A Study of Tea

One of my favorite things in the world is tea. Tea is central to my being. A day without tea just isn’t a day at all! Most everyone knows how enthusiastic I am about tea. So of course I feel right at home in China, where everyone drinks tea all the time. In fact, you’re often given tea instead of water in restaurants. Another benefit of this is that no matter where you go, inevitably, one of the local specialties is some kind of tea that only grows in that part of China. The Chinese really know what they’re talking about when it comes to tea. Their teacups often have lids – not everyone is a fast tea-drinker. Also, there’s this special kind of ceramic only produced in one part of China called boccaro earthenware – it’s a deep brown and apparently retains the flavor of the tea for much longer than a normal teapot. That is, with a normal ceramic teapot, the tea, if left in the pot, only retains the original, untainted flavor for about a day or so. This special teapot, though, will not alter the flavor of the tea. On the other hand, why you would want to drink week-old tea is still a mystery to me. I am constantly amazed by the tea here. One of the big differences between drinking tea in China and in America is that here, the tea leaves are placed directly in the cup. No bag, no filter, nothing. The drawback, of course, is that you often end up with tea leaves in your mouth, which is less than savory. On the other hand, normal bag black tea like the kind you can find in the States is only good for one steeping. Chinese tea, no matter how many times you refill your cup with hot water, retains the original strength and flavor. Unbelievable. The other day I walked into a tea shop – one of the umpteen to be found locally – and was treated to a tea-tasting. My roommate Liz and I tried two kinds of very well-known teas: 竹叶青茶 (bamboo leaf-green tea) and 普洱茶 (Pu’er tea). The entire process of the serving of the tea was quite complex. Our server had an ample supply of hot water and all of the necessary tea accessories were spread out on this long, thin, hollow box with slits in it so the water could be spilled and not make a mess. One of the vital steps in this process was pouring the hot water over the cups you were going to be drinking out of and then drying them off so your hands didn’t get wet. This way, I assume, the tea stays as hot as possible for as long as possible. Liz and I got into a bit of a conversation with the woman who was serving us tea. It turned out she was my age – 22, I’m such an old thing, aren’t I – and she was still in school. She asked us what we were studying, and we duly replied with our appropriate majors. Upon asking her the same question, she replied that she was studying tea. In China, it seems that you can get a three- or four-year degree in tea. How to drink it, how to serve it, the different kinds – a degree in the art of tea. Maybe I should stay in China a little while longer and pick up that degree.

Looking for a job?

I once heard that the Chinese government employs far too many people. On the way to school one day, I saw a sidewalk-cleaning expedition underway. Don’t forget that these sidewalks are so filthy that no amount of work will ever scrub them clean. Regardless, there were several people sprinkling dry soap on the sidewalk, several more following them with water, and many more after that (five minimum) with big brushes, hard at work scrubbing that sidewalk. On top of that, there were people in the street with big brooms, pushing the suds that escaped into the gutter. How many people does it take to clean a sidewalk? (Insert corny punch-line here.)

