My first two weeks were spent traveling with family from Modesto, hitting up some of the tourist sites of Hong Kong and eating lots of wonton mein, the famous Cantonese noodle dish featuring a savory soup broth oftentimes containing some delicious MSG (it does Make Soup Great, after all), yellow wonton noodles that are chewy, eggy, and have that characteristic gum may, or "golden flavor" from the alkaline solution it is soaked in, and of course, the won tons themselves - glorious little packages of shrimp, pork, and seasonings. Being a vegetarian, I was happy with just the mein and soup with some vegetables.
The next week, we headed to Huanan, China for my aunt and uncle's wedding reception. A few days before our flight, I came down with this terrible flu that had been floating around Hong Kong. Many people in the streets were wearing hospital masks, especially when riding public transportation, and at times it felt like we were in the set of a movie about a horrible plague that was threatening to end the world. Anyways, we were worried that I might not be able to get onto the plane since they had been checking for fevers at the airport, but thankfully after a lot of Panadol (the brand of ibuprofen they use over there) and my auntie Sabrina nursing me back to health, my fever broke and I made it onto the plane. Thank goodness, or else I would have had to stay behind, all sick and lonely, only dragging myself out of bed to an occasional bowl of wonton mein.
In Huanan, I tasted a phenomenal variety local dishes (so many that it warrants a separate blog post of its own) sang karaoke, explored underground malls, dodged rampant mopeds while walking along the street (apparently it is legal for motorcyclists to drive on the sidewalk), and discovered how truly unprepared I was to communicate anything in Mandarin more complex than "xie xie" (thank you), "ni hao" (how are you), numbers 0-99, and "gao la" ("enough", which proved to be extremely useful since my aunt's parents would express their hospitality through stuffing us with food). Sadly, knowing Cantonese, or "guandonghua", the dialect spoken in the Guangdong province and Hong Kong where my family is from, has very little effect on my ability to understand Mandarin, or "putonghua", the language spoken by the majority of people living in China. Sigh.
My favorite part of visiting Huanan was spending Chinese New Years with my aunt Crane's family. This was my very first experience of Chinese New Years in mainland China, and it was surprisingly similar to celebrating at home in California, with the exception of the eardrum-numbing explosions of Chinese firecrackers. These things make our July 4th fireworks sound like poprock candy. I'm sure that if we were ever crazy enough to set some off at home during Chinese New Years, our neighbors would think we were having a gunfight in the streets. However, it's perfectly normal for people in China, and although it is incredibly loud (and terrifying if you happen to be right next to them when they go off), it is a tradition that has been going on for centuries as a way to bring in the new year, scaring off anything negative or bad and welcoming good fortune and happiness.
Crane's mother prepared an amazing meal composed of at least 10 different small dishes, all of which were very different from the usual Cantonese food my great grandmother makes. There was a dish consisting of dried smoked beancurd with mushrooms and vegetables, fatty pork belly coated in something crumbly and black that I couldn't identify, pan-friend pastries with egg and leek filling, home-made dumplings, and a beautiful steamed fish marinated in a flavorful sauce that they ordered from the restaurant across the street.
We ended the evening by playing some real high stakes poker, with a whopping 1 RMB minimum bet (that's 1/6th of a US dollar).
The next week, we headed to Huanan, China for my aunt and uncle's wedding reception. A few days before our flight, I came down with this terrible flu that had been floating around Hong Kong. Many people in the streets were wearing hospital masks, especially when riding public transportation, and at times it felt like we were in the set of a movie about a horrible plague that was threatening to end the world. Anyways, we were worried that I might not be able to get onto the plane since they had been checking for fevers at the airport, but thankfully after a lot of Panadol (the brand of ibuprofen they use over there) and my auntie Sabrina nursing me back to health, my fever broke and I made it onto the plane. Thank goodness, or else I would have had to stay behind, all sick and lonely, only dragging myself out of bed to an occasional bowl of wonton mein.
In Huanan, I tasted a phenomenal variety local dishes (so many that it warrants a separate blog post of its own) sang karaoke, explored underground malls, dodged rampant mopeds while walking along the street (apparently it is legal for motorcyclists to drive on the sidewalk), and discovered how truly unprepared I was to communicate anything in Mandarin more complex than "xie xie" (thank you), "ni hao" (how are you), numbers 0-99, and "gao la" ("enough", which proved to be extremely useful since my aunt's parents would express their hospitality through stuffing us with food). Sadly, knowing Cantonese, or "guandonghua", the dialect spoken in the Guangdong province and Hong Kong where my family is from, has very little effect on my ability to understand Mandarin, or "putonghua", the language spoken by the majority of people living in China. Sigh.
My favorite part of visiting Huanan was spending Chinese New Years with my aunt Crane's family. This was my very first experience of Chinese New Years in mainland China, and it was surprisingly similar to celebrating at home in California, with the exception of the eardrum-numbing explosions of Chinese firecrackers. These things make our July 4th fireworks sound like poprock candy. I'm sure that if we were ever crazy enough to set some off at home during Chinese New Years, our neighbors would think we were having a gunfight in the streets. However, it's perfectly normal for people in China, and although it is incredibly loud (and terrifying if you happen to be right next to them when they go off), it is a tradition that has been going on for centuries as a way to bring in the new year, scaring off anything negative or bad and welcoming good fortune and happiness.
Crane's mother prepared an amazing meal composed of at least 10 different small dishes, all of which were very different from the usual Cantonese food my great grandmother makes. There was a dish consisting of dried smoked beancurd with mushrooms and vegetables, fatty pork belly coated in something crumbly and black that I couldn't identify, pan-friend pastries with egg and leek filling, home-made dumplings, and a beautiful steamed fish marinated in a flavorful sauce that they ordered from the restaurant across the street.
We ended the evening by playing some real high stakes poker, with a whopping 1 RMB minimum bet (that's 1/6th of a US dollar).
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