bite.  The noodles are thicker than most vermicelli dishes I’ve had which means one crucial thing… it soaks up more sauce!  Awesome!  The noodles were tasty, juicy and a little hard to pick up.  The meat was wonderfully marinated and burst with flavor once you bit in.  And then there was the spring roll.  I was anticipating a roll of grease as most spring rolls are, but this, this was a work of art.  It wasn’t too greasy and the blend of vegetables and the deep fried roll almost put tears in my eyes.  It was magical.  Upon finishing my friend looks at me and says, “So, dumplings?”  I was pretty full but I thought, “I made the trip up here, I might as well try it all.”  We made a quick stop at T&T to pick up some jelly straws, yes my friend eats like a five year old too, and then made our way to a Shanghainese place call Ding Tai Fung.  We had to wait about ten minutes before getting a table and while waiting we noticed an article on the wall that said, “Pork fat rules in Shanghainese Fare”.  It sounded delicious.  We sat at the table and ordered the soup dumplings and Shanghai noodles.  The dumplings arrived first.  Upon first glance, you could see the soup floating around inside.

I carefully picked one up and placed it on a spoon.  I shoved the whole thing into my mouth and upon first bite, you could literally taste a burst of flavor.  Upon breaking the wrap layer, the soup comes rushing out and as you chew, it mixes with the ball of meat inside (I’m pretty sure it was pork).  Wow, I’ve had some good dumplings in my day but this one definitely ranks up there.  The noodles arrived next.  I was pretty full at this point so I only had one bowl.  

Among the thick tasty noodles were pieces of meat and vegetables like shitake mushrooms.  I LOVE shitake mushrooms!  They have the wonderful characteristic of being able to soak up a lot of sauce, so if the sauce is good, like in this dish, they are that much more amazing.  We couldn’t finish all of it so we packed it up and my friend took it home.  I was sitting around before lunch today and began to crave the dumplings and noodles.  I went down to the food court but couldn’t find anything close so needless to say the chicken yakisoba I had so lunch didn’t quite cut it.  Man!  Now whenever I want a vermicelli fix or a Shanghainese fix I have to go to the burbs?  I guess I was wrong about the suburbs when I said there wasn’t very much to do….they can eat and whoa man….they can eat well.

My first food review takes place at the JW Marriott Hotel in Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. On the first floor is the Shanghai Restaurant. It is tastefully decorated with a warm ambience. The table cutleries were perfectly laid and we have a variety of spices like chili padi available to cater for individual tastes. The waitresses are well trained and it did not take us very long to decide on our orders for the evening.

Our starter was the mandatory Shanghainese offering of steamed Shanghainese meat dumplings. One of the best I have tasted in KL so far although I-Dragon’s dumplings may have a slight edge over these! We were served by the waiter who took care not to puncture the dumplings so that the soup remained wrapped inside.

Next came the dishes that we ordered to go with white rice. First was braised pork with pine nuts and vegetable, served together with tiny plain buns. The pork meat was half fat and half lean and tasted perfect to go with our rice.

This was complimented well with a bean curb dish and a vegetable dish (Tian Jin cabbage with ham).

Our next dish was a deep fried “yellow fish”. This was “de-boned” for us before being served. The amazing thing about this fish was that it was so deep fried that we could literally eat the entire fish including the fins and fish head without worrying about gagging on the bones!

We could not resist trying out the Shanghainese fried noodles and ordered this as an after thought.

Finally, there was the desserts. We ordered steamed layer cake and the restaurant also threw in a complimentary plate of heart shaped jelly for us!

It finally came time to get the bill and as anticipated, it was pricey. The meal for 5 adults cost us a nett total of RM481! To be fair however, we noted that the biggest contributor to this was the “yellow fish” which cost RM188! The braised pork dish cost RM60 while the rest of the other dishes were more affortably priced. The key question here is whether I would come back again to dine at the Shanghai Restaurant? My answer is a resounding YES! The food is very well cooked and presented, the service is very good and the ambience is warm and cosy. I just need to watch out for those yellow fishes!

