Letter from China 1 - Guiyang
Jul. 29th, 2005 02:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorous_ettI made it to China - and as usual it is something of a sensory
overload. Still, I should be properly grateful that I made it at all,
as my departure was a complete fiasco - a miracle of will and
organisation over time and matter until about two hours before I was
due to leave, when I broke my glasses in the shower, had to unearth my
spare pair from the very centre of my nicely pre-packed bag
where I'd put them for safekeeping, stuff everything back in the bag -
and after that everything just went mad - nearly locked myself out of
my flat when putting out the rubbish, started breaking things, started
hysterically checking everything to the point where I missed
the bus as a result and had to take a cab to the station... by the time
I got on the train to London I was gibbering audibly, and shaking like
a leaf.
Mercifully, that's a week away, and I've now had time to pull myself together and start looking around me - which is what makes China so enjoyable, because wherever you look there are about twenty things going on.
I'm not even going to attempt a description of China in general - that would take a book and about fifty years. But I had a particularly nice meal in Guiyang I thought I might try to describe, just to keep my hand in.
Guiyang's the provincial capital of Guizhou Province - the poor-relation province in the south-west that no-one ever visits - though they really should, because it's full of amazing sugar-loaf mountains, greenery, interesting hill tribes and spicy food to die for. Anyway, Guiyang is rather like a lot of middle-sized Chinese cities - all apartment blocks and government buildings, too many vehicles and pollution - but becuase it's in Guizhou it's got small, leafy karst mountains sticking up at intervals, so the roads take interesting curves to avoid them, and it generally feels a bit more elegant and close to nature than most places. The meal was in the night market near the Teachers' University.
Lovers of Hogwarts would feel immediately at home, as the dark, steamy air, flashes of flame from overheated woks, interesting spices and underlying whiff of sulphur from the local coal put you in the mood to expect something magical. The street we were on was lined with stalls selling fried rice, slow-cooked pigs' trotters, smoked tofu on sticks, kebabs (or just about anything else that can be put on a stick, such as small fish, shrimps or lotus roots), shreds of ice with syrup or crustaceans. Outside these last stalls were big basins full of small snails, large snails, miniature lobsters or crabs - all very much alive and crawling out whenever the opportunity offered, waiting a gruesome but delicious fate - stir-fried with dried chillis, onions, Sichuan pepper, garlic and ginger. All this is lit by weak bulbs suspended over the stalls, fires from below the woks, fire from above and the neon signs from the tall buildings, about 15 storeys up.
As soon as you sit down at a table, all the stall-owners rush you to try to persuade you to eat their product. Then you have people wandering about offering things like flowers, sweets, beer or newspapers for sale at intervals throughout the meal. One little girl was offering to play songs on her guitar for money - and rather spoiling the effect by thumping people who turned her down (felt bad about this - what were her parents thinking?).
My menu - just to make you jealous:
I will try to make the next bulletin more interesting and less obsessed with food. To be honest, I don't think I've captured the mood at all here, but I've got to stop as I'm due at a wedding in under an hour.
Mercifully, that's a week away, and I've now had time to pull myself together and start looking around me - which is what makes China so enjoyable, because wherever you look there are about twenty things going on.
I'm not even going to attempt a description of China in general - that would take a book and about fifty years. But I had a particularly nice meal in Guiyang I thought I might try to describe, just to keep my hand in.
Guiyang's the provincial capital of Guizhou Province - the poor-relation province in the south-west that no-one ever visits - though they really should, because it's full of amazing sugar-loaf mountains, greenery, interesting hill tribes and spicy food to die for. Anyway, Guiyang is rather like a lot of middle-sized Chinese cities - all apartment blocks and government buildings, too many vehicles and pollution - but becuase it's in Guizhou it's got small, leafy karst mountains sticking up at intervals, so the roads take interesting curves to avoid them, and it generally feels a bit more elegant and close to nature than most places. The meal was in the night market near the Teachers' University.