Liquid Gold

When I was young, I used to read Tintin comic books – delightful little mysteries in an easy-to-digest form. There was one that was entitled “Black Gold,” which referred to oil, as it is so often turned into gold (it’s almost like magic!). Before I go on, I should say that Tintin has absolutely nothing to do with what I’m writing about today. It is, however, about oil, which is what the title alludes to. On the other hand, it has more to do with cooking oil than the black kind so often used to make things go. Unfortunately, it would have seemed a bit silly to title this entry “Yellow Gold,” so my somewhat esoteric (at least in the sense that I doubt many people understood the allusion without the peremptory explanation) title is stuck being called “Liquid Gold.” At least we can all agree that oil is, generally speaking, liquid. The thing about oil in China is that it’s used absolutely everywhere, except where it’s needed most. Oil is used to prepare every Chinese dish I can think of. In my cooking class, we learned to make a number of dishes – for example, sweet and sour potatoes, in which the potatoes are deep-fried; fried rice, in which both the egg and the rice are lightly fried; tomato fried-egg, in which everything is, surprise, surprise, fried; fish-flavored eggplant, in which, drum-roll please, the eggplant is also deep-fried. In fact, of all twelve dishes we studied, every single one of them required oil in the preparation and/or cooking stages. Depending on the restaurant you go to, your food may even be sitting in a delightful-looking pool of oil. Yummy. Before I go any further, I would like to reassure you that yes, the people here are quite slim. My point is that oil is often available and present to excess – when it comes to edible things. Outside of food, though, oil is scarce to be found, often with painful, unpleasant results for everyone within a one-mile radius (which, considering the fact that this is China, is just about everyone). That is, imagine the sound of a street filled with vehicles. Buses, cars, bikes… they’re all there. People are crossing the street haphazardly, forcing cars to stop on a dime, as it were. This in turn causes a bunch of other random vehicles to screech to a halt. Now, let’s examine that last sentence for just a moment. When I say “screech,” I am speaking quite literally. These are brakes that have not been oiled since the day the vehicle was bought. And those buses are heavy – it takes a long application of brakes to make them come to a full stop. So the kind of “screech” in question is very much like the long-nails-scratching-a-blackboard, blast-out-your-eardrums, make-the-hair-on-your-arms-stand-up kind. I consider myself lucky to have not gone totally deaf already.

Hooked!

My time in China can be described as a series of addictions. You know, you show up, find something you like, and end up devouring it every day for three weeks. Since I’m nearing the end of my stay in this crazy country (less than three weeks left, it’s hard to believe!), now seemed like a good time to chronicle my obsessions. The first amazing thing I discovered in China was called 鱼香茄子 [ed. note: unfortunately, the characters she used didn't translate], which translates as Fish-Flavored Eggplant. For me, it was one of the most delicious things I had ever tasted. It was a taste explosion of sweet, sour, and eggplant all in one! Believe it or not, it actually has nothing to do with fish, except that the eggplant is prepared similarly to how fish can also be prepared. The eggplant still tastes like eggplant – nothing fishy. However, I effectively got over this addiction about a month after I arrived in China (also, realizing that the eggplant was deep-fried helped quite a bit). While traveling in Yunnan, I had a plate of mediocre Fish-Flavored Eggplant and proceeded to get sick. While my head knew this disease was not caused by the eggplant, my tastebuds told my stomach to get queasy whenever鱼香茄子was in the near vicinity. Suffice to say, by the time I was able to overcome the silly brainlessness of my taste-buds, I was over addiction #1. In the meantime, I filled the empty place in my heart (and stomach) with tasty things from the local bakeries. This was not aided by the fact that they’re all dirt cheap, like most everything else in this country. However, realizing this was not the healthiest habit I could have picked up in China, I forced myself to stay away from the bakeries for two weeks, and by the end of the two weeks I was cured once again. Somewhere in the middle of those, at some point in the beginning of my stay in Chengdu, I discovered green onion bread. This bread really is phenomenal – kind of like a round patty of bread stuffed with green onion deliciousness (also friend, I believe). For a while, I got green onion bread every day. It was warm (and believe me, it was cold outside) and delightful. This was one that I made no conscious effort to get over, but simply faded away with the ravages (or apathies) of time. From here we proceed on to milk tea, which for a time was my favorite kind of tea in China (and I effectively got several other people hooked as well – mwa ha ha). We have a milk tea stand quite close to my apartment complex, and when it was chilly, nothing felt better than some hot milk tea. I started buying boxes of milk tea at the local supermarket – I drank it at least once a day. At some point I realized I wasn’t quite as keen on it as I used to be, which might have had something to do with the fact that the milk tea stand’s milk tea had so much sugar in it that if I drank it too fast I tended to feel vaguely ill. And so that obsession ceased to be, like all the others. Next in line are rice cakes. In fact, I’m not even sure they are rice, but they make me think of rice, so I shall proceed to call them rice cakes. They were steamed treats from a restaurant close to the gym I frequent; for a long time they were my treat after every workout. I got my other gym buddies hooked on them too – another addiction that gently ebbed away to nothingness. My last and latest obsession is baozi, which I wrote about it a previous post. In fact, so ardent was my enthusiasm about them that I took a picture of the baozi (包子) from the place I buy them and put that up online (which I’m sure some of you may recall). At one point I got baozi three times in as many days. The woman who makes them quickly learned who I was and knew what I wanted without me having to say a word. I am happy to say that as of right now, I am addiction-free. I did get milk tea today, but it was the first time in quite a while. I also go to the bakery (quite infrequently) every once in a while for some sweet bread. I am, of course, still hooked on tea – but that’s nothing new. And as far as addictions go, it’s rather innocuous. What can I say? I’m hooked!

