Scorpion on a stick anyone?

In the centre of Beijing is a Street Food market called Donghuamen Night Food Street (东华门美食坊夜市). I'm not convinced that locals ever eat anything there. Maybe if you're on a date or something? But mostly it's tourists, foreign or Chinese, looking for something weird to eat and a good photo opportunity. The theme is food on a stick. Strawberries, kiwi fruit, chicken, fish, pork, lamb, snake, centipede, squid, crab, prawns, silk worm larvae, star fish, scorpions, grasshoppers, sea urchins – you name it, they've got it.

We weren't brave enough to try a scorpion, so instead we went for some squid and a Beijing Burger. The squid was pretty good, tasted like squid you'd get anywhere, with a good spicy sauce added after it was grilled over charcoal.

A Beijing burger is basically like a hamburger – bread, kind of like an English muffin but a bit softer, split in two and containing some minced meat. It was hot and reasonably tasty if you ignored the grease. Thoroughly uninspiring really. I guess it would be a good 3am post clubbing fix, but otherwise I wouldn't bother. Go for the centipede instead.

Long live the great unity of the people of the world!

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was visiting Beijing the day we went to Tian'anmen Square. Hence all the Australian flags proudly flapping in the breeze. The title of this entry is one of the two inscriptions next to Mao's picture: "世界人民大团结万岁 Long live the great unity of the people of the world". Rather fitting I thought!

Tian'anmen square was modelled on the Red Square in Moscow, however Chinese architects managed to make it five times bigger than the Red Square. You can certainly fit many matching hat wearing tour groups into the square on a Tuesday afternoon.

For most Chinese people, if they only ever make one visit to Beijing in their life, Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City are the two places they will go and see. Tian'anmen Square symbolises the power and success of the Communist Party through its stark Stalinist architecture, completed in record time by hard working and committed patriots, and its massive scale. The Forbidden City represents China's glorious imperial history. Most of the younger generation do not know anything about other event's that occurred at Tian'anmen (literally 'The Gate of Heavenly Peace'). It's interesting that Westerner's have such different ideas associated with these places.

I wonder, if you could look inside someones imagination as they gazed awestruck at the vastness of this concrete square, what would a Chinese person be imagining and what would a Western person be imagining?

My advice – bring a hat. It's hot and there are no trees. Security risk, you know.

Dim Sum Beijing Style

Apologies for the two week silence. I have been inundated with guests, and playing host requires a lot of time and effort and eating out. So now I have lots of material and hopefully, a little time on my hands to regale you all with it!

All my guests get taken to a Cantonese restaurant near Ditan Park called Jin Ding Xuan. It's in a fantastic old Chinese style building that is garishly lit up at night, with loud Chinese pop music piped outside presumably to please the waiting customers. There is always a queue. They do dim sum (or yum cha) and they also have an a la carte menu. We pondered both and excitedly ordered a large selection of dim sum and some soft shell crab.

The food is excellent, on a par with the best dim sum places I've been to in Sydney and Singapore. The sichuan dumplings are something I have not come across before. Pork dumplings in a wonderful spicy sichuan sauce – which goes with absolutely everything! We also had sichuan noodles, which again are very spicy and have a great texture with the crunch of peanuts.

By the time the soft shell crab arrived we were quite full. But we decided we had ordered it, we would have to find the space to eat it! The crab, deep fried in a light batter, was juicy on the inside with a nice crisp texture to the batter. It was served with a sweet chilli sauce – but also worked well with the sichuan sauce from the dumplings!

Those of you who are aware of my teapot obsession can admire the final photograph – the restaurants teapots. I want one. Such a lovely shape and colour. I think we had about 6 refills of hot water!! Conveniently, the bathrooms there are quite clean so you can drink tea to your hearts content!!

Bells and Whistes

It occurred to me last week that I have been here in Beijing for nearly two months and have done hardly any sightseeing. So I thought to myself, this Tuesday, on my day off, I WILL go and do something touristy.

Well, you know how it is on your day off. You sleep in, faff about, have a leisurely breakfast, check your email. Suddenly it's 3pm. My options were therefore limited. A friend had recommended the Lama Temple as something you could do in an hour. So to the temple I went.

The Lama Temple is one of the best kept traditional Buddhist temples in Beijing. There were a lot of tourists there, but also quite a number of locals praying and burning incense.

After walking through the temple compound I sat down to enjoy the sunny afternoon in the peaceful gardens. I happened to sit next to an ancient giant bell. As I sat in deep contemplation about what to eat for dinner a group of monks came by and looked at the bell. One of them leaned in to try and move the giant hammer that makes it ring, much to the delight of his friends. They walked away laughing and smiling.

Five minutes later a group of Russian tourists came by and one of the guys in the group, I guess he must have been about 50 or so, smiled a mischievous  boyish smile and did exactly the same thing. He leaned in and tried to make the bell ring. His friends laughed in appreciation.

Boys and their toys, always the same wherever you are in the world!

Leftovers anyone?

