A very different and beautiful world...

This afternoon I was sitting in a tiny noodle shop directly across the street from my school relishing what has become my most favorite meal here in the Middle Kingdom - a bowl of noodles (mian) with a few pieces of beef. It is a simple, Chinese meal handed down for centuries for the working class - it is piping hot, filling, and costs about .60! I could eat here everyday!

I studied one of the owners as he made the noodles by hand in the front window of his little shop. From a block of dough he quickly cut the perfect amount for his waiting customers, then twisted it a few dozen times, added some oil, and began rolling it out and twisting it even more. He then cut it into foot-long sections, rolled one of these lightly into flour, and repeated the process for several minutes.

After more twisting and pulling, he then stretched the dough and it began to separate into longer, thinner pieces. He smacked these longer pieces into some flour on the table and suddenly the stretched noodles begin to magically multiply between his fingers; 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and then 64 strings of noodles appeared within seconds - it is an impressive work of art to watch!

Two handfuls of noodles were then dumped into a steaming vat of water for several minutes. A broth from another steaming pot is poured into a bowl, the noodles are added, then a palmful of chopped scallions, cilantro, and it is topped with a few pieces of shaved beef.

As I sat and the cold, wooden stool no higher than my knees, pungent steam rose up from the bowl and mixed with the steam from my breath. Even my chopsticks had steam coming from the tips. I added a generous portion of chili paste and took my time slurping and sipping and realized this simple meal actually tastes better the further into the bowl you get! The last few delicious gulps are as satisfying as any steak from Outback (maybe because those memories are beginning to fade??...) and I told the chef it was delicious! (Zhen Haochi).

My lunch got me thinking about how different this country and these people are from Americans, but also more different than any other country I have experienced. We've been putting together notes about life over here and here are some of our favorites:

Eating

They don't put soy sauce on the table or salt and pepper - if it is needed for your meal then you get it, otherwise you won't see it. There are also two types of soy; one is a dark vinegar and the other is the typical soy we are familiar with in USA.

We ordered chocolate cake from the menu yesterday at a restaurant and got an eggo waffle with chocolate sauce drizzled over it.

We haven't seen a fortune cookie in China yet!

One of my best meals was at the Marriott hotel breakfast buffet where I discovered dumplings, sushi from Japan, and Korean barbecued beef cubes are a great way to start the day. It was about 400% more expensive than other places though.

The 1/4 pounder at McDonalds comes with cucumbers instead of pickles and the picture of the chicken sandwich actually gets you lightly battered pressed pork with hot sauce marinated throughout - we have only been to McD's once - it is awful here.

KFC is huge here, and always packed, and it is expensive but tasty. The only item we can stomach well is the popcorn chicken which is not bad at all. They have a menu for foreigners with detailed pictures.

In a restaurant, they hand one menu to the man and wait. They will stand and wait for your order for as long as you take - whether it's a few seconds or in some cases, fifteen minutes or more. They do not leave until you order and it is expected that the man will order for the woman.

The food is mostly very good but the prices defy typical logic. A glass of coca-cola costs the same as a 40oz. beer. A meal (40rmb = 5.50$) with soup, salad, bread, main course, and drink costs 5rmb (.75cents) more than just the main course by itself.

The noodles I described in the beginning of this post are by far the best meal for the money (4rmb = .60) I have found yet!

Shopping

Sales clerks are very assertive wherever you are shopping, whether it's the food market or high-end department stores - I had five clerks helping me find my size jeans and all w/no English spoken at all.

Anytime we buy something a crowd forms to see what we are buying, if they can they will always help with explaining what we need to the vendor, and many folks will watch the entire transaction from start to finish.

All prices are negotiable at any time (except in large department stores) - it's fun but it can get tiring! The vendor shows the price on a calculator, you start with half of that and haggle. If you walk away and they grab you, it means they will continue bargaining.

I consider us lucky if we buy something after a Chinese person because only then will I be assured we paid the same amount they did. I just found a dvd with over 20 movies on it for 8rmb ($1.10), but they will charge as much as you are willing to pay.

