Great Walls of Another Kind

Probably one of the first things I noticed here was the notable lack of facebook, blogs and news-sites on Chinese web. The Chinese, or those who are more tech-savvy, have even given this bit of online censorship its own moniker: 防火长城 “The Great Firewall of China”. In fact, this post is being uploaded through a proxy. Obama circuitously addressed the issue of internet censorship in his speech to Shanghai students (which, ironically, was censored), by praising free speech and its ability to shape democracy. What struck me was that he began his reply by acknowledging that there are days in which he really wished there were more censors in the US, that speech wasn’t as free. Because of this freedom, he is faced with his critiques on a daily basis, accosted by people telling him what he is doing wrong, why he is wrong and what he should be doing. No decision he makes ever meets with complete approval, and often the hardest decisions meet the most obstinate, caustic opposition. How easy would it be to rule, if no one dared to talk back. But from there, he pointed out that his personal discomfort at criticism is a small price to pay for the freedoms of democracy and, moreover, for the progress it brings. Channeling J.S. Mill, he lauded argument and debate, pointing out that only through open disagreement can society move forward.

“But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.” – J.S. Mill, On Liberty, Chap 2

But it would seem that most people get along fine within the confines of these walls. You hear every day about how China is developing so fast, that it is quickly emerging into the first world, and that especially the city-centers compete with London, New York and the like. If the quality of life is increasing in such drastic steps, what’s a little censorship here or there? Or as the documentary, “Tank Man”, puts it, the Chinese have made a “devil’s bargain” with the government since ’89, exchanging political freedom for economic progress. I think, it still waits to be seen whether this bargain was really worth it. To be sure, the bargain was only for a select few in society, and sealed on the backs of the majority. In asking taxi-drivers, alleyway restaurant owners and various other 老百姓, ordinary people, few have remarked about any real positive influence the growing economy has had on their lives. But many others say there is a “new middle-class” in China. Perhaps, at the bottom not much has changed, but in the upper-middle areas, things are stirring and China’s development has benefited them. But at what costs, what costs to the Chinese people and what costs to our conceptions of successful nation-states in general? What happens if the most powerful country in the world is not a democratic country, steeped in humanistic values and a tradition of liberty? It’s far from being top-dog, but what if China shows the world that a country can garner all the economic accoutrement of a world-leader, while remaining totalitarian, and authoritarian at home?

Murakami writes, “A rest area on a highway is just a place you pass through. To get from here to there… what does it matter what it’s called… You’ve got your restrooms and your food. Your flourescent lights and your plastic chairs. Crappy coffee. Strawberry-jam sandwiches. It’s all pointless – assuming you try to find a point to it. We’re coming from somewhere, heading somewhere else. that’s all you need to know, right?”

But I’m tired of rest stops. There are few rest stops in life, because there is no somewhere you came from and somewhere you are going. You are just “going” the entire time. So, I’d like to not think of this time in China as a break or a rest stop or as a temporary holding place until life starts again. Life is here and I am here to embrace it and learn from it. I am here to learn Chinese, to make acquaintances and to soak in something.

Streets

On my last trip to Beijing, I had walked down the 700 odd year old WangFuJing market street, but I didn’t have the chance to explore much. It’s pretty much like Michigan Ave, except instead of the Apple Store you have a generic electronics store, instead of Barnes and Noble you have the 100 year old bookstore, and instead of Starbucks on every corner there are craft chopstick shops. There are some parts of it that are really cool, like the archeological site found and preserved underneath the Oriental Plaza mall and other parts that are not so cool, like the huge McDonalds and Haagen Daz which replaced, I’m sure, some old part of the Beijing market street. Unfortunately, most of the stores didn’t interest me much. I didn’t want to get a new ipod, nor did I want to get a tie or even buy a 200 dollar set of chopsticks (how silly of me). But just as I was coming towards the north end of the street, thinking that it was all just a big ploy for capitalism over culture I hit snack street.

