ZongZi

In the previous post on Dragon Boat Festival, I said that the festival is associated with two things.  That post described the first thing...the dragon boat races.   This post describes the second thing......

On Dragon Boat Day, and the days leading up to it, you eat ZongZi

That's right.  You eat ZongZi.   The pronunciation, as close as I can represent it, is something like "dsong dsuh". 

ZongZi are bamboo leaves wrapped around a ball of sticky rice that encapsulates some meat or fish or bean or fruit.  It's kind of like a Tamale...but in China the leaf does not come from a corn stalk and for the stuffing the Chinese use rice instead of corn meal.

Anyways, these jobbers have been all over the place for the past month.  All the grocery stores have had them displayed out front and center.   And people at work have been bringing in homemade versions...made by their parents or in-laws.   Some have a sweet filling....like dates or bean paste...intended for desert.   Others have a savory filling....like barbecued pork or duck...intended for the main course.  They're all pretty good.  Not exactly diet food...but pretty tasty.

Dragon Boat Festival

 Monday, June 6 was a holiday.  It was the day of the Dragon Boat Festival.  The Dragon Boat Festival is an ancient tradition in Asian culture.  But in China, the tradition was lost...at least officially lost...for may years.  It was only in 2008 that the holiday was officially re-instated by the government.   Which is a good thing, since this is 2011 and we get the day off of work.

 On the day of Dragon Boat Festival, you do two things.  The first thing you do is go to see the dragon boat races.   Word-of-mouth says that most every city has some kind of dragon boat race.  Businesses and clubs form teams to participate in a friendly competition.   The organizers provide the boats.  And the teams just show up the day of the competition.  The more aggressive come to win.  The majority, though, come with only the hopes of not overturning the boat and looking foolish.

 In Suzhou, the Dragon Boat Races were held on Jin Ji Lake in the Moon Harbor area....just a mile or so East of our apartment.  It rained most of the day, but miraculously there was a break in the drizzle from about 9:00am until 1:00pm for the races.

 In coming out to the races, the main point is to see other people and have a good time.   In truth, if you've seen one Dragon Boat Race,  you've seen them all.   Unless you've got a horse in the race, it's pretty much all the same.  It's mainly for fun and for charity.  Somewhat like the Daviess County Turkey Trot, but with Dragon Boats instead of Turkeys doing the racing.

The Pearl Market

 I know nothing about jewelry.  Absolutely nothing.   And so for our entire marriage I've not given Theresa any gifts of jewelry...partly out of fear of showing my ignorance and partly out of fear that one gift would lead to the expectation of a second and a third.  I swear the stress would compound to the point of killing me.  So for 29 years I've successfully avoided the subject.

Unfortunately, the Suzhou area is big on jewelry.  Or at least big on pearls.

 There are two basic types of pearls.  Saltwater pearls and freshwater pearls.  Naturally occuring pearls are a rarity in the scheme of things.  Most of the pearls in the world are cultured.  And most of the pearls in the world are freshwater pearls.  And most of the freshwater pearls in the world come from the areas around Suzhou.  Of course, I'm relying on the internet for my figures, but when I say "most pearls in the world", it does not mean 25% or 33% or 51%.   By some accounts it's in the neighborhood of 90% of the world's freshwater pearls come from this area of China.

 On the fringes of Suzhou, near Taihu Lake, there is the pearl market.  The market is actually a collection of several building and within each building are many, many booths operated by individual entrepreneurs.  You want to buy raw pearls?  They will sell you raw pearls.  You want them to string a necklace or a bracelet or whatever?  They will string it for you while you wait.  The price?  Well, that depends upon how well you can negotiate. 

It's capitalism in all it's naked beauty.

We've become acquaintances with a couple that lives a few floors above us in the apartment block.  He is originally from England and she from Ireland.  They were telling us stories about how they've lived in various places in Asia (including China) over the past 10 years.   When I asked if they spoke Chinese, Ed...the husband...answered; "No, but my wife speaks fluent calculator".  

You see, that is how you dicker for prices in China.  The Chinese person trying to make the sale enters the starting price on a calculator and hands it to you.  Then it's up to you to enter your counter-offer.  (As a rule of thumb, you can take the starting price and divide by 5.  After that, the calculator gets passed back and forth however many times are necessary to arrive at an agreed price.  There's usually a lot of yelling and waiving of hands and walking away involved as well.  But in the end, all that matters is the number that is on the calculator at the time of the hand-shake.

For what it's worth, Theresa is getting to be pretty good at speaking calculator.

The Perils of Air Drying Laundry in a High Rise Apartment

We found this hanging from our balcony railing one morning.  We assume that a gust of wind liberated it from a tenant on an upper floor.  

