Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Yankee baseball!
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Actually, first this:
I am in Dalian (a small town of 6.5 million no one ever heard of), at my friend Qiang's house. I've never stayed with a Chinese family, but more to the point, they've never had a foreigner stay with them. I think it's stranger for them than it is for me; I at least have the luxury of relatively extensive exposure. I seriously doubt Nainai (father's mother) has ever spoken to a foreigner before. Also she has one tooth. Neither of these things stopped her from getting me to join her for a rousing revolutionary duet of Dong Fang Hong (the East is Red) at dinner last night (they get a HUGE kick out of my singing that). Yes, there is a picture of Mao Zedong on the wall. It's small, and in a calendar, and it's tucked away, but it's there. Qiang (who has been in Ireland for what, four years?) has no idea what happened at Tiananmen square. He's seen the picture with the student holding off the tanks, but never really processed it. On the plus side, they're not fawning over me the way I worried they would. They're not ranging far beyond their means to provide for me. We are certainly stretching the linguistic capabilities, though. It's hard enough to understand their accent (in which jiao--"jyaow"--which means, among other things, "teach" or "dumpling," is pronounced Jiu--"jyo"--which means "alcohol," making breakfast a very confusing affair). What they're doing now is leaning in REAL CLOSE and talking REAL LOUD. But really not very slow. I understand what I need to. Everything else, I have Qiang. Thank God. And when I eat, they hover and stare. Not anxious, hand-wringing staring--just watching. Usually, I'm used to the quotidian staring, like when I walk down the street and the laobaixing ("old hundred names," it basically means Joe Sixpack) just wig out. But when it's right here, it freaks me out. They're like "here, these are chopsticks. CHOP-STICKS. WE USE THEM TO EAT. DO YOU HAVE THESE IN AMERICA?" Aiyo. It's not an uncommon question, actually. I've also been asked if we have noodles and rice (but that was someone in Beijing). But I'm seriously not doing this homestay thing again until my Chinese is a hell of a lot better.
Also, I have eaten a few things I consider noteworthy (all these in the course of my first day here). Many of us, I am sure, have consumed pig ear. I personally found it uninteresting and inedibly tough, and was furthermore annoyed that it wasn't bacon, which is what it looked like. I'm sure some of you have also tried frog. Frog was extremely tasty and the mouthfeel (is that a word?) was lovely, a medium between fish and shrimp. Only problem is it was sock-you-in-the-face spicy. Duck head was excellent. Ate about six, cheek, eyes, brains and all (brains taste exactly--exactly--like foie gras). But the centerpiece of dinner was something I'm reasonably sure not many have eaten. It wasn't the food itself that was out of the ordinary--shrimp. It was more the condition in which the food arrived that set it apart: very, very much alive.
I'd heard of this, of course, and figured it would happen to me sooner or later. I just wished I'd been given advance notice--such as, maybe, five minutes before the shrimp LEAPED OUT OF MY HAND. These shrimp were so alive they were jumping out of the bowl and skittering, as best they could, across the table. More like flopping, I suppose. Wheezing. But the fact remains that they were very much not dead, which, to be honest, is the state in which I thank my food to land at my table. The pretense is to ensure freshness. Horsepuckey. The purpose was to have a laugh at the foreigner's expense. The way to eat them, of course, was to kill them. This was not done in the typical way, say, boiling them. No, the way to properly kill them was, of course, to peel them. As they squirmed. The first time I tried it the shrimp flipped itself out of my hand and gave me a terrible start, causing Granny to laugh so hard she nearly fell off her chair. Someone else had to help me. I was next enjoined to dip the now mostly-dead shrimp in an appetizing brown sauce.
The sauce turned out to be liquid wasabi, which is like getting punched in the face all over again. I thought Grandma was going to hyperventilate. It took a while before I figured out how to do it myself, after which Grandma got very excited and insisted I keep eating them. I outfoxed her by parking one on my plate and insisting that I was waiting for it to die. Critical question: were they good? Not particularly. They sure were fresh, though. Basically they weren't tasty enough to negate the very potent gross-out factor. Finally after two hours they took them away and put them out of their misery, bringing them back bright and red and dead and by Heaven we ate them the way God intended us to. Jesus. I'm eating Italian food when I get back. Spaghetti at Isola. Five days. I'm having a blast, but it's time to come home.
Also, I have eaten a few things I consider noteworthy (all these in the course of my first day here). Many of us, I am sure, have consumed pig ear. I personally found it uninteresting and inedibly tough, and was furthermore annoyed that it wasn't bacon, which is what it looked like. I'm sure some of you have also tried frog. Frog was extremely tasty and the mouthfeel (is that a word?) was lovely, a medium between fish and shrimp. Only problem is it was sock-you-in-the-face spicy. Duck head was excellent. Ate about six, cheek, eyes, brains and all (brains taste exactly--exactly--like foie gras). But the centerpiece of dinner was something I'm reasonably sure not many have eaten. It wasn't the food itself that was out of the ordinary--shrimp. It was more the condition in which the food arrived that set it apart: very, very much alive.
I'd heard of this, of course, and figured it would happen to me sooner or later. I just wished I'd been given advance notice--such as, maybe, five minutes before the shrimp LEAPED OUT OF MY HAND. These shrimp were so alive they were jumping out of the bowl and skittering, as best they could, across the table. More like flopping, I suppose. Wheezing. But the fact remains that they were very much not dead, which, to be honest, is the state in which I thank my food to land at my table. The pretense is to ensure freshness. Horsepuckey. The purpose was to have a laugh at the foreigner's expense. The way to eat them, of course, was to kill them. This was not done in the typical way, say, boiling them. No, the way to properly kill them was, of course, to peel them. As they squirmed. The first time I tried it the shrimp flipped itself out of my hand and gave me a terrible start, causing Granny to laugh so hard she nearly fell off her chair. Someone else had to help me. I was next enjoined to dip the now mostly-dead shrimp in an appetizing brown sauce.
The sauce turned out to be liquid wasabi, which is like getting punched in the face all over again. I thought Grandma was going to hyperventilate. It took a while before I figured out how to do it myself, after which Grandma got very excited and insisted I keep eating them. I outfoxed her by parking one on my plate and insisting that I was waiting for it to die. Critical question: were they good? Not particularly. They sure were fresh, though. Basically they weren't tasty enough to negate the very potent gross-out factor. Finally after two hours they took them away and put them out of their misery, bringing them back bright and red and dead and by Heaven we ate them the way God intended us to. Jesus. I'm eating Italian food when I get back. Spaghetti at Isola. Five days. I'm having a blast, but it's time to come home.
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