We found a huge store that we jokingly call a Super Walmart, underneath the center square in DanYang. You name it, this store has it - along with live eels, dried whole snakes, more pastries than Paris, more candy than a kid could dream up, anything and everything packed into a monstrous store. We discovered their prices are also about 200% higher than other places - big supply does not mean lower prices, it means more variety and that means you will pay more
here.

Getting Around

The cab drivers do not speak a word of English - if you don't have your destination written in Chinese you will not be going anywhere in a taxi - but the taxi rides are cheap - a few dollars at the most will get you around almost the entire city of Shanghai, not so much in Beijing though.

A cab in our home city of DanYang is 7rmb ($1) just about anywhere in city.

Buses are in big demand here and are clean and efficient. We caught a bus from Beijing over an hour and fifteen minutes to the Great Wall for 24rmb ($3) round trip. A girl in uniform took our money and monitored all stops for everybody. A bus down mainstreet in DanYang is 1 yuan (.12)

You take your life in your hands crossing the streets in Shanghai and China in general - traffic laws are simply suggestions and pedestrians do not have the right of way - unbelievably dangerous but everybody seems to accept it happily.

I was almost dinged by a mid-size sedan going the wrong way, in a foggy, drizzling rain, on the sidewalk - I'm totally serious.

Mopeds are decked out with built-in fur-lined gloves for the hands, mud flaps for the legs, and most riders have custom raincoats that stretch from the front light back and up over their head like a tent - they even have plastic windows so they can see in the rain.

We have been scammed by three taxi driver's all in Beijing, they will drive up and down useless streets to drive up the fair and one tried to refuse to give me change - this is the first since we got to China that we have been ripped off in any way.

When in a taxi or other vehicle, it is simply best not to look because when I do look I find myself instinctively jumping and jolting from the constant alarmingly dangerous situations presented almost every second or two...head on vehicles, mopeds, pedestrians, buses, trucks, trikes, bicycles, all share the road and whoever gets their first wins.

Drivers of every type of vehicle honk to announce they are coming and they expect you, and they assume you will, move. If you don't it becomes like purchasing goods - you begin to haggle for right of way.

On the streets, whoever hits the other person regardless of the situation (they could have walked right out in front of your car with no possibility of stopping) is at fault so it is very much like skiing or snowboarding - you are responsible for not hitting the person in front of you.

Street Life

It is not unusual to see raw chickens, duck, pig parts, and whole fish hanging from balconies to air dry - with their juices dripping on the sidewalk or anybody or anything below.

Brooms are made from straw reeds bunched together around a pole of bamboo but they are surprisingly efficient (not good for cleaning up glass though).

There are more cell phone stores in this city (at least one of every four shops) than seems possible and they are always full of buyers.

Cigarettes are everywhere and there are maybe a handful (if that many) places you can not smoke - at work, schools, restaurants, shops, stores, taxis - you can smoke just about anywhere you desire.

On the streets, every few hours a man or woman bikes by in a trike clanging a pot in his right hand. The pot signals to the vendors that he is here to collect the cardboard from their stores.

On many homes you will see numbers chalked on the outside. This is an advertisement letting everybody know the owner is looking for work.

Chicken feet, every internal organ you could possibly eat from a pig or bird, whole chickens, ducks, pigs feet, and other delicacies that I simply have no idea what they are - are out in the open air for sale, they also love live food such as buckets of bullfrogs, chickens, eels, turtles, fish, and geese.

Everywhere we go, people stare openly, they tap their friends to have a look, and most say "Hello" or "Hey!" - but that is usually all the English they know - and they all smile!

We have had several nice people come up to us and ask us if we needed help purchasing/finding something - they all want to practice their English.

We have not seen a tattoo on a Chinese person yet.

General

There are more people on the internet currently in China than every man, woman, and child in the USA.

The one child policy took affect in 1979, so we see families together at dinner where the men have brothers and the women have sisters, but they are usually much older. All other families have only one child (we have seen an unusual number of twins here though), and there are many more girls than boys. They refer to their children as little Emperors and Princesses.

The Chinese are very superstitious about everything. Rents are notoriously higher on the 8th floor (eight means good luck!) and much lower on the 4th floors (number four sounds like death!).

More to come...