Once I had decided to study Chinese, my next step was to choose between Mandarin & Cantonese.

In retrospect, based on everything I now know, it should have been an easy choice. But I spent quite a lot of time reading, reviewing & debating. In case it helps you, here are some of the items I considered at the time.

• According to Wolfram|Alpha, there are approximately 1 billion people who speak Mandarin, of which nearly 900m speak it as their first language.  Cantonese, on the other hand, is spoken by 55m people. Mandarin is by far the number 1 language in terms of the number of native speakers, and that’s a good reason to speak it.
• And of the 55m who speak Cantonese, a large proportion also speak English. For Mandarin, this is not the case – so in terms of actually needing to speak Chinese, Mandarin is the clear choice.
• Mandarin has 4 tones (plus neutral), which is difficult enough for Westerners to grasp. Cantonese has 9 tones (plus neutral), which definitely makes it more difficult topick up.
• Even in Hong Kong, where Cantonese is the main language, in recent years it has been Mandarin that is now compulsorily taught (especially at international schools), and not Cantonese as I would have thought.
• Most of the material on the web for learning Chinese is Mandarin-based. It’s not impossible to find Cantonese material, but the choice is certainly much more limited.

The main reasons I would have chosen Cantonese were:

• I was visiting Hong Kong quite often, and Cantonese is the main   Chinese language spoken there.
• Chinese restaurants generally seem to have Cantonese-speaking staff. Of course I’m generalising, but when I eat Chinese – in London,  New York, Munich, Zurich, Johannesburg – they don’t always speak Mandarin, just Cantonese.

Life’s never simple, and so even choosing Mandarin isn’t enough – because there are many dialects which exist too. The most commonly-taught version is Standard Mandarin, known as Pǔtōnghuà [普通话]. And the good news is that most of the Mandarin course material on the Net seems to focus on  this Standard Mandarin. Other variations include Guóyǔ [国语] which is spoken in Taiwan and is actually quite similar, Shangainese, Beijing dialect, and others.

Here are some additional links which might be of interest:

• Mandarin on Wikipedia
• Cantonese on Wikipedia

And if you have a different opinion to mine, let me know in the comments.

So we dedicated a good few hours to mobile phone shopping yesterday, hitting up a Suning (think Curry’s with better know-how and customer service) as well as Electric City, a giant, all conquering, electronics store with brand concessions in Shu Jia Hui.

The range of phones on offer was impressive to say the least, with a good combination of Western, Korean, Japanese and Chinese brands at all price ranges and functionalities, but I was greatly amused to discover that a fair percentage of the models on display were not in store at Suning – something my wife and I deduced as being a case of brining in the punters.

By the end of the day we finally made a purchase, the Motorolla Q11 – a Blackberry looking device with QWTERY keyboard, that runs Office applications in addition to Outlook. The experience was enhanced by the seemingly entrenched practise of haggling in China, whether it be at the market or in-store.

Haggling is fierce source of pride to the Shanghainese and Hong Kongnese, but is a source of ridicule for other groups who accuse them of being penny-pinching.  However it is a culture here, and my mother-in-law is something of a Master of the Art of Haggling, almost never paying the display price for goods – I’ll never forget the time we went for a meal and she told the owner to cut the lunch menu price (it was already 3pm) by 40% or we wouldn’t sit down (the owner relented).

I think it is a very admirable quality, but given my rather shy and weak personality I’ve only begun to make tentative in-roads. I was interested to read recently that haggling is back in vogue in the U.S., where even department stores such as Saks are bowing to consumer demand for greater value.

Before leaving London, my wife and I embarked on a mini-spending spree of designer goods, purely because the cost much more in China, and found that we too were able to negotiate discounts in brand stores. For instance we managed to save around 35% on new-season Chanel and Ray Ban frames, a nice saving indeed.