Snacks

Suddenly the red sea of megamall shops parted and before stood a long row of snack vendors grilling wonders as far as the eye can see. Of course, you have to factor in the Beijing daily smog, so really you can only see about two blocks, and I think the snack street is about 3 blocks long. There were a plenopoly of stands, but most of them sold the same things. It reminded me of the night market in Marrakech, in the old city. There must have been hundreds of stands, but only about 5 different variations of things. Anyway, I tried to pick out some things that I couldn’t find in the US and chow down. I had a kebab of silk worms, which tasted like peanuts, but the texture had me in a talespin. The worms are the big, plump grubby kind. The skin is grilled to a hard, almost cracklin texture, but when you bite into it, it sort of explodes in your mouth. That wasn’t so pleasant. I then ate some other things like scorpion and centipede, which weren’t all that yummy either. I think maybe these things just weren’t meant to be eaten, or at least you shouldn’t eat them just for fun… perhaps within the right culture and context, yes, but when everybody else who are supposed to be native is equally grossed out at the arthropod sticking out your mouth, perhaps that’s a sign that the food might not be that delicious. So, I finished the walk down snack street with some comparitively yummier fair; stinky tofu and baodu (some kind of tripe soup). Funny how those things become the norm here.

Hair Massage

This is a story, it is a sad story… about hair. I got my hair cut before going to China, because I knew my grandma would think me a hippy for having longer hair. Once I got here, she immediately remarked about how long my hair had grown and pouted her lip the way only a grandma who’s practiced making people feel guilty for nigh 70 years can do. I would have protested, but it’s hard to argue with old people. Senility kicks in and while I am trying to explain why I don’t need a haircut, she begins talking about barbers during the Cultural Revolution or how if you leave garlic out it starts to grow stems. It’s not worth the effort.  Anyway, I went to the hair cuttery armed with my bad chinese. Apparently, here whenever you go for a haircut, they massage you for about half an hour before. I firmly believe they should institute this in the States. Maybe then I would get my hair cut more often. Anyway, the person there gave me a massage  and loosened my wits, I think, because once they started asking me about my hair I was pretty out of it. As I recall, they said they would cut it and also do “something” to make it more manageable. The “something” was a garble of unknown mandarin words and massaged blurs. So, I readily agreed, thinking that these are professionals and they know what they are doing. Well… (and I don’t know much about hair), next thing you know my hair is in these individual closepin thingies and getting roasted under a lamp of some sort (my mom later explained to me that this is what is called a perm). So, voila! I sit here typing with a head full of big, poofy, fobby curly hair. I don’t know what to do with it. I am thinking if I wear a hat to bed, maybe it’ll calm down.

Giving in

Ok, so now I am tired of typing… so here’s a list of other things that happened, of which I may elaborate upon later: visited the YongHeGong temple, paid for an overpriced Tea Ceremony, stroked my would-be beard at the Confucious garden temple, ate hot pot on GuiJie (ghost red lantern street), hiked a small mountain only to find that the pagoda up top really kind of sucks… and bought some little red books at PanJiaYuan, a really cool outdoor antique wares plaza. I suppose with all the rhetoric of not making lists, I forgot that they do make life a lot easier for us lazy folk.

sweeping tombs and paying respects to the ancestors

We visited ShengFang, where my mom spent a number of years growing up. I’m still peacing together all the dates and years, but I think she was born in Yang Cong, and then went to school up through high school in Sheng Fang. Her high school friends greeted us with the typical Chinese extravagance that comes with homecomings. All the stops were pulled out and what other cultures would see as gaudy, supercilious and wasteful we call tradition. During one lunch my mom and I had reserved the table, ordered the many plates in advance and bought the bai jiu (chinese whiskey) ahead of time. Once her friends arrived, about ten or eleven, one of them decided to one up it all. He moved the lunch from the big open table in the dining room in the a private room upstairs. After the initial plates were served, he bought us all a second meal from the most expensive items on the menu and then insisted that we drink the bai jiu that he brought which of course was 5 times the price of the one we bought. To me, there’s an interesting interplay between the Chinese extravagance here and losing face (diu lian). I am not sure if we lost face by being one-upped (or five-upped) by the friend, but what’s more interesting is that if we had, it would be due to the friend’s direct action.

So, can you lose face if you make someone else lose face? Like if you go to someone’s house and exchange gifts, and they give you a measly pouch of rice and they give you an elephant. Sure, you display your own wealth, but then you expose the other person’s poverty. It seems like in Sheng Fang, things went according to tradition and the wealthy business owner got to take all his friends out and at the same time display his wealth and I guess we didn’t care so much about being shown up, and besides I got to drink a lot of good bai jiu out of it. Which by the way, the four old men from Sheng Fang the night before showed me how to drink and then proceeded to drink me under the table. I got sent to bed in my hotel room while they kept drinking. I kept up for a while,  but couldn’t finish the race.

