A dog’s dinner

text to me from my dog eating colleague…….yes he went……….”chicken”

Does he mean me – because I refused to go – or the dog tasted like…..?

……..followed few mns later by “yum”

I texted back, “yuk, yuk yuk.”

The dog days of summer

The summer solstice – usually around 21st/22nd June – is marked by  people in this part of southern China with a traditional double “delicacy”.

The combination of the two foods is said to be very healthy – lessening the body’s internal heat. That’s a popular concept here.

But this is one combo I won’t be trying. Lychee and dog.

A colleague has been invited to one of the excellent restaurants around the University to enjoy their specially prepared dog-stew.  He’s still deciding whether to go.

Summer is here with a vengeance.  It’s baking hot, the air doesn’t move and even regular,ferocious thunder storms don’t break the oppressive humid weight that steams me into a sodden, matted mess within moments of leaving the safety of my air-conditioned flat. 

closed off for lessons – a different sight when open to the rest of us

I’ve tried swimming in the “piss pool”, as my colleagues affectionately refer to the campus lido.  It’s fine it you get there on the dot of 5pm, when it opens.  But within ten minutes the water seethes with flapping, splashing, flailing students and there’s not a clear stroke’s worth of water to be seen.

 

The lotus ponds have become complete fields of dappled green and pink.

Where the petals have already fallen off, the seed pods look more like plastic shower heads than anything genuinely organic.

 

Exams start next week and then suddenly the year will be over.

Which is why I’m already planning a whole new adventure……………………..

Dragon boat surprises – welcome or otherwise

huge storage pots are all over the village – for rice? fermented something?

Twenty miles further up the Yong River is the Ming dynasty village of Yangmei.

Parts of it are a couple of hundred years old.  It’s reasonably picturesque and hasn’t yet been “disneyfied” into a tourist trap.

not exactly a comfy living room

patiently waiting for the visitor influx

We have three days off for duanwu – the Dragon Boat Festival and for the first time I’ve not gone travelling further afield – too hot, too much hassle.

But an easy day trip seemed a good option so yesterday I went with a couple of colleagues, one of whom has just acquired a toy poodle puppy.

yes, OK, even I couldn’t resist a snap

The Chinese LOVE tiny dogs – so the combination of 3 foreigners and a cute puppy meant we were stared at/talked about/photographed all day long.

the larger houses are 2/3 high ceilinged but windowless rooms linked by inner courtyards

We still spent a great 4 hours roaming round the back alleys,courtyards and river frontage.

the iconic slate roofs of China

dilapidated and lived in – so much better than the “restored” tourist spots around China

The festival is said to date from the suicide of a famous imperial adviser and poet, Qu Yuan, in 278BC.  When his ruler ignored his advice and decided to go it alone rather than form a powerful alliance- Qu Yuan went into exile.

When the kingdom was overrun by its enemies – and Qu proved right – he threw himself into the river in shame that he hadn’t protected his masters.  Local people were so impressed by his sacrifice that they tossed small triangular packets of sticky rice, wrapped in bamboo leaves,  into the water, so the fish would nibble on those and not the body of their hero.

They also set out in boats to search for his body.  Hence the dragon boat races and the traditional zongzi – bamboo packets of variously flavoured and sweetened rice, which are eaten over the holiday.

the peace of the countryside

We sat down for lunch by the river and the people on the next table were eating zongzi.  When we politely asked what they were – they insisted on giving us half their portion.

The journey back was long and fraught.  The bus was packed and the driver kept zig-zagging between the old narrow village roads and a new still unfinished highway, that was little more than wide sandy track.

it’ll be a great road………..when it’s finished

Every so often he stopped and sent off his fare-boy on foot to reccy the next stage of the road.   We thought he was lost because he also kept flagging down drivers coming the other way and having long, voluble debates with them.

Eventually we discovered he was just dodging the traffic police.  The bus was so overloaded he’d be fined if they saw him.  We – the crammed, overheated, dusty, tired cargo –  had to wait until his coast was clear!

This morning I had to stay at home.  “Be at your house for 10 o’clock”, I was told by 4 of my students last week, “We have a surprise for you.”

Wary of a “China moment” – when you want excitement/surprises but get much, much more than you bargain for – I checked with my neighbour who’d been enrolled in the surprise.

They were planning to cook jiaozi – savoury dumplings for me.  So at 10am I was impressively surprised when they arrived to escort me next door, where they were busy chopping mushrooms and carrots, to mix with egg, minced pork and various seasonings.

enjoying our handiwork

Then we all sat around, putting a dollop of filling into each thin circle of dough and crimping them to make little packets of yumminess.

I just can’t imagine 4 British university students thinking a jolly way to spend one of their precious days off was to cook for one of their lecturers.   These kids are so sweet and so unworldly in all the best ways.

untying the zongzi

And of course we had zongzi for pudding, with brown sugar syrup, in honour of Dragon Boat Day.

