Remembering China # 2: Beijing beer

Talking about the World Nomad’s travel scholarship prize in Beijing had me thinking about Beijing itself. What an amazing place – really. When you think of China, there are two main places that instantly come to mind (well other than the Great Wall) – Beijing and Shanghai – two cities that could not possibly be more different. While Shanghai is the true land of hyper-lit skyscrapers, Beijing is not really a city in the traditional sense. There is a CBD area, and there are some large buildings, but Beijing covers a large, sprawling area.

The roof kitties observe

Beijing is rich in culture and history, but is also spread out in such a way that it’s difficult to take it all in in a glance. If you go to Jingshan Park behind the Forbidden City, which has a large hill that was actually made from the soil dug out of the Forbidden City’s moat, you can see exactly how extensive the city is – and in fact, it’s probably the place to go if you want the best view of the Forbidden City itself.

Every place you go is flat and long. When you exit the Tienanmen Square train station – finding your way to the square is a challenge that involves a lot of walking. Going from the square past the Forbidden City, down to the Wangfujing shopping street – or the famous night food market behind it – walk walk walk.

Beijing to me though, is most fondly remembered by the tiny rooftop bars that were among the cities famous hutongs (courtyard homes). One such bar we had to ourselves, sitting amongst a large assortment of roof lions and tiny potted plants. From this rooftop, we had a great view of the Bell and Drum towers, and could simply unwind. Downstairs, within the hutong itself, the owner, a young and chic Beijing girl, would play cruisy Norah Jones and other western beats.

Down the road from this place, bordering the courtyard between the two gigantic towers, another tiny bar, marked out by Nepalese prayer flags. Go here, grab a tsingtao and nibble on nuts while you watch the locals play chess and do their dusk exercises.

As the sun began to go down, amongst the hutong’s you’ll find an array of street barbeques suddenly making an appearance. Men armed with hair dryers, lay an assortment of skewered meat over thin grills, then blow them with the dryers to speed up the process. Grab a seat, order 30 lamb skewers and a cucumber salad with a pair of matching tsingtao’s. This place is heaven.

My attempt at a bodgy map of the area. You can see the drum and bell towers at least!

Remembering China # 1: Where it all began

I recently entered the World Nomad’s 2013 travel writing scholarship contest, and while I didn’t win – or hell, I didn’t even get shortlisted, god how I wanted to. The prize this year was 2 weeks in Beijing under the mentorship of various travel writers in what would have been something of a dream come true experience. Of course, actually winning a heavily subjective competition like this one is comparable to your chances of winning the lotto – I mean, who the hell really knows what they’re looking for year to year. Anyhow, I didn’t win, and I have moved on – I promise!

While I was spending time on the competition, it had me reminiscing again of my own time spent in China. I went through my old photos, many of which I hadn’t looked at for many years now, and have decided to pull a few out and write about them. While living in China – stupidly – I didn’t recognize the need to have a really good camera, and so while many of our shots reflect our experience, I am still kicking myself today that I didn’t take over a proper digital SLR – the night shots we missed out on – gah!

This first shot is particularly average, but it’s also very meaningful for me. It was one of a handful of shots we took just after arriving, while heading back to the school in a minivan. This shot shows the real China – a China that we did not expect. Deep down we knew that it would be a heavily industrialized, very smoggy environment, but we also were still trying to fool ourselves that we would in fact be driven through bamboo forests, past teahouses and pagodas until at our final destination we were served delicious steaming dumplings by none other than a panda.

The reality? This photo:

 

It was winter and just beyond some unseasonably heavy snowfalls. It does not always snow in Wuxi, but this year it had. In fact in 2008, China experienced such heavy snowfalls that it caused chaos across the country – made all the worse by the fact that half the population was on the move for Chinese New Year. It bordered on disaster.

Anyhow, for us newbies to the country, it meant that the country was freezing cold, both foggy and smoggy, and universally brown. All the foliage was flattened and brown. The grass – brown. The trees – not that there were any real trees – more shrubs, were partially bare and all brown.

It was grey and desolate and a depressing landscape. It was also eye-opening in its sheer size. Everywhere we looked were bamboo scaffold clad buildings such as in the image. On the horizon, random high-rise apartments and factories.

As we travelled across this landscape, through lines of identical blue trucks and flat-bed vehicles laden with yellow helmeted workers, we began to question if we had made a mistake coming here.

All Asian’s look the same

Actually, no they don’t. That title is a blatant racist stereotype – however in the case of the 2013 Miss Korea beauty pageant, it is funnily enough the case.