Lovers of Hogwarts would feel immediately at home, as the dark, steamy air, flashes of flame from overheated woks, interesting spices and underlying whiff of sulphur from the local coal put you in the mood to expect something magical. The street we were on was lined with stalls selling fried rice, slow-cooked pigs' trotters, smoked tofu on sticks, kebabs (or just about anything else that can be put on a stick, such as small fish, shrimps or lotus roots), shreds of ice with syrup or crustaceans. Outside these last stalls were big basins full of small snails, large snails, miniature lobsters or crabs - all very much alive and crawling out whenever the opportunity offered, waiting a gruesome but delicious fate - stir-fried with dried chillis, onions, Sichuan pepper, garlic and ginger. All this is lit by weak bulbs suspended over the stalls, fires from below the woks, fire from above and the neon signs from the tall buildings, about 15 storeys up.
As soon as you sit down at a table, all the stall-owners rush you to try to persuade you to eat their product. Then you have people wandering about offering things like flowers, sweets, beer or newspapers for sale at intervals throughout the meal. One little girl was offering to play songs on her guitar for money - and rather spoiling the effect by thumping people who turned her down (felt bad about this - what were her parents thinking?).
My menu - just to make you jealous:
- Many, many morsels of things on wooden sticks, grilled with tumeric and chilli: potatoes, lotus root, shrimps, pork and beef.
- Cabbage leaves, grilled in a simliar fashion.
- Potato cake, fried on a dustbin lid and dusted with chilli.
- Small lobsters, fried with many delicious spicy things (delicious - but fiddly. the nicest bit is actually licking the spices from your fingers)
- Rice, fried with locally cured ham, chilli and Sichuan pepper.
- Pork with garlic and green chilli.
- Ice cold beer.
I will try to make the next bulletin more interesting and less obsessed with food. To be honest, I don't think I've captured the mood at all here, but I've got to stop as I'm due at a wedding in under an hour.
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-28 06:44 am (UTC)I'm salivating just reading. Gorgeous description.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-29 11:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-28 10:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-29 11:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-28 03:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-29 11:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-28 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-29 11:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-28 03:55 pm (UTC)Mouth is completely watering.
And it sounds fascinating! Truly. I'm glad you're having a great time so far!
(And departures are generally chaotic. I had the unparallelled pleasure of resorting my beautifully packed suitcase in the middle of Heathrow's Departures Hall and carrying a giant binder filled with notes--along with my carry-on, purse, and coat--from there to the furthest gate imaginable)
no subject
Date: 2005-07-29 11:39 am (UTC)Poor old you - I swear they move those gates on purpose when you're in a hurry and carrying heavy bags!
no subject
Date: 2005-07-28 04:15 pm (UTC)WOnna come over for a beer?
no subject
Date: 2005-07-29 11:37 am (UTC)Thanks for the thought, though.
Oh, and hope India is still good.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-28 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-29 11:40 am (UTC)Glad you enjoyed it, though. I do find China surprisingly hard to describe, considering I used to live there...
no subject
Date: 2005-07-28 04:34 pm (UTC)Haha, Guiyang, one of the ugliest cities I've seen in China and that's saying something.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-29 11:46 am (UTC)I rejoice at this, actually - the old slums where you used to be able to get Liu Lao Si duck and other treats were all very picturesque - but who'd want to actually live there?
I know the stalls you mean - though I'd no idea that guotie were the thing to go for. And for me, it's chilli all the way with dumplings in any form, but no doubt that's the Guizhou influence in me.
That's a bit harsh. You've obviously never seen Kaili... or Zhengzhou, or even Xi'an on a bad day...
I think Guiyang scrubs up all right, actually, though it's always going to look slightly scruffy - which to me is a good thing. And there are more trees and things about than a few years ago.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-29 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-30 08:40 am (UTC)Could be - I've got a friend with a posh camera and a scanner... it depends on whether I can master the technology, basically. In other words, it could go either way!