We were thus able to negotiate a basic 15% discount at the store, and the sales girl insisted that if we came back to her she’d throw in some more stuff, and she did: an in car-device to hold the Motorlla as a GPS navigation system, a new bed cover and pillow case set (no, really) and 5 store scratchcards. Result.

However I was left empty handed, the Meizu M8 (Chinese I-Phone) not being available in any stores. It wasn’t until I got home and used Google Translate on the Meizu Chinese website that I was able to generate a list of local stockists, and so I hope to pursue my interest to the next step.

Finishing with a note on yesterday’s theme, Frustration, I found out that wi-fi enabled smartphones are not legally permitted in China – hence why all the I-Phones I was offered yesterday were fakes – and that this will not be rectified until Q3 of this year!

Continuing apace with my blogging on day 1, I put it down to 3 things: keenness, loads of free time spent at home, and a love of the sound of my own voice – written or vocal, any attempt to sleep was delayed by the impending family dinner with my wife’s mother’s side of the family.

I had met all but one of them before – those of you with a good memory will recall that I spent my honeymoon on a nine day coach tour of Europe with her grandparents and 41 other Chinese tourists – and was thrilled to meet Dai Z, my wife’s cousin who has spent the last 5 years living and studying in Melbourne, Australia.

To sit at the dinner table with 60% English speakers was great, and allowed me to communicate with more than elaborate hand gestures, smiling and random bursts of words hastily memorised beforehand in Mandarin and Shanghainese. There ain’t no bowing in this part of Asia.

Yes, you’re right, that is Shanghainese. China is not composed purely of Mandarin and Cantonese. There are 50+ ethnic groups in China, many with their own dialects*, which are all totally dissimilar to Mandarin – in fact many Beijingnese (bless their souls they only really have Mandarin going for them) confuse Shanghainese with Japanese when they come in contact with their far sexier and intellectually advanced cousins from the south. One of the aims of this blog is to explore Shanghainese culture.

In fact my rudimentary language skills passed the first test. I recited the correct titles awarded to each member of the family, in Mandarin and then where possible in Shanghainese, with the relevant family members able to understand what I had said without needing to be warned that I was about to attempt to communicate with them in their own tongue. The Chinese family system is complex, with correct addresses for public and private occasions, but I’m awaiting the huge family gathering in mid-May to blog about this more.

Dinner consisted of Duck – every conceivable part of the animal: liver, intestine, heart (truly delicious), gut; alone or in pancake, along with some side dishes but no rice and three bottles of free beer (apparently a promotion with the whole duck we had ordered). This was had at a brightly coloured restaurant (yellow and red) in the heart of the city, the West End of Shanghai: Shu Jia Hui.

The obligatory polite amusement at a Westerner’s chopsticks skills was dished out, as was the customary try-each-dish-first custom for guests. Food is big business in China, massive in fact, and families routinely eat out togrhter. Sat around a large table with rotaing plate in the middle, dishes are served throughout the meal. Tonight was relatively simple, only 11 dishes over 2 and a half hours.

* If you want stats and figures on ethnic groups and dialects, Google it. This blog is not an encyclopdiea or guide, listing facts you neither care to or are able to remember past the end of the sentence they are contained within.

Alright, so it’s been almost 2 weeks since my last post. Been feeling rather lazy lately, and school has been….not very cooperative. Luckily, this weekend I was able to get out and get some photographing done with, once again, with Steve. This time Daniel couldn’t make it, but in his place we have a new (dare I say) member: Andrea! She managed to borrow a Nikon D90 with a 17-55mm f2.8 lens from the yearbook class and she actually got some really nice shots (she doesn’t think so but they are really good). She recently made a website and the link is under “Andrea’s Site” on the right side. Anyway, the place we went to was called “Nitobe Garden”. It’s located inside the UBC campus and, as the name suggests, is influenced by Japanese style gardening.