The below image has gone viral (for the record, I absolutely hate this term), cycling through all 20 contestants and damn if they don’t look identical. Why you ask? Plastic surgery.

I have a bit of a confession to make. Over the past year or two, I’ve developed a bit of an addiction to K-Pop. Yes I am about 20 years older than the target market, and a lot hairer, but hey, I like Asian music ok! It was also a bit of a Sunday morning ritual to wake up, and watch SBSPopAsia on SBS while I ate my breakfast and relaxed with a coffee.

Initially I was simply amused by the randomness of these South Korean pop stars. The first real appeal was the fact that these were not simply boy or girl bands, these were EPIC boy or girl bands – think a boy band with like THIRTEEN members (hello Super Junior) – and the same deal with the girl groups.

K-Pop was initially one of those styles of music that makes you laugh because it was simply so naff. Here were these polished South Koreans trying to emulate African American rappers, and your standard oldschool white boybands – but just didn’t seem to get it.

Flash forward until present, and somewhere along the line, familiarity has somehow evolved into a form of liking it, and ok ok I admit it, I like it!

Though as I marvelled at these squeaky clean, sparkling South Koreans, I often wondered – are they simply a good looking race? Is there just a higher proportion of cutesy looking females in that particular peninsula than most other parts of Asia? The answer is no – the answer is in fact, plastic  surgery.

The Miss Korea 2013 contestants

Plastic surgery in South Korea is rampant. It’s like the problem with ultra-thin western supermodels influencing the look of teenagers -  but in South Korea, it’s plastic surgery.
The most popular form of surgery is initially the double-eyelid – which is essentially creating a second lid by lifting up the original lid – giving the effect of two small eyelids. While my description of it is somewhat freaky, in reality, it simply makes their eyes larger/wider, while still maintaining that distinctive Asian look.  

When I think about how many people in China wore glasses, and how they go to lengths to exercise their eyes in class and so on due to widespread vision issues – I actually wonder if this double eyelid surgery might help (but I of course are no doctor).

But double eyelid surgery is just the beginning. For those with cash (or parents who want a kid that’s better looking), it then evolves into adjusted noses, chins, cheeks, you name it. The end result is Miss Korea 2013 – where every contestant almost looks identical.

On one side South Korea has issues with a very naughty neighbour. On the other – a new generation of younglings thinking they’re ugly in comparison to their plastic perfect pop idols. And what is the solution? God only knows at this point. K-Pop is going through the roof worldwide – having already exploded through Japan many years ago. Plastic surgery is not going anywhere, not anytime soon, anyway.

Girls Generation, 100% adjusted

All hail, xiaolongbao!

Since we’ve moved into the city, we’ve had a bit of trouble finding ‘Box Hill’ style dumplings. By that I mean a cheap and nasty place, full of Chinese, and absolutely delicious dumplings.

The cheap and nasty refers to the decor. I learned a long time ago, that a dumpy place isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The Chinese in particular, are very practical when it comes to eating out. They do so on a regular basis and so their standard eateries don’t have to be dressed up and impressive. Western diners (aka Australian’s) tend to dine out on a less frequent basis, largely because of the cost. Our restaurants range from the very expensive and therefore quite posh, to your standard fast-food places, but rarely will you find a western restaurant that’s like the lower quality eateries that populate so much of Asia.

Because on the whole, western people aren’t familiar with nightly dining out, or eating in a cheap and nasty looking place, they tend to avoid them, in which case you’ll often find them full of Asians. The Asian’s of course are completely familiar with this concept – they’re not eating there for the environment, they’re eating there for the food – the cheap food.

In a typical cheap and nasty looking place – such as those found in Box Hill, Victoria, you’ll often find them full of Chinese. This also usually means that the food is closer to what you’ll find overseas – and for any travelers out there – us people whose eyes light up at the thought of the cheap delicious treats often found on the roadside, these places are awesome.

There is one place in Box Hill which used to be a fairly Chinese dominated haunt (though was never dumpy…well unless you go into the bathrooms…) but is now usually full of us whities. It used to go by the name of DC Dumpling, but re-invented itself as Dumpling Specialist. One of the side-effects of becoming too local Australian, is that the quality of the food goes down, often matched by the price rising. There’s a very big difference between a superb and a terrible dumpling. With a dumpling heavy menu, Dumpling Specialist still thankfully offers some of the most delicious dumplings I have had anywhere.