paying respects to ancestors in the south china

I’m back in Beijing for the weekend. I want to hit up WangFuJing and eat some scorpions or spiders or something weird to write home about. Hot pot is on the list. Took down a Peking Roast Duck last night, some stinky tofu today and a durian just for kicks. The durian burps are not doing me well. I wandered around the hutongs the other day and got lost walking. That’s always a good feeling. This weekend will be some time to relax and prep for the trip South where I’m sure some interesting things await. Ming tian zai shuo ba. (let’s talk about it tomorrow)

Pink Sheets

This is not so much something I did, but I thought was interesting.  My roommate, Michael, brewed a beer a few Sundays ago that he is calling Pink Sheets. We all chipped in a little in the process, mostly by helping him weigh things, stir things, or just entertaining him during the waiting times. But what makes this brew unique are the special 

ingredients. It begins as a simple Wit Bier, like Blue Moon or Hoegaarden. Think cloudy beer, citrus aromas and random spices. For Michael, it was the additives that were key. He spent the week before brew day looking for the ingredients. He went to the Spice House to get Pink Peppercorns and Coriander. Three of us went with Michael to the far South Side of Chicago, 95th St-ish, to get the sour oranges. These are Seville Oranges native to Thailand and the closest store that stocked them was a Cuban grocery store way down south. We drove through the snowy streets, nearly causing an accident and eventually found the cherished fruits. We ate one on the way home. It tastes pretty nasty and bitter, not my favorite flavor, but I could see how in small amounts it could impart some interesting or even pleasant elements into food. The goal was to make the beer and then at the end add some fermented cherry juice and color it pink, thus becoming Pink Sheets. Currently, it’s sitting in fermentation and we’re all excited about seeing how it will turn out in the end.

Long Waits

It’s funny how a simple evening meal can turn into a slurry of adventures, mishaps, oil burns and ultimately, after 3 hours, delicious satisfaction. This happened on two occasions in recent memory. First it was Tamale night and then Soba/Tempura night. We invited some good friends over on Tamale night, thinking it would be fun to make and wrap and eat said Tamales using recipes from an Oaxacan cookbook. What we hadn’t counted on was the intense manual labor and waiting that it would take. The leaves had to be thawed, cleaned and cut. The Masa had to be mashed and mixed and smooshed into some good Masa love. Then steaming for a good long time without a proper steamer, we propped it up on a pot with some grill covers, I think. Anyway, the night, though long, was fun with the help and patience of some good friends. 

The same pretty much happened with our Soba and Tempura. The oil took forever to heat. And then once it did, we battered everything in our fridge and then some frying madness occurred. Hot oil popping and cracking all over the place, tiny splotches of mild burns on people’s hands and general chaos. But again, after much waiting, we all sat down to a nice meal, drinks and some well-deserved relaxation.

after hours, we finally get to enjoy our creations

Dough

Lately, we’ve been playing around with Pizza. I don’t really know how it happened, but I think someone had the sudden desire to make a pizza and then within a few days a pizza stone appeared and then yesterday was my roommate’s birthday, so we bought her a pizza peel. She works for a gourmet food store, so is able to bring home lots of really nice toppings. But of course, we all know the art of pizza lies in the dough. And that is where we find ourselves in a conundrum. The past few attempts at pizza have left us with a dough which does not satisfy. So, I think in the next few weeks that will be the quest, the mission, the purpose for which our lives are written. It promises to be a tasty adventure and I’m looking forward to it. Plus, I’m thinking I won’t be having any pizza in the two weeks in China, so it will be a nice farewell.

before going in the oven, chorizo, spinach, piquillo peppers, roasted potatos, caramelized onions

In any case, I’m pretty jazzed up about all this. Spontaneous trips overseas make me happy.

 The veggies were prepped. The main one was a big napa cabbage that I brined for about 6 hours. Basically, soak the bejeezus out of the cabbage  in a salt water bath and then watches 6 hours of Anthony Bourdain. Then we raided our fridge for any leftover veggies we thought we could use. 

Cabbage and veggies then went into a contained and we made some kimchi saucy-ness out of korean red pepper flakes and an assortment of other lesser ingredients. One of the ingredients was thai fish sauce which smells like the backside of a construction worker after a long day’s work. But I guess, it makes kimchi yummy.  We then let it sit out to ferment for a few days. We named it “Fart Juice Kimchi”. According to my korean friend, we spelled it wrong, but I guess that’s part of the awesomeness. 

