Author: Martin Holeček

Chongqing to Qijiang to Sanhui

For the Sweeping tomb Holiday here in china, people are gathering with their relatives at the tombs of their ancestors to pay them respect. Lucky me, as I encountered yet another friend on Couchsurfing which was eager to share this spiritual experience with some foreigners. Kelly and me exchanged QQ numbers and eventually agreed on a date to join her and her family in not-closely specified rural area of Chongqing province, Qijiang municipality for the celebration. I called a couple of foreign friends to join me on this quest and eventually Zhenia and George were eager to go for a small tripping.

4th of April 6:30. Oh, how I “love” super-early morning wake-ups. Our schedule however dictates sacrifices. Looking out of the window…for once, the weather forecast is correct…Rain!! Calling George as he asked me to do so last night. Lovely Chinese voice of a lady announces me the customer could not be reached for a 4th time. His sleep must be really strong today. its still early and I have time to prepare sandwiches(三明治 – I just love Chinese way of taking foreign word and translating it according to the sound:-). 2 loafs of toast bread, butter, slice of Ham, 2 slices of cheese, 5 rings of cucumber, 1 slice of red paprika. Wrapped into food-foil. 2 pieces for each of us. That should be enough.

7:15 – We should be in Qijiang at 10, the bus takes about 2 hours and I am still in my nightgown. Quickly changing dress and god bless my providence for packing the backpack in the evening. In less than 10 minutes I listen to pumpy beats of Crush on hardcore: TATWCV and heading to Nanping Bus station, right next to the exit nr. 4 of Subway station Nanping.

Tasting the local food from farmers is more than a pleasure. The house keeper aka Kelly’s grand-uncle asked me, if I want to try his home made bai jiou. First I thought it will be pretty similar to what I got from my Christmas holiday hosts in Romania, but here in China “white whine” means a 40% and stronger spirit. Old man brought 2 big shot glasses and a plastic bottle filled with white liquid. Nice, maybe it will be something like Slivovice in Czech. But even in Czech you will not get the full 1dl of such strong spirit at once.
.
.
.

Chinese Food Finger-point Alfa

Looks: 4

Smell: 5

Spiciness: 2

Satisfaction Factor: 7

Overall:  Good

Price TAG: 13 RMB

I guess it was a Duck leg. Honestly when I came into the restaurant i was totally definitelly decided to go for my usual – Jiao zi(饺子). But when i marched inside the restaurant, I saw a guy sitting over there at the first table eating something reminding me a full-fledged dish. I really miss the European style of serving meal. 

Chinese dining style is not bad, not at all. It’s just; you have to have more people participating on the feast to really enjoy that style. If one (waiguo ren) wants to eat alone then western “one plate-one meal” style is simply better.

Flag up. Mind set changed. Ni hao with the lao ban…POINTING to the guys plate and squeezing zi ge through my teeth. Boss understood well and without a word went to prepare my food. Although it was not looking too appealing at first sight, it was really a decent food and I did not make a mistake to choose it. The only spicy thing was those red-orange slices of pickles. Vegetable was steamed and big plate of brown something(tofu) along with duck leg was boiled in brownish soy water. Plain rice, not salty and slightly drizzled with oil. Once again a good choice while randomizing my energy supply.

Thank you random guy, whoever you are and wherever you live…hope to meet you at our dumpling restaurant again 🙂

Baguette comes from France

Last week I had the opportunity to enjoy a good diet. Plane bread. Crackers. A lot of water, just warm, not hot nor cold. Plain rice with rice and sprinkled with some more rice. As I was suffering with gastroenteritis. Lovely little intestine issue that arisen probably from poorly grilled shaokao one evening.

I think I know exactly how it happened. George called me out for a beer, he had a new camera to show me…well any occasion is good to have a beer, right? So I agreed and we went to local bar called 26LOFT bar. Had a couple of beers. (30RMB for Heineken is actually pretty good price.) And eventually ended up on the streets of Nanping chasing…food.First things first, right. We passed the 24/7 KFC service and headed on the opposite side of the street to a BBQ stalls. I never saw those stalls there in winter and was seriously surprised by that. Besides, once in china, lets have a local cuisine!

Turned out to be a bad decision and one undercooked “meet on the stick” ruined my next few days. BADLY.

Nevertheless,  after I was done with absolute fasting for 2 days I had to go out and buy something simple bland and plain to eat and get my stomach to work again. I went to wall-mart ready to buy crackers as advised. After having the crackers in my basket i drifted to the pastry part. And if I write pastry I mean pastry. Chinese don’t know plain and salty baked goods and there is no demand for it so the baked goods part even in wallmart in here contains mainly pastry and all forms of more or less sweet baked products.

But today I was lucky and found a “Holy grail” among all the “taste the same” pastry goods. A one meter long baguette. Standing there still in a basket, along with two of her sisters. I made her mine immediately. Even took two of them..but…eventually divorced the other one since not even in china polygamy is allowed 😛

While the baguette was too big to fit in my bag I took it as it was. Wrapped in semi-transparent paper. Grabbing it in my arm like a long pastry baton.

I am telling you. If you want to come to China to compensate for any lack of attention or you have simply NPD you will do better to to dress like a baguette 😀 It is more appealing to people than a pale, big nose foreigner.

As the weather was great and really nice, many people were out and it was the first time I walked on street and actually felt not challenged by people’s stares. Anytime they looked at me, it was not at me, it was at my baguette 🙂 I thought to myself: “I will have to buy one just to carry it around with me and avoid all the uncomfortable gazes.” The best Asian stare deflector ever.