Now for some completely random facts: Steve had a Nikon D300 and Andrea had a Nikon D90. This made me the odd one out as I had a Sony A700. I wore shorts, they wore jeans one again making me the odd one out. Both are from Hong Kong, I’m Shanghainese. Always the odd one out it seems.  The day was really more of a “let’s go mess around day”. To roughly quote Steve: “We’re probably gonna end up having more picture of each other than the actual place.” He was pretty much right. But we had fun, and that’s what counts. But I really need to try and get some more pictures of the place, an less of everybody else next time.

The picture you currently see is our new photo geek: Andrea. She is carefully making her way over a bar that was placed there in order so people DON’T go across.

Hit the link below to view more.

A bridge located inside the garden.

A slight waterfall.

Your typical family taking pictures. Their expressions are pretty nice.

It’s like a wild wild west shootout….but with cameras.

Take a picture through 2 cameras, and this is what you get. Nice effect.

Definately weren’t the only people there with cameras.

Cherry blossoms are always nice along both sides of a road.

After an entire day of admin madness, I realised I had not eaten the whole day. Incidentally, as I had to go to Raffles City to collect some suits from alteration, S and I met there for dinner.

We had previously chanced upon this restaurant and had a satisfying dining experience there. At that time, we thought of trying some place new and we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food served. I can’t quite recall the actual dishes we had the previous time but I know the Fried Prawns were extremely tasty and well done.

Today, I suggested eating at LuLu again but this time for a more simple fare as we both feeling broke. Lulu is located at the basement of Raffles City, next to Toast Box (I think). Nothing particularly draws you to the restaurant except maybe the huge paintings of famous women.

For today, we decided to eat as minimally as possible for the both of us were on a “Conserve Money” campaign. I had the crispy noodles with beef, whilst shao had the shanghai fried noodles. I also ordered the fried silver fish with salt and pepper. The quality of food here is pretty high and they maintain a consistently high standard. All the dishes we ordered were well done and tasty, leaving us with no chance for complaints. My beef was tender and served a generous portion; the noodles were crisp and the gravy was just the right amount. Not too starchy and not too diluted. Shao’s noodles were also very good and the boy gobbled it up quickly. Even the fish was yummy. I love it how it’s peppery and salty all at the same time. The fish had relatively more meat than most places I’ve tried, yet it maintained a very palatable feel such that the fish literally melted on your tongue. YUMMY!!

Service here is also quite prompt. The staff are friendly and the restaurant strikes one as being unpretentious, no frills and focused on just dishing out good food.

I will definitely be heading back to check out more dishes. In the meantime, for those of you working in the area and running out of lunch ideas, you just might want to pay LuLu a visit.

Met up with Duan for a quick lunch one day, well it was 4pm after branch hours so not sure if that still qualifies as lunch. Duan and I go way back. We were pretty close during college days but I guess as we got older, with more distractions in our lives, took different paths, we never remained as close. We still kept in contact but it was no longer the way it was in school.

Anyway, we decided to on Cathay’s basement where we settled into this restaurant specialising in la-mien. I am afraid I can’t really recall the name of the restaurant, but I think it’s called Mian Mian Ju Dao. I had been here previously and had the dry la-mien which was pretty tasty. Today, I ordered my usual favourite – GUO TIE.

Whilse most people come here and order the Xiao Long Bao – it’s not bad too but I don’t know how to appreciate Xiao Long Bao; I come here for the Guo Tie.  This place serves the BEST GUO TIE I’ve ever had. It’s huge and not overly-stuffed. The meat is sweet and the wrap is just amazingly yum. It’s not too thick, not too thin. Just right. And when they fry it, it comes with some extra crustings, like some sort of biscuit, which gives it it’s unique taste and sets it apart from all the guo ties I’ve tried. I highly recommend this dish.

The dry la-mien is also pretty good. Although I’ll have to say I am NOT a fan of la mien but the preparation was full of flavour and very tasty. I didn’t totally enjoy the dish because of the la mien but I reckon some of you out there might love it. (Sorry! But I can’t recall the exact name of the dish!)