From PuDong to PuXi - Shanghai Shopping

The Huangpu river is barely 60 miles long.  But its last few miles make it one of the most important waterways in the world.  It happens to dump into the Yangtze river just at the point where the Yangtze dumps into the China Sea.  The geography of the Huangpu river provides the best real estate for a port in an otherwise muddy Yangtze delta.  The location is ideal as a gateway between ocean and river traffic.  And Shanghai just happens to occupy that location.   If the Yangze is the Missisippi of China, then Shanghai is the New Orleans.

 The city of Shanghai is split into East and West by the Huangpu River.  We were staying in a hotel on the East side, known as the Pudong area.   Pudong is new city, built up in the last 20 years of economic boom.  The West side of the river, known as the PuXi, is the old city.  In truth, the larger part of it is also recently built.   Historically, though, the West side of the river is what made Shanghai.

Shanghai traffic can be horrendous, and getting over the river can be one of its larger horrors.  Theresa, being the trouper that she is, climbed in a taxi one day and made the crossing.  She was motivated by the opportunity to go shopping in one of the truly "old" areas of Shanghai.

 

Above are some photos of the shopping area in the City God Temple district.  Below is a photo taken back at the apartment showing Theresa and her purchases.  It's like a photo of a hunter with his kill huntress with her kill. 

Shanghai

Last week, Theresa and I were in Shanghai.   That is one of the reasons for the slow pace of postings lately.   I had business meetings there the week of May 23rd.  Since this justified a hotel room, Theresa came along rather than stay in Suzhou.

Shanghai is big...though how big is hard to figure.  Some say it's population is 16 million and others 23 millioni and others 26 million.   It all depends on how you want to define the boundaries of Shanghai, I guess. 

Suzhou, being only 50 miles away or so, is lost in the limelight of Shanghai.  Shanghai is the big city.  It's where the action is.  Where the rich people come from.  The people of Suzhou take pride, and brag, about the fact that they are only a "small town" when compared to Shanghai.  A small town of only six million. (as compared to 20+ million.)

Above is the Shanghai World Financial Center, as seen from directly underneath.   It is one of the tallest buildings in the world and offers the highest open-to-the-public observation deck in the world.

Good Eats

There are a million things to write about the  food and the dining experience in China.  For example, I'm yet to see General Tsao's Chicken on any menu.   And a typical Chinese Restaurant resembles a hotel more than it does a U.S. restaurant.  But those are stories for another day.

All we have time for today is a short blurb on odd things we've lately eaten.  Not that it is rare to eat odd things, mind you.   These are just a couple of recent items.

At the top is a heaping plate of Duck Tongues.  This is a common starter, or "cold dish" in the better restaurants.  I'm not really sure how they're cooked...whether boiled or braised or fried or what.  They taste good, but don't have a lot of meat on them.   And they have a bone in them.   I never realize that a duck has a  bone in their tongue.

The photo above is from Japanese restaurant in China.  Japanese restaurants in China are kind of like Mexican restaurants in the U.S.   (Read into that what you will - it works on several levels).  Anyway, the Japanese are famous for their raw fish - sashimi and sushi.  The Chinese especially love these Japanese raw fish dishes.  Freshness is important to the Chinsese.  And nobody in the world does fresh fish better than the Japanese. The dish in this photo represents the ultimate in freshness.

What you are looking at is a fish on a bed of ice.  On top of the fish, the glistening stuff, is thinly sliced raw fish meat which was carved from the body of the fish.  (There is not much between the head and tail of this fellow, except his bare spine.   You just can't see the bare spine because it's hidden by the meat and the ice and the other garnishes.)  You eat the glistening, raw meat like any Japanese sashimi...but dipping it in a little sauce and then slurping it down.  If the fish is very fresh, then it is very good.  If the fish is not so fresh, then it's like eating an old pair of socks.

This particular fish was very good.   And as we were eating it, a Japanese colleague explained that it had to be fresh because the fish was still alive.   The dish is prepared by carefully carving a live fish.  Just because the meat is off the bones does not mean that Elvis has left the building.

And to prove it, he said, you just need to drop a little beer on the nose of the fish.

And we did.

And the fish's head gulped air through its gills and wiggled it's tail around. 

Of course, you can't leave that alone, so a few minutes later we dropped some more beer on it's nose.  Again, he bobbled his head and wiggled his tail. 

He kept on doing this long after his former possessions had been eaten and until the waitress took his remains away.  About 15 minutes later he came back again, this time as the main ingredient in a boiling pot of fish broth.  At that point, though, he was no longer wiggling and most assuredly Elvis had left the building.