Chinese food

There's Chinese food in China!
Not what you would expect though if you were judging from Canadian standards. But what else do we Canadians have to draw from? There is no chicken chow mien, egg foo anything, chop seuy... not here.
Now it's true the woman here cooking is Malaysian Chinese, but she assures me the only difference in her cooking, compared to the real Chinese cuisine is that she enjoys mixing more things together than do Chinese cooks. She likes the variety, and colour, and taste for that matter.
So here's how it goes... no easy meals. No 'open a can of soup and make a sandwich' kind of meal here. It's all carefully planned and prepared. And always cooked. No salads, I miss that. I think salads were at least half my diet.
Step one is a trip to the market, (two minutes from the door, and a story for another time) often with no shopping list cause you never know what will be there that's fresh and it leaves you open to 'inspiration'.

The meal preparation takes about an hour with the delegation of a few other hands chopping, washing, peeling, stirring... and the finished product will feed hordes (cause there are always hungry hordes here at meal times)
Often they start with soup, from some large boiled bones that might have been used a few times and in between uses, might have sat on the kitchen table for some time. Scary? Yes. And to that some green onions, maybe sweet radish (a huge white thing) maybe squash that they call pumpkin, a few floating balls made of fish paste but little else.
Next will come rice and lots of it, cooked it the microwave... Lia Kwan mixes in other grains and beans, but the Chinese usually use white rice. One day one of the youth here ate 7 bowls of rice!!! They like rice a lot, like the Persians I think.
But with the rice will be served many more dishes, several of veggies, and normally one or two that have meat, (fish or pork) It starts with a hot wok with oil, add maybe onion but always garlic. if it's a meat dish, the meat may have been marinated in oyster sauce/ soy sauce and other mysterious things. So add the meat after cooking the garlic a minute, brown the meat and push it up the sides of the wok (maybe 5-10 minutes) I feel like I'm writing a cookbook. Add water or some or that soup I mentioned earlier, then comes greens (could be sweet potato tops, baby bok choy, and about a million other choices I have never seen before)
The greens get put to the side and little by little pushed into the hot liquid on the bottom until wilted. It really looks easy but there are secrets I don't know.
Each dish is unique, each time they do it. That's the secret part, no measuring, no recipe... experience. When finished there could be 5 or 6 dishes all set on the middle of the table. Each person is given a small bowl of rice and the chop sticks... I know you are waiting for this part.
So the chop sticks allow you an increased reach if about 6" or more and everyone just reaches in and selects food from each dish to add to their little rice bowl. So civilized, except for me. I'm not real practiced with the sticks. I have been known to be reaching for, say, a fish ball and think I have mastered the grip when, halfway to my bowl the sticks do an unexpected criss-cross behaviour and fling my food headlong into someone else's lap, bowl or hair. Not a pretty sight. People try not to laugh. I turn red. The later in the day, the less coordination I have. Lesson: eat early.
So many more things of interest around food but I must tell you about the Hot Pot. The little restaurants have special tables with a hole in the centre under which there is a gas burner. In the hole goes a bowl (mostly just the broth as I mentioned before) the size and shape of those large silver salad/mixing bowls we all have. Then you go to the "bar" and chose stuff to go in it, like greens, fish, veggies, maybe twenty or more choices, all on little wooden sticks. You then load the stuff, a bit at a time, into the boiling broth, much like a fondu, and let it cook a bit and dig in with your chopsticks!! It's a ton of fun, and when you finish, they count the wee sticks and you pay per stick.
China, you all have to come.

day to day...China

Life in China is a very different experience that what I have become used to in, say, BC or ON.
There are things that happen that I don't expect.

I assume that the landlord where I rent has a responsibility to to keep my rental unit in a reasonable condition (like if the wall is crumbling down because of a water leak, he would repair it) My expectations are out of line for some of China's standards.
Where I'm staying, by chinese standards, is spacious and well equipped. And yet, me, the "badly spoiled Canadian white person" thinks I am living in "hardship". But, the Baha'i Holy Writings tells me "hardship" is good for me, it helps strengthen my character, which can use much in the strengthening department.

So...? here's my humble view.
Let's start with the bed. My friend cautioned me about the beds before I left Canada. I think he thought I was a sissy. He said "it's not like Canada, the beds are hard" I imagine hard and think, I (puffed up ego) can handle "hard beds"... well he meant HARD beds. They actually have a mattress (a surprise, to be sure) but the mattress has the softness of, say, a patio stone! Then, on top of that, is a kind of bamboo mat about 1/2 cm. thick, made up of small blocks of wood (1 cm x 2 cm) strung together. It's a little like those seat covers that you buy for your car that are round beads, these are just bigger beads (and flat). Now in the winter, the mat is covered with a couple of blankets and an electric pad for warmth, then a bed sheet... the summer (where we are now) the blankets and electric pad go under the mat, the mat gets flipped to the shiny side, the sheet gets packed away... and you sleep on the wood??? I'm trying to grow to this "strength" So far i make it to... putting and extra quit, doubled, and on top of my mattress/bamboo mat to get one little bit more of softness, so my poor old complaining bones can actually get some sleep on the torture bed. I know they are going to make me try the 'mat alone' thing soon. I think I might look for some" heavy duty" sleeping pills and give it a try.