As a newbie in Beijing, the best way to meet people is to go to every single social event that you get invited to. You never know, you might meet someone vaguely interesting! Last Sunday I failed to make it to the 9am service so instead went to the 11am service. Strangely enough the crowd is much younger at the 11am service. Can't think why?

I happened to sit next to an English teacher, who was sitting behind his friend, another English teacher, who after service caught up with another English teacher. I was delighted. 6 English teachers. How exciting. Maybe we could all go for lunch and talk shop about exciting topics like 'how to make prepositions vaguely interesting'. So I invited myself to lunch.

We went to a pizza place called 'The Tube Station' near Yuanmingyuan park. We were 7 people so we had to wait for a table to be cleared for us in the upstairs section. As we were waiting, a table of 6 in the corner stood up and left. On their table they left two half eaten 18 inch pizzas. The guys in the group looked at each other and said 'Let's sit there'.

They then proceeded to tuck into the still warm leftover pizzas. I cringed with embarrassment. The waitress was right there. She could see what they were doing. Plus, how could you eat leftovers? What if people had sneezed all over it or something? The waitress came over and tried to take the pizza's away. The guys argued with her. In the end she took one away and left the other for us.

They looked at me and said, 'You have to try some. It's really good. You haven't lived 'til you have eaten someone else's leftovers.' I dithered. They all looked at me. I thought to myself 'the whole point of coming to Beijing is to be adventurous and try new things.' So I consented to eating half a slice. It was actually pretty good. Thin crust, lukewarm, barbecue meat flavour. Pizza always tastes better when it's been sitting there for a while – the flavours have had more time to sort of melt together.

We did eventually order more pizza. Another 22 inch half and half 'Tube Station Special' plus Barbecue Chicken. To be honest, I think the leftover one was better. The base of the 22 inch wasn't as good. I think in making it bigger, it lacked something of the thin and crispy nature of the 18 inch crust. Still, we enjoyed it.

I washed it down with a Tsingtao beer – you know, to kill any germs form the leftover pizza! My mum has a theory that if you eat slightly dodgy food you should always drink beer or coca cola to make sure you don't get an upset stomach. Conveniently, beer is very cheap in China!

I was disappointed with the shop talk. Strangely enough, my new friends - twenty something adventurers from various corners of the globe who found teaching the easiest way to get to China – didn't seem to want to talk about prepositions over lunch. Ah well. There's always next week!

Stop Thief!

The first time I saw a guy carrying a handbag in Beijing I looked around for the girl who had been robbed and thought 'how do I contact the police here?' And how do I say policeman in Mandarin? But no, the bag was not stolen. As you can see from the photograph, carrying your girlfriends handbag is just something sweet that boyfriends do here in Beijing. 

This couple are obviously very close – note the colour coordination of their respective outfits. His red shoes match her coat. And her handbag has gold bits that match the 'Feel Stylish' motto on the back of his coat.

Apparently PDA (public displays of affection) are a relatively new thing here. A few years ago you would not see couples hugging and kissing as you strolled through the park. The cutest PDA I've seen so far is next to Houhai lake. A few weeks ago (when the lake was still mostly frozen) a solicitous boyfriend blew on his hands to warm them up, then applied them to the freezing cheeks of his grateful girlfriend. Awww.

Yes it's true – Ikea Swedish meatballs taste the same in Beijing and London.

Fans will be delighted to note that in my opinion, Ikea Swedish meatballs taste the same all over the world, or at least in Beijing, London, Edinburgh and Turku (Finland). K and I spent 12 hours at the Beijing Ikea on Monday. We ate Swedish meatballs not once, but twice. And they are good, I am pleased to report. The mashed potato was not bad. In Edinburgh and Turku you can choose to have chips or boiled potatoes instead of mash but you cannot choose in Beijing. You just get a neat mound of mash with a Swedish flag stuck on the top – very patriotic. The first mouthful has a slight smash/cardboard aftertaste, but once you get into the meatballs, the gravy and lingonberry jam overpower any suggestion that no potatoes were involved in the cooking process. We also had some very good pancakes with spinach and ricotta which made up for the fact that they do not sell Dime Bar cake.

As I waited for K to bring the food – I was on 'find a table' duty and she was on 'order food' duty - I watched a couple at the next table. This couple, like most people in the restaurant, had purchased the Swedish meatballs as something extra to try – they seemed convinced they would not like them. The guy looked suspiciously at the meatballs, prodding them with his chopsticks. Then he did the same to the mashed potato. With some misgivings he scooped up a small bite of mash and tasted it. You know the way you taste something that you think you might want to spit out so you don't put it very far into your mouth? I think he decided it was ok, because he swallowed it and even ate one or two more bites. However he was much happier with his Chinese style vegetable stir fry interspersed with bites of an apple danish.

There have been several articles and blog posts about the fact that Ikea in Beijing is THE place to hang out and sleep. http://techtravelandtuna.com/2010/10/20/beijing-china-the-people-of-ikea/ However K and I didn't see much of this. All the furniture was tried out with a lot of enthusiasm, but no one was sleeping. Perhaps it was too busy – we went on a national holiday.