Xiao Long Bao. Now I didn’t really like this here. The skin was thick and there wasn’t much soup in the xiao long bao. That aside, the soup wasn’t even tasty and the meat wasn’t sweet. A no-go for me.

We decided to try the Prawn Paste Chicken on an itch. Dissapointing. I kinda knew once the dish arrived when I saw that it was red. The real yummy prawn paste chicken don’t come all red as that means it was just fried with lots of packeted prawn paste. Sorry peeps, the top honours for prawn paste chicken goes to my home-cooked ones for now. Haven’t found any place that serves it better than home.

A pretty nice place to just take a break from work for that mid-meal of the day as it is near my office building, yet nicely tucked in a corner of the basement. I am not sure what it’s like at lunch time or dinner, but at least during the times I am there, it’s pretty empty and service is quite prompt.

I am gonna take a neutral stand on this place. It’s not somewhere I’ll strongly recommend but I’m not gonna diss it either as there are some good yummy food here. So I guess it’s your call.

Seeing Duan was quite a jolt for me. That hour when we were just catching up, I felt so comfortable with him yet at the same time foreign. Granted, he has been there periodically at the various points of my life, but it’s like we just meet each time to tell a story, our story. I don’t really know where I am going with this, but I have some old friends who were there during the “most important” times of my life emotionally, yet now, it all seems less monumental and less significant. Talking to him also reminded me of the girl I used to be. I look at the girl I am now and I am not sure if I like what I have become. I think I turned out ok, but alot has changed. We are coming 26 this year, just started working not long ago, and soon, we’ll be in a different stage whereby we get married, start our families…I am just glad I have friends who are still with me, friends who have been growing old with me…

Shanghai was a lot of fun. The friends of the family are well off and on vacation so gallavanting around the nice parts of Shanghai was a nice change from when I was living there and broke. Made it to JZ Club one night and the music was phenomenal. So were the many beers.

I was propositioned for an interview at a Korean HS through a friend while I was there, but I’m not sure I’m going to take it. The pay is ridiculously high, but there’s a lot about the position that just doesn’t work for me right now. For one, it’s more than an hour commute to the school from downtown. Two, it’s a real high school teaching job. Now, don’t get me wrong, I actually love teaching, but this job is essentially a career move and I’ve got other ideas I’m not sure I’d have the time or space to develop if I went that direction right now. 8 hours a day, 5 days a week in a completely non-Chinese environment means less Chinese and in ways, less ‘China’.

I bumped into a friend in Shanghai who was with a Japanese friend and talking with him (as little as I could) reminded me that I still have my foundational Japanese. It’s crap, but it’s still pretty much there. At some point in the future I definitely want to seek out some opportunities to use more Japanese.

I’ve also decided that if and when I move to Shanghai I will be finding a Shanghainese tutor. I’m not going to study very hard, but just a few hours a week would make a difference and sure as hell be a lot of fun.

This weather recently has been awesome as far as I’m concerned. It’s ‘cold’, but at least the air is clean, crisp and clear. Also, most importantly the sun is out all the time. Nanjing summer are hot, stuffy and way too gray. I’ll take having to wear a scarf and a hat over that any day.

This Sunday had another cultural program in store for me. I happened to visit the Jade Buddha Monastery, getting a glimpse on this particular religion and also the rites and celebrations which are entailing the praying/wishing to Buddha.