Spring Has Come… And so have the mosquitoes

The other day I was outside enjoying a pleasant and leisurely evening reading a book. Now, it’s been a while since spring made its grand (and quite welcome) entrance in Chengdu; however, the insects happily lagged behind (happily for us, in any case). Much to my chagrin, that is no longer the case. Despite the fact that it was only six in the evening, I counted no less than 18 mosquito bites on the back of my right calf alone. In other news, I am officially promoting my friend Stella’s blog. She is a pint-sized ball of solid muscle who greatly enjoys climbing big rocks. She’s my oldest friend – we met infamously when I was in second grade (and she was in third) and apparently randomly introduced myself of my own accord. We proceeded to play Red Rover and my life has never been the same since. So check it out. http://stellathegiant.blogspot.com. She really is a giant. Despite her size.

Sink Beneath the Surface

When a Westerner first arrives in China, it is not difficult to mistake it for America with a disproportionate amount of black hair and brown eyes. People wear typical Western clothing. Western restaurants abound, especially Tex-Mex places. Many people have a good command of the English language. Everyone knows about the NBA and the NCAA (in fact, they most likely know more than you do, and in my case, they absolutely do). However, once you spend a little time in the country, you realize that almost everything distinguishes it from America. Of course, the most obvious difference is the language they speak everyday and the food they eat, so I won’t even take that into account. But the subtleties, the little details, differ so dramatically from America that it is hard now to look at the two countries in a similar light. Even though the clothes look similar, it’s how they wear them that distinguishes them. The women wear extra-long skinny jeans with four-inch heels, with the pant leg pulled so low over the shoe that only the part closest to the ground is visible. The only kind of maternity clothing pregnant women wear is overalls. Babies don’t wear diapers, just these strange pants missing a rather large area in the back. China makes itself apparent in the rules of social interaction – not a lot of smiling and laughing in public. Emotions are private things, meant to be kept within the confines of the home. People don’t go running or eat in public. If you buy a bottle of water and don’t offer to buy your Chinese friend one, he or she will think you don’t care about your friendship. You are supposed to argue over the bill – everyone wants to pay. In conclusion, I can no longer look at the country as I once did. Spending time here has forever altered my perspective. However, it took me a long time to discover all these tiny little details; I had to sink below the surface instead of just skimming the top.

Travels – I’ve lost track of what round we’re on (part 2)

After a few days hanging about Guangxi, I bought a ticket on a sleeper train to take me back to Lijiang, so I could go to Tiger Leaping Gorge. In a moment of indecision, I canceled my train ticket to Yunnan as well as my plane ticket back to Chengdu. Then, realizing I’d made a horrible decision and that the weather at Tiger Leaping Gorge was going to be unbelievably good (instead of the disgusting nonsense in Guangxi), I called everyone back and un-canceled it all. Fortunately the financial penalty amounted to less than $9.

What followed was a lot of long, boring traveling in which I proceeded to (very unfortunately) run out of reading material and had to come up with an itinerary for my trip to Japan instead (oh darn). I took an 18-hour sleeper train to Kunming and then another 8- or 9-hour bus to Lijiang. I got in just in time to go to sleep and woke up early the next morning to take another 3-hour bus ride to Tiger Leaping Gorge.