The bangbang army

They’re said to be the toughest porters in China, with muscles honed on the steep inclines of Chongqing – a city which makes San Francisco look flat.

They burst out of narrow alleyways onto the pavement  – with a terrifying momentum –  created by hurtling down flights of stairs while weighted down with a bamboo pole – the bangbang – across their shoulders. At either end is anything from a massive crate of vegetables, boxes of electrical goods or just someone’s weekly shopping.

Get in their way and it would be like one of those old slapstick movies where a man carrying a plank whirls round swatting everyone in his orbit.

The bang bang army stops for no one.  They race across the busy road, building up speed to make it back up the equally steep alley on the other side.

Even more dangerous are the carts which clatter and plunge down the main street, towards the river.  There’s no steering – just a man running behind,  loosely holding a rope which he only bothers to tug when the road flattens out at the bottom and he can rein in the load.

I meant to post this back in March.  Chongqing was the final stop on my Isabella journey – the end of the trip following her route down the Yangtze.  She then turned inland, travelling by sedan chair.  I hopped a plane back to the university, saving the rest of her route for another time.

Posting pix of the old houses I saw last weekend reminded me of the stilt houses I saw in Chongqing.

the last stilt houses – dwarfed by their modern equivalent

Isabella saw them all along her travels but these are now some of the last in China.

precarious living

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

18 Steps Street is exactly that.  Each step is the size of a small stage – offering scenes from China’s past.

Sizzling woks, fruit sellers, groups of men clustered around card tables and women hunched over sewing machines –  you descend down and down into a dark and semi-derelict area of ancient housing.

The stilts which form the structure of the houses – bedded into the hillside –  are hard to see.

home is where the mop is

There’re hidden behind layer upon layer of bamboo screens, plastic sheeting and anything else people can find to hold their homes together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other fantastic sight in Chongqing is another Hall of 500 Arhats.  I found one in Hangzhou.  Here, half hidden behind a modern shopping mall, is a thousand year old temple.  

The walls leading in are cut deep with carved figures.  To one side is the more recent Hall of Arhats – the enlightened followers of Buddha.

The Hangzhou figures were bronze.  These are terracotta and beautifully decorated.  Each face – each posture – each costume is different.

Just once in a while there is a genuine reason to use the word “awesome”.

I

Warning – falling Jackfruit

Jack fruit are supposed to have a host of health benefits.

Unless of course, one falls on your head.  And right now that’s a very real risk.

The avenue from the main gate – da men – to the middle of the campus is lined with jackfruit trees and over the last few weeks I’ve watched the clusters of prickly yellow fruits swell to football sized gourds.

They now dangle just above head height –  ripening in the fierce heat, watered by the brief but torrential downpours.  Pretty soon the first crop will be ready.

They doughy, starchy flesh in the seeds is supposed to taste of an apple/pineapple/banana combo

In a country where people devour anything edible  – and in China “edible” is a very broad definition – I’m amazed any of the mu bo luo are still there.  I’m equally concerned that if they stay there for too long I’m in real danger of being concussed by falling over-ripe yellow mush.  

Rooting round in the rubble of old China

Marooned between fast flowing rivers of traffic – in this huge ever expanding city – is a small island of ramshackle brick houses.

They look old enough to have been standing in Isabella’s day – 120 years ago.

Many of them have been partially demolished, others look on the point of collapse.

But despite the devastation these are still homes, with pot plants, vegetable gardens and freshly washed clothes,hanging on balconies that jut out over piles of rubble.

Some houses now stand alone – the only survivor from a once narrow, dense maze of housing – now dwarfed by office blocks, hotels and shopping centres.

Despite the offer of flats in the new tower blocks, people sit tight in the crumbling remnants of their old neighbourhood.

Originally this area ran down to the river.  Now it’s cut off by a 6 lane highway.  Beyond that the Yong river flows between wide concrete embankments.

Isabella’s journey was a thousand miles north of here.  Once she left her hired houseboat on the Yangzte river, she was carried by sedan chair.  In many towns local people hurled mud and stones at “the foreign devil”.

lao wai, lao wai….it means foreigner and I’ve never yet taken the bus into town without at least one child tugging at their parent’s hand to alert them to my presence.  At least I’m not a devil, having to dodge  missiles.

If you don’t like being stared at – don’t come to China.  It’s not just the children.  Most people on the bus will spend several minutes checking you out.  It’s very blatant but not at all hostile.  It’s just genuine curiosity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today the bus took a huge diversion, because one of the main shopping roads has been closed while they tunnel out the new subway.   It won’t be finished for another couple of years. Once it’s done it will transform the hellish, sweaty, jolting journey across town.

Until then the construction work just adds to the total mayhem of getting around, especially now the air is sticky-thick with humidity and heat.

The pace of change here is truly astonishing.  And the higgledy piggledy houses won’t survive much longer.