In particular (and the point of this post -heh) their xiaolongbao’s. I have found over the years, that some restaurants might offer the world on their menu, but they only really excel at certain items. You’re better off ordering pan fried dumplings at Ramen King and RaRamen in Box Hill as an example – their steamed variants being in cases that are too thick, and when steamed, arriving at the table watery.

Dumpling Specialist nails the steamed dumplings – and their flagship in my opinion? Xiaolongbao. I *love* xiaolongbao. They are so utterly delicious – the kind that make you a bit feral and defensive over how many are remaining in the basket  – or the kind that simply give you pause when you eat them, as their exquisite flavour explodes in your mouth.  Quite frankly, they are the bomb.

Xiaolong actually translates to ‘small steaming basket’ referring to how these dumplings are served, while bao refers to the bun in which they arrive. They’re also known as soup dumplings, not because they are served in soup, but because sealed inside the bun is a tasty broth – along with your typical hunk of meat.

It takes great patience not to immediately start eating them when they first arrive, steaming and enticing. But your best bet is to wait several minutes, as what’s contained inside those sealed bao’s can only be described as nuclear. The Chinese bite their buns on the side, then drink the broth before eating them. Personally, I still find this ends in burned lips. I tend to leave mine in the basket until they’ve cooled down a bit (usually chowing down on whatever else is on the table), then plop the entire xiaolongbao into my mouth so I can enjoy the flavour in one immense hit.

The morale of this story is simple: xiaolongbao rock, and you need them in your belly, now!

xiaolongbao @ Dumpling Specialist, Box Hill, Vic

China, take our money!

I read this interesting article earlier which discussed how Hollywood is beginning to edit its movies in order to try and capture the Chinese dollar. It seems that everyone’s chasing those same dollars. Every second day there’ll be an article about the boom in Chinese tourism, or China suddenly exploding into our music markets, or car markets, or you name it whatever else. Of course that’s when they’re not purchasing all of our raw materials, or entire continents (hello Africa!).

This particular article mentioned Iron Man 3 which reminds me of the time I saw Iron Man 1 when it was first released, at a local cinema in Wuxi, China.

My memories of the movie – beyond the fact half of the people present were not watching the movie but pissing around on their mobile phones – was that it was edited in a really bizarre way.

During the opening scenes, Tony Stark was captured in the desert and forced to work on his first Iron Man armour suit. These scenes were choppy and random and leapt from one thing to another – sometimes mid-dialogue. It was not until sometime later that I discovered that this was not the editors trying to be funky with some kind of ADD-inducing new method – but Chinese editing.

There had been no attempt to make the removed scenes seamless. Anything deemed inappropriate was simply cut. The end result was a jumpy, stuttery series of segments that truly baffled.

Early into the movie, Tony Stark brought a reporter back to his room to sleep with. The sex scene wasn’t shown in the main movie other than the two of them kissing on the bed, then rolling over and falling onto the floor. This scene too was edited out.

The final scene I recall missing (and I am sure there were others mixed in there) was during the climactic battle between Iron Man and…whoever that other armoured baddie was. The two jetted super high into the air until Iron Man’s power source was disabled and he fell to the earth. When he fell, he landed in a small crater – nothing really amazing here – yet this fall was edited out. I really can’t understand this omission.

The moral of this story? There isn’t one – other than don’t go and watch movies in Chinese cinemas if you’re one of those people who can’t handle other people talking during a flick (aka all of us).

Back from Bali

Nusa Dua beach at 6am with the tide out.

I have just returned from 10 days in Bali and it is most definitely not the reason why I haven’t been updating this blog much – that’s just sheer laziness! There have been so many interesting Chinese related news articles that I have been meaning to write about, alas!

I would prefer to say that I had just returned from Indonesia, it sounds so much more exotic than Bali. Bali is, like my brother-in-law put it, “the Gold Coast with passports,” and man, is that the truth. For the non-Australian’s, the Gold Coast is long section of beach just south of Brisbane (in the State of Queensland). It is one of Australia’s most popular holiday destinations for Australians – kind of where you go to when you want nothing more than to drink and lie on a beach – two very popular Australian pasttimes – particularly for the typical yobbo. The name Gold Coast is taken from the fact the sand is golden yellow – it’s also known as Surfers Paradise for its waves.

Bali is like taking the above description and mixing it with South East Asia. It’s hot, there’s nice beaches, plenty of drinking, and of course, plenty of Australians. Initially we were looking at going to the Philippines, and then Malaysia, and we thought, we simply want a cheap, hot destination for a pool holiday, and well, Bali is close, so decided to check it out. We figured Bali would be cheaper than the other two options.