Despite the length of time spent in transit, I knew the second I arrived at Tiger Leaping Gorge that it was the right decision. The weather was perfect. It was warm and sunny and the sky was actually blue (instead of the muted brown-blue of a fair day in Chengdu). Also, as soon as I arrived, I was immediately accosted by a café owner offering me people to hike with so that I wouldn’t be alone. Thus it was that I met Evan and Liz, a couple of Canadians taking a break from the real world to globetrot.

Allow me to take a moment to introduce the Tiger Leaping Gorge. It is apparently named so because there’s some legend that tigers used to leap across the gorge by means of one of the large rocks in the river. The river, by the way, is the Yangtze, China’s longest. Also, due to a large dam being built, the entire gorge is going to be underwater within a few years. I know that this will simplify river transport immensely, but I can’t help feeling it’s a waste to destroy such a beautiful place. So then, on with the hike!

The mountains are populated, but quite sparsely at that. They call them villages, but really that just consists of a few houses within easy walking distance of each other pock-marking the hillside. The houses are tucked in the mountain along with other signs of domesticity – terraced rice paddies, a couple chickens flapping their wings about, maybe a dog or two. The Tiger Leaping Gorge also happens to be the first place in China where I have not been forced to walk on a paved path. The path was simply dirt, the kind found in many parks in America. I would even say it was adamantly dirty, just to make up for all the concrete and asphalt elsewhere. My legs were constantly covered with a thick film of brown dirt and my feet, despite being covered by socks and sneakers, were similarly dirty. I would do it again in a second, though!

We spent two days hiking the gorge, and the first day was quite probably the most difficult hike of my life. However, it was totally worth it. There was this beast of a path called “28 bends,” for just the reason that it winds back and forth in a constant ascent. For most of the way, one of the locals was following me around on a mule, trying to convince me to pay him to ride the mule instead of doing it on my own. I even explained to him (let alone in Chinese) that I wanted to do it on my own, but he persisted. At some point, he gave up and went to socialize with one of the other horsemen.

But oh – this was just the break I needed from the endless metropolis that is Chengdu. The air smelled clean and fresh; there was no scent of grit for two whole days. There was no city noise polluting the air either. No cars, no smell of exhaust, no constant fear for my life when crossing the street (instead, I got to fear for my life trying not to fall off the cliff). And night! Oh! The night sky was amazing! We were so far away from civilization and humanity that there was almost no light pollution. The mountains were dark – and I mean really dark, not that pretend dark you get in cities where street lights are still shining on everything. The sky, in comparison, was lit up with an indescribable amount of stars. It was one of the most beautiful night skies I have seen in my life, and certainly one of the fullest. There were so many stars! In an art museum once, I saw a painting that used diamond dust as a medium. The tablet glistened and sparkled. Though I hesitate to wax poetic, the sky looked as though it had been scattered with diamond dust ground to varying sizes. It winked and blinked and twinkled and sparkled and shone.

On top of all these wonderful things, the bed I slept on the first night (though to say the lodgings were merely rustic would be optimistic) was the best bed I had encountered in China. The beds here are all very hard – not that I’m accustomed to super-soft beds, but you don’t want to sit down too heavily on these beds because you risk breaking something (and I don’t mean the bed). But this bed – oh, it was delicious. I wanted to stay forever just so I could experience that amazing bed again.

Another highlight of the hike (I’m including a picture) was the crazy goat we ran into. Imagine this scene: on all sides, you are surrounded by mountains. You have a path to walk on, but stray too far off the path, one awkward, overly large step, and you will tumble down, down, down quite a precipitous slope. So steep is it, in fact, that trees grow out of the cliff-side sideways instead of upright. Which means that the bulk of the tree is hanging over, well, nothing. Now along comes a hungry goat who sees some nice, munchy leaves on the outer reaches (I suppose “upper reaches” would be inappropriate in this case) of one of these horizontal trees. So, of course, the most reasonable thing for the goat to do is walk out on the sideways branch of the sideways tree, only a tree trunk away from a fatal fall and eternal oblivion. Since this is all very nice and logical, this is of course that the goat in question did. And it just so happened that we were there to document the event. You’ll be happy to know that to my knowledge, the goat took no tumble, but happily munched away until his appetite was sated.