Cu Chi Tunnels

In the south of Vietnam, near the community of Cu chi, (and not too far from Ho Chi Minh City) they have preserved some of the original areas where the war with the American soldiers was fought. This area is where the most intense fighting and bombing focused.

I knew nothing about this history but what I saw in the big American movies and I was shocked and alarmed by the truth.

Because of the ingenuity of the local people and their spirit of preservation, they built tunnels to assist in the communication and safe travel through the area in war time. The tunnels were originally begun during the war with the French, but weren't really used to there fullest until the American war years. (1960's)

So the building of the tunnels took place over a period of 25 years and the total length of the tunnels was somewhere around 120 km (in fact all the way to the Cambodian boarder) There was a whole community there, underground! 

The guides were excellent in explaining the inner workings. Models and diagrams showed where the people lived, the hospital, the cooking areas, how and when they cooked (and kept the smoke contained until the early hours of the morning when they could release it safely without risking detection)

The tunnels were up to four levels deep and in the planning they included traps in case they were invaded by the Americans. The final escape tunnel went to the river bank and at high tide their tunnel exit was under water.

They dug themselves underground areas to shoot at the Americans undetected. They collected all they could find from the Americans, metal from unexploded bombs, guns and other equipment and fashioned it into weapons or tools to use against their enemy. They built traps throughout the forest that were deadly and built with the simplest tools and included a lot of bamboo spikes.

They had nothing and were up against the equipment and technology of the US. And they were never defeated. They tried to bomb them out but they would just re-dig. Many thousands died there defending their freedom. The digging went on at night, like so much of their lives and they dumped the dirt from the tunnels in old bomb craters to hide it.

They walked us through the area to view some tunnel sights, traps, escape holes... and finally through a restored tunnel. It had been enlarged to accommodate tourists but I was on my knees through parts of it (and I'm not all that huge) Originally there was no light but they added two small bulbs at the beginning of the tunnel (to get you well in before you hit the thick darkness) I only travelled 30 meters before I ran for the air and light of day. Some travelled the entire 100 meters and down to the second level... very brave.

For me, this was a life changing experience.

I Hate Rats

I didn't expect to write about rats!

I don't like rats.

My daughter, one day, came home with a little story-joke...

 ' I was crazy once. They locked me in a room with rats. I hate rats! They drive me crazy... I was crazy once' ...  etc

Well, I'm there. 

They live in the house with us. Maybe not live, I think they just visit at night and search the kitchen for sustenance. 

The first one found me in the kitchen one night recently. I did the screech, dance, run thing... it just ran back and forth trying to get back to the cooking area where it has an escape route, but poor thing  (oh man, did I say 'poor thing') got locked out cause we had closed the inner door.

So unbeknowned to me, it found it's way to my room and set up housekeeping under my bed.  I didn't know  until about 2am when it began it's housekeeping or toileting routines.

That was pretty much it for sleep that night. It would scurry about under my bed and I would thump about and utter threats like "you better not come out from there cause I'm here, with a full bladder, and you could be at risk, unless you can swim" If I made enough noise it would get quiet, and if I stayed quiet it would get it's courage back and resume activities... so I would begin the thumping again ad nausium.  By the mornings light I must have dozed off in exhaustion and it made a daring escape out my window. I know cause of the teeth marks through the screen.

That morning I find him in the kitchen, resume the screech, dance, run behavior and watch as he climbs the wall in the corner and lets himself out the exhaust fan!  Brat.

Next night, with evidence of it's escape, I returned to bed with greater ease... well not so much as to leave my window open enough for a repeat performance.  And sure enough, 2am, I see him decend from the air conditioner outside my window. He climed down the screen and chewed a new hole (cause I had repaired the old one) but was too chubby to fit through the narrow window crack. I was at the window in a flash, afraid I was wrong about his size and the space available for his entry. 

Somewhat relived, I returned to bed, but sleep? aahh... no, not for a long while.  I shivered to watch his return to investigate a new entry spot. Big fellow he is, the screen droops with his weight.

 My host says just don't leave and food in your room and he'll get tired of being there.  She suggests just keep your mosquito net zipped up and "no worries"  I think she must not mind rats as much as me. And does she rally think they can't get through my mosquito net when it has made four new "doors" in the screen.

So he comes by every night to rip a larger hole in my sorry screen. I think it's time to keep the window shut, zip down the mosquito net and forget repairing the screen...