It is definitely close, with a direct flight from Melbourne clocking in around the 5 hours 20 minute mark. And it was definitely HOT, with one Balinese local describing the island as having two temperatures: hot and hotter. But it was not cheap. In fact, unless you’re eating all meals in the outside restaurants, and the same with the drinks, you’re looking at very close to Australian prices (ie: expensive).

Of course, this holds true for most countries I have visited. If you eat in your hotel, you’re going to pay for it, but I can say for a fact, Thailand was a lot cheaper than Bali in this regard. In addition, you don’t always want to have to go into the streets for your lunches and dinners. Sometimes it’s nice just to stay by the pool all day, ordering food to you, ordering cocktails and the like. It’s a pool holiday afterall!

We stayed in three different places. First up was the Laguna resort in Nusa Dua. Second was the Seminyak Resort and Spa in Seminyak, and finally we splurged a bit and stayed for two nights at the Anantara, also in Seminyak.

The Laguna was lovely, if not lacking a bit of character. It was one of those resorts designed to be all inclusive, in that once there, you don’t need to leave. This is great if you’re European (which most of the guests were incidentally), but if you want to get out and explore a bit, not so good. There were some shops nearby, and a largish shopping centre named Bali Connection (which I swear was just 5 shops repeated 50 times over), but overall, it was just lacking something, and it was very expensive. Cocktails were $16.00 AUD a pop, and the mojitos were mediocre at best, even at this premium price. The 5 dollar shopping centre mojitos were far tastier.

The beach at Nusa Dua was quiet as there was a coral reef there. Waves would break quite a distance from shore, until high tide when the main beach became quite lovely for swimming. In the distance there was a terrific view of one of Bali’s volcanos.

Seminyak was a very different experience. This bustling area is one of Bali’s new tourism growth spots, with resorts and villas everywhere. When standing on the beach, I counted no less than 7 large cranes behind the palm tree horizon – new resorts were sprouting up everwhere. Across the water, an almost constant stream of planes were taking off and landing – Bali thrives off its tourism.

The Seminyak Resort and Spa was a nice hotel, located right on the beach, with an amazing infinity pool set right above the sand. The beach here was the polar opposite of Nusa Dua, with some seriously large waves crashing against the shore. The sand was volcanic grey and home to a surprisingly number of articles of rubbish. While it was nice bobbing in the ridiculously warm Indian Ocean, the vibe is somewhat killed when you’re constantly picking your way in between chip packets and pieces of plastic.

The Seminyak Resort and Spa had a really nice room, and the grounds were decent enough, but the lack of a proper bar area killed it a bit. It had one of the fabled swim up pool bars – but that was it. There was nowhere to sit around this bar, and by the time it was happy hour (5-7pm), the water was in shade and actually kind of cold. Thailand wins on the bar front – with both places we staying having awesome areas to just hang out, watch the sun go down and sup cocktails. All three places in Bali failed in this regard.

The Seminyak also has this chapel located bang in the middle of its ocean front property. This place could have made an excellent restaurant, bar or effectively anything else – but no, it was just a chapel. Complete waste of space in my opinion.

The final place, the Anantara was what I thought would be the best of the three, but was merely just as good. This is classed as a boutique resort (aka small), occupying a small patch of ground, further down the beach from the Seminyak. The Anantara did have a much better vibe to it however. The main draw here are the jacuzzi’s set into the balcony, which despite taking like 40 minutes to fill, were kind of cool I have to admit. Our first night here was a disaster, with some works in the hotel keeping up awake literally all night – and on complaining the next day, we were moved to a higher level, which thankfully, was quiet.

While each hotel was nice, the common trend was they lacked character – something the Thai hotels had in spades. The one thing that bound them all together however, was the staff – the Balinese (or Indonesians, period) were just like the Thai’s – friendly, helpful and always an absolute pleasure to deal with. While Bali is not the kind of place I could see myself returning to time and time again, if i had to, the Balinese people themselves would be a big part of this.

Overall – I liked Bali. I didn’t love it, but I liked it. As usual, I found it interesting to see the differences between the local culture/people compared to the other parts of Asia that I am familiar with. I love Asia, and being back there was an absolute treat. Once more, I have returned home with pangs of wanting to move back there. And once more, upon returning home, drinking water from the tap feels like wrongtown.

Sunset on Seminyak beach

The Seminyak Resort and Spa infinity pool

Hi!

Gong xi fa cai! Happy Chinese new year 2013!