The long and short of it is that the gorge was – heh heh heh – gorge-ous. Truth be told, I made that pun unintentionally several times throughout the hike. I couldn’t figure out why Evan and Liz were laughing at me so often (except for the obvious hilarity experienced by my typical enthusiasm) until Liz explained it later. My best puns are never on purpose!

I’ve lost track of what round we’re on (part 1)

I’m having trouble coming up with a snappy opening line, so I’ll just out with it – we recently got a nice little spring break, and, as is my habit, I took off for a bit of adventuring. This time I went to Guangxi province (southeast of Sichuan) and Tiger Leaping Gorge, back in Yunnan province (south of Sichuan). To keep the post lengths under control, I’m going to split them up. Today will be Guangxi and I’ll talk about Tiger Leaping Gorge in the next one (because really, it deserves a whole post all to itself).

In Guangxi I visited two cities – Guilin and Yangshuo. Although the weather was less than ideal (foggy, rainy, and depressingly chilly), the scenery was still beautiful. Guilin is known for its unique geological formations called karsts. Karsts are rather large hills made of limestone. According to a geology buff that I met along the way, limestone is a very soft rock that erodes quite quickly. Cracks in the rock are easily invaded by water, which creates large cave systems running through the hills. Some of them cave in, creating these really cool-looking gumdrop-shaped hills. For further information, consult Wikipedia, which tends to know a lot more than me about most things.

The karsts make for quite a dramatic landscape. Since the sides are steep enough that you can’t really build on them, cities like Guilin and Yangshuo just incorporate the karsts into the town so that a wide panorama of the town is speckled with verdant hills. In the case of Yangshuo, it’s more like a bunch of karsts with as much town as possible crammed in-between.

Of everything I’ve seen so far in China, this was by far the greenest. It was great! There were trees and grass and hills and more green than I’d seen in months. I found myself wondering if the people who actually inhabit these places knew how lucky they were, how unique and distinctive and beautiful their living space is. Never in my life had I seen anything even remotely resembling this. But then, of course, they’ve probably grown up there, and even if they didn’t, they probably wake up every day, look out their window, and say, “Oh look. Another large hill. What a surprise.” In any case, I thought it was exceptional and magnificent, but maybe they just see large, useless obstructions. For me, though, it was great; if I got bored, I could walk a few feet in order to reach the base of a large hill and then, woohoo!, climb right on up.

Aside from climbing up random karsts, in a business deal that I’m pretty sure was illegal, Andrew (he’s in my program, I was traveling with him) and I paid one of the locals to take us out on the river on his bamboo raft. Let me tell you… that little bamboo raft was not very efficient. It was very long and rectangular-shaped with a tiny motor, so it didn’t move very quickly. But then, I suppose that wasn’t really the idea. In any case, we got a nice look at some karsts from the water.

Another highlight of Guangxi was the Seven-Star Cave, which was this huge cave system in one of the karsts in Guilin. They were really artsy about it, which made for a fantastic visit through the cave; they lit up the stalactites and stalagmites with pretty, colored lights.

As far as adventures go, though, I didn’t really have any because of the weather. In fact, the weather was so horrendous in Yangshuo that I was unable to do any sightseeing at all, unless, as they say in China, I wanted to be 落汤鸡 (like a drenched chicken). However, in Seven-Star Park (which is where Seven-Star Cave is, I’ll bet you didn’t figure that one out) I wandered off the trail and climbed some large rocks, but that was about as crazy as it got.

Next time, Tiger Leaping Gorge – by far the best place I’ve been so far in all of China. And on that note, I’m signing off, knowing I’ve left you all in a delicious state of suspense until the next post is up.

I apologize for the not-nearly-as-exciting-or-interesting-as-usual post, but I’m compensating with lots of pretty pictures!

Pictures:

1-2. Seven Star Park


3-4. Seven Star Cave



5. Practicing my Asian squat next to Seven Star Cave

6-7. Karsts


8. The glorious night-life on Xijie (West Street) in Yangshuo