Cooking has been fun. It’s nice to be back in a place with a good kitchen, lots of equipment and people willing to eat the creations of a student with too much time on his hands.

checking out the souks in the market

The second day, I left the city for the mountains to visit a Berber “Village”. The Berber were the indigineous people living in the Moroccan region before the arabic inhabitants or western influences. Like most indigenous populations it seems that they’ve been reduced to second-class citizens and forced out to the fringes of society. I placed “village” in quotes, because I doubt that what I visited was a real village or one actually lived in by most people. It seemed to me that someone took an old house that perhaps was lived in, and turned it into a place to take tourists and make some money. That being said, I don’t know that with my short time there and my complete outsiderness I could have gotten any closer to authenticity that the fake village. We entered into the home, took a tour around, and had mint tea prepared by the women who were there. 

berber village in the mountains

This brings me to an interesting thought that I had while doing all this… how do you access a culture? As a person passing through, I don’t know that there would be any way for me to truly understand the culture or the people. We shared no language and no previous connection. If I had weeks or more, perhaps I could have integrated somewhat and learned to communicate in some way, but rarely do we have such free time. When visiting a place, we pass through, take a glimpse and try to breathe in as much as we can in one breath. Unfortunately, in a place like Morocco, I felt like I was just seeing, but not understanding. Perhaps I could have read more about it, or researched more… I suppose sometimes all you can do is observe without trying so hard to make sense of things. And really, that’s not such a bad thing. We silly humans are always trying to make sense of things, even when sometimes things don’t need to make sense. At least not right away.

Now I am 24, and little has changed. The idea of crossing through boundaries, looking for the new still moves me forward. My eyes have grown bigger and and my world smaller, but the innate human desire to traverse new paths and discover “the other side” burns just as strong. Perhaps even stronger since the world has become so familiar. James Joyce described the need for ever greater adventure when he wrote, “The mimic warfare became at last as wearisome to me as the routine of school in the morning because I wanted real adventures to happen to myself.” It seems like anything that we play for too long becomes routine, and routine, though comfortable, becomes unsatisfying. We keep looking for the next big thing. The delicious wine today begins to taste like ash on our tongues when we drink it daily and we begin looking for our next fix. I think I both love this sense of adventure and hate that I come back each time, wanting more. Can man ever be satisfied with the world, or perhaps satisfaction can only come from outside the system. 

Tomorrow, I go to Morocco, again to satiate this implacable thirst.

All the goodies in a Bergamo Bakery. We need these in Chicago.

But lo and behold, there must have been some angels watching over me and my bowels, for I was able to enjoy the foods and continue living, nay to continue enjoying the whole days without nary a side-effect save the occassional gaseous passages which affect all of us when eating heavy foods. What does this mean? Have I overcome the dairy-induced turmoils that used to bind me? Am I unshackled from my lactoidal-chains, free to partake in all things lovely – ice cream, gelato, pizza, cheeses, 32 oz milkshakes from Top Notch Beefburgers…ooh drooool. We’ll see how things pan out, but this could possibly be the dawn of a new era, like coming out from the Dark Ages into the Renaissance. Let’s all hope so.

mmmm medieval crisscross

Anyway, Italy was a fun place. Bergamo, where RyanAir decided to drop me, was an hour away from Milan, so I spent the first leg of the trip just hanging out there. It’s another medieval city, and I feel like I’ve seen my fair share of them. That being said, this one had it’s own charms and the bakeries and cafes were all very warm. Milan, where I spent most of the time, was a different story. While it was welcoming in it’s own way, I would say that the aura of fashion and design has infused itself in every aspect of Milanese culture… and it shows. The city’s shops are beautiful and there is no lack of attention, almost obsession with image. We got to go out with a friend from Milan and he showed us how to party like a real Italian… apparently, it’s by going to a Cuban Salsa club. And also, there was much drinking, eating and general frivolity. In the words of Borat, “I like”. Then Venice. I woke up late, caught a late train and arrived in the mid afternoon to spend my only day in Venice. I knew I wanted to get to St. Mark’s Square before the sun set, so I quickly bought a map and quickly determined that the map was too confusing to read. Fortunately, there were signs pointing out how to get to the square all throughout the city, though I suspect these signs took me in a roundabout fashion to as many shops and restaurants as possible. I ran through Venice, crossing canals and jetting through the labyrinth, all the while racing the sun. Also, I had forgotten to go to the bathroom beforehand, so I was also on the lookout for a free bathroom. While I didn’t find the latter so handily, I made it to St. Mark’s just as the sun was setting and was able to soak in the views for a good half hour, after which I ran to the nearest pizzaria and took advantage of their amenities. All in all, a pretty nice journey. And now I am back “home” in Madrid.