Gong xi fa cai to all of the Asian’s out there celebrating the new year which is tomorrow, Sunday February 10. In Melbourne, there’s various large Asian hubs, and they generally stagger their celebrations over the week before and after the main day. The city of Box Hill will be going off right about now, with its usual hub of delicious food tents, while in Melbourne CBD’s Chinatown, the main celebrations will be tomorrow.

I will head into town and hopefully get my twisty Korean potato snacks on. Each year there’s also a large hawkers market set up out front of the Crown Casino, which I am sure will also be full of delicious meals.

Back on the Chinese mainland, some two million people will be on the move with the new year. Regardless of how much money a person has, it’s expected that they make the trip back to see their family. In many cases – particularly those of the migrant workers, it’s the only time in the year that they see their loved ones. Could you imagine only seeing your wife just once in an entire year? Your mum? Your children?

In years past, the train stations have been the main hub of these horrific travel periods, but increasingly, as a rising middle class appears, airports will become increasingly chaotic. The growing accessibility to air travel should alleviate some of the burden on the rail system – but by only a small amount. Each year, tickets are difficult to get, moreso considering that in China, you cant buy them in advance. You have to purchase tickets a mere five days out from the time of traveling – something that really goes against the western notion of planning in advance.

But still, at least there’s not the massive snowstorms of recent years – which would have been hellish to say the least.

Happy Chinese new year! I hope 2013 is a prosperous one, and NOT full of snakes

China – land of mishaps.

I read up on Chinese news on an almost daily basis, and I am continually stumped by the sheer ridiculousness of the stories that I see. This one today has to take the cake…at least, it’s up there.

In a nutshell: A truck loaded with fireworks on a very high bridge on an expressway in Henan province has promptly exploded, causing the bridge to collapse. WTF!!!!! They have reported the number of deaths to be in the 20′s (so more likely in the 50′s), with cars having been pushed off the bridge, with others having been crushed. I swear to god – this is almost as good as the newly opened, massively expensive CCTV building in Beijing burning to the ground due to fireworks going off next door…or the policemen dying from fireworks explosions as they tooled around with them, having created a massive fireworks bonfire instead of disposing of them properly.

The list goes on and on. The entire country is full of these incidents. They’re not sure with this one where to point the blame. Was it simply the size of the explosion that caused the collapse? Was it the way the fireworks were packed in the truck that set them off – likely just stuffed in there. Or was it a shoddy bridge design? It’s highly likely a little from column A and a little from column B.

Just the other day, a massive sinkhole swallowed several buildings in Guangzhou – caused by workers digging a subway tunnel out from beneath it.

China is widely criticized for skimping on proper safety standards in its mad rush forward – hell, just ask any Chinese miner how they feel about their job. These stories are as ridiculous as they are horrifying, and they are practically a constant feature in any news report focusing on the mainland.

Jie Zheng through to the 3rd round of the Australian Open…again

It’s funny – I noticed a large spike in the webstats yesterday, the culprit being an article I wrote some three years ago about Jie Zheng moving through to the 3rd round of the Australian Open. Well as chance would have it, she’s done it again

In what local media is calling a choke, Australian favourite Sam Stosur had the match in the palm of her hand, being up 5-2 in the third set. You would think that this would be an almost irreversible lead  – but not so, as she then went on to lose the next 5 games straight, losing the match 6-4, 1-6, 7-5.

That’s the good thing about tennis – anything can happen. Even the biggest lead can suddenly turn into a loss when the pressure, physical strain or even weather conditions rear their ugly head. It was a nice mild mid-20′s day in Melbourne yesterday – not so today! Today we’re heading into the top 30′s, and as I type this, the sweat is literally pouring from the hat of poor old Jo-Wilfried Tsonga as he does battle with Japan’s Soeda.

In other news, I am heading to the tennis tonight to see Federer play against Nikolay Davydenko. We are absolutely stoked to get Federer – worried that we’d get Tomic whose instead playing this afternoon. When Australian’s get further into the Open, you can almost be assured they’ll be put onto centre court and be televised. Having been to the Open several times in the past few years, each time we were hoping to see Feds while he was still in form. Booyah!

Jie Zheng

Like being in China

Tonight it’s smoky, very smoky. We have gone through a recent hot spell and there’s been many bush fires in the north of my state. That smoke is now hanging around, like a distant haze.

In fact, as I sit here on the balcony of my high rise apartment, between the smog like haze and the smell of Asian cooking from an apartment below, I could easily be back in China.