The most amusing thing for us was thinking that people all over the world have identical furniture. K bought an identical chair to one that both her sister and her brother own in London and Holland respectively.

After we had purchased three trolleys worth of furniture and nicknacks (I love home delivery), I insisted we visit the food shop. I have now sorted out my cheese and jam cravings with my purchase of lingonberry jam, Swedish style cheese (you know the one with more holes than Emmental?), crisp bread and Dime bars. And of course a bag of Swedish meatballs for the freezer. I don't have an oven but I think you can microwave them, or defrost them and fry them. And I think they will work quite well in noodle soup!

Prospective guests – you will be delighted to know that among my many and varied purchases was a new mattress, to be delivered on Thursday. Along with sheets, a new duvet and pillow and new towels. I am most excited about my new pepper grinder though – now I can put sichuan pepper on top of every dish I cook!

And on that note, I wonder what cheese and jam, or even agurchiki taste like with sichuan pepper on top? 

Tango Dreams and Hidden Curfews

I returned tonight from a wonderful evening of dancing and meeting locals to get told off by the lady at the front desk. Apparently my dormitory building has an 11pm curfew. You think someone would have mentioned it when I moved in, no?

Tonight I ventured out to find the Hidden Dreams Tango Cafe. The name is very apt. A 5 minute walk from a subway station, the place is nonetheless very difficult to find. You have to go through a Chinese gate towards a darkened street full of looming grand houses, walk for about 50 meters, avoiding the sweeping leaves of willow trees, and then turn right, and there, in a distant corner, a neon sign declares the place to the world.

I showed up at 9.15pm on the grounds that I couldn't be bothered to go to the class at 7.30. There were about 4 people there. I asked one lady, am I in the right place? Am I late? Yes she said, it's the right place. You're early. Normally the cafe is not busy 'til 9.30, or 10pm.

Sure enough people arrived in dribs and drabs for the next hour or so. Several foreigners, as well as Chinese. I met Jane, from the North East of China, who spent a year in Sweden studying (which is where she learned tango and bought her glittery gold tango shoes). She was very friendly and even put up with my attempts at speaking mandarin. I also met an Englishman who teaches at another university, and is also studying Traditional Chinese Medicine. He danced quite well, for an Englishman. I was impressed. However the visiting Japanese businessman was the best dancer by far. He had a very distinct style, very dramatic with excellent timing.

Alas, I cannot return or I will be locked out of my building. Maybe one day... but for now, I can dance in my dreams.

 

Campus lunch - not as bad as advertised!

My new colleague and I had been warned, by students, by Chinese colleagues, by Western colleagues: Don't eat at the university cafeteria. The food is terrible. So we stayed away. And we stayed away. And we tried the other three restaurants near campus. And we stayed away.

Our Chinese colleague and lunch buddy, kept asking us "have you tried the cafeteria?" We finally agreed to go. And were pleasantly surprised. The trick is not to go to the first floor, but to the partitioned off section of the second floor where you get a menu and table service!

We ordered a lamb dish, with potatoes and beans in a soup. Omelette with shallots, pumpkin fries and an eggplant dish.

The pumpkin fries had been recommended by a colleague. I quite liked them. The pumpkin here is very nice, the same taste and quality you get in Australia, nothing like the bland, tasteless excuse for pumpkin you get in London. The batter is done with preserved duck egg yolk and some kind of flour, so the flavour is quite strong and salty. They often come served with sprinkles on top – the same sprinkles you put on fairy bread. Random!

The eggplant in China is fantastic! I keep trying to replicate it at home and failing utterly. Whenever I try to stir fry eggplant I get an undercooked gloopy mess. This was perfectly cooked, with the eggplant in discrete bits, I guess cooked first, then fried separately, then added to the dish? Must find convenient Chinese friend who can cook eggplant and show me the secret. Hmm....who to ask?

I think we will return to the university cafeteria!

Weekly staff meetings: otherwise known as “Dinner”

My first official food blog opportunity – and I forgot to take a picture before we ate. As you can tell, the food was very good! The best part was eating 10 dishes between 7 people and each paying GBP2.40 including beer!

We have a great time choosing food: "That looks good! What is it? Umm... I think it might be chicken. Oh. It doesn't look like chicken. Maybe it's eggs – does the character for egg include chicken? I don't know. Let's order it anyway!"

My colleagues are an interesting assortment of ages, nationalities and temperament. And we all come to teaching from very different backgrounds. We also delight in discussing the school, the students, and swapping stories about the craziest things that have happened in class. We compared excuses for absence: "I have to go and drill lake cores in Tibet for three weeks as part of my aquatic geography major." "I've been studying magic with Harry Potter and I have learned to make a cloak of invisibility so even though you won't see me, I will actually be in class." "I have to go to Yunan for a week to visit the observatory for my astronomy major." And they say Chinese students have no creativity!

Gotta go, my particle physics reactor needs a tune up...