The Jade Buddha Monastery is famous for the Jade Buddhas in it. In the reign of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing dynasty, the old Master Hui Gen from Putuo Mountain of Zhejiang Province traveled through China and paid visits to famous mountains and monasteries, as well as well-known people. He started from the Putuo Mountain, traveled through the Wutai Mountain, and the Emei Mountain, from Sichuan he entered into Tibet, then into India and some other countries for sightseeing of the Buddhist sites and relics. Finally he reached Burma. When he found Burma was rich in jade and Buddhas were carved in superb craft, a keen desire to carve jade Buddhas came over him. Then he begged for money everywhere and obtained donation from Mr. Chen Junpu, a Chinese settled in Burma of over 20,000 taels of silver. He also got the special permission from the Burmese king to dig and select jade in the mountains and hired excellent jade carvers to carve five jade Buddhas in big and small sizes, all decorated with treasured stones and big pearls. All the faces of the jade Buddhas were bright like the full moon, and everything was in perfection and solemnity. As soon as the Buddhas were carved, Master Hui Gen started his journey back. When he passed through Shanghai, he left two Buddhas for disciples to worship[...] (History)

After that Aurora and me went to the Jing’an District where we had a stroll to Jing’an Temple which currently is under construction, unfortunately. The Temple, also known as “Temple of Peace and Tranquility” is a Buddhist Temple which was rebuilt in Qing Dynasty. During the Cultural Revolution it even was converted into a plastics factory and in the 80′ies converted back into an active temple following some renovating process in 2003 (Source: Wikipedia).

We of course also had a walk through the Jing’an Park, which is just across the street. Following that we enjoyed a typical Shanghainese dinner at a classy restaurant.

So, this was mainly my update for the eventful last week. I hope you’re all fine and everthings well in hometown and Austria in general.

All the best,

Mike

By Wendy Chan

How can we celebrate spring without bamboo shoots? We should get our hands on some fresh bamboo shoots while they are in season, in spite of the fact that we may have to travel some ways to an Asian market and pay about $3 – $5 a pound.

Slices of bamboo shoots are among those iconic ingredients like baby corn and water chestnuts that make a Chinese dish Chinese. It is also commonly used in many Asian dishes, such as Japanese (often steamed or pickled), Thai (typically with coconut or curry) and Vietnamese (stir fry with vegetables). The canned ones are relatively inexpensive, and I usually have some in my pantry as a good standby. Slicing or dicing the shoot, I conveniently use them as an easy addition to stir-fry, braised dish (such as goat in clay pot, accompanied also by re-hydrated soybean sticks, red dates and dried mushrooms) or pork bone soup with some Virginia ham. Perhaps bamboo shoots in classic Asian dishes assume the role of celery in mirepoix (the onion, carrot and celery trio sometimes referred to as “the holy trinity”) of traditional French cooking.

But one bite of the fresh version will utterly shatter your taste buds’ recollection of what bamboo shoots taste like. I’d say the difference, especially the texture and mouth feel, is like night and day. The crispy property of fresh shoots is umpteenth times better than the sad, soaked version. A taste of the real deal will lead you to a path of no return. Of course, when it’s not in season, I suppose you just have to settle for the canned shoots and patiently wait for the next spring.

Fresh bamboo shoots are the young culms that come from the ground, and they only became available in local markets in the past few years, typically around spring and early summer. These perishables imported from Asia are still a bit pricy. Like an artichoke, the little package of delicacy, the heart if you will, is well protected by its outer sheath-like casing which is not edible. Many people may be intimated by the imposing look, wondering how to begin to attack this strange thing?

If you are one of those – fear no more. One quick chop with your cleaver (or large sturdy knife) approximately down the middle, vertically will reveal the gorgeous layers. You just remove the outer sheath to get to the soft center.

My husband’s favorite fresh bamboo shoot dish is a Shanghainese sautee number, mixing diced pork loin, bamboo shoot, carrot, sometimes even mushrooms with a sweet and tangy soy bean sauce. I honestly think the texture and flavor of this little bundle is so heavenly, that these shoots should not share billing with other ingredients. Inspired by an article written by Mark Bittman in the NY Times about how delicious simple stir-fry fresh snow peas could be, I tried gently wok-frying slices of blanched bamboo shoots with some chopped pickled cabbage (typically available in a can) with just a tad of peanut oil and lightly season with a sprinkle of sesame oil. Voila! A spring dish that rivals Vivaldi’s orchestral masterpiece!