Encountering China happens at all levels. Anne writes here her first reflection on life as we are encountering it:
We have come to China to stay for a longer period of time than we have in recent years. We are here in Nanjing for two months staying in an apartment rather than a hotel room. That means setting up home & learning how to live life here rather than being a visitor in a faceless hotel room. So, to those who know us well you will not be surprised to hear that we already have a small plant, a flower vase, a teapot & some books.
Setting up home means gathering those things of home. In fact our friend who lives here commented when she was here for supper the other evening that it was just like being in our home in England! I took that as a compliment – but it also made me think what setting up home in another culture should look like. We have those things of home but they very definitely have a Chinese flavour – our crockery is a beautiful Chinese pattern – it’s a bog standard pattern from the supermarket but we like it so much it will be sad to pack it up & leave it here at the end of our time. We have a stock of chopsticks to eat with and Chinese style porcelain spoons and so on. When I went to buy a bread knife I couldn’t find one but was bewildered by a huge choice of meat cleavers. A different size of cleaver for each type of food. We have a fearsome weapon on the small size of cleaver that cuts our bread very nicely!
Which leads us to bread – that staple we take so much for granted. Of course bread has not been the norm here. A close approximation is the dough mixed with vegetable & fried in huge flat pans – a kind of flat bread which is delicious but oily and sold freshly cooked very cheaply by the street side vendors. We find it hard to go for that first thing in the morning! (Also as this is best eaten fresh we avoid the discussion of who will go to buy the morning’s meal) We find that breakfast is the hardest meal to eat out of our comfort zone so resort to bread from the supermarket. There are an increasing number of up-market bread shops with names like “Mister Bread” and “Bread O” and the supermarkets now have sections dedicated to bread & cakes. This bread is modelled on European & American bread – however it is usually surprising. You can buy a perfectly normal looking loaf to find it hides some sort of vegetable paste, or maybe coconut or “meatfloss” which I can’t quite discern what it is but is savoury & “hairy” on the top of the loaf. The other main component of our breakfast is drinking yoghurt which is wonderful – together with a huge variety of fruit which is usually in the exotic section at home but run of the mill here!
However, having started the day with some sort of “familiar” meal we are hugely enjoying the wonderful range of Chinese food for the rest of our meals. There is so much variety and we have enjoyed experimenting and being helped by a range of friends. So far on this trip among the things we have sampled have been crayfish cooked in hot (in both senses of the word) oil, intestines (I innocently thought it was mushroom, much to the amusement of the friends who we were eating with), chicken soup, dumplings with all sorts of fillings & types, delicious kebabs and my absolute favourite, aubergines – cooked to perfection.
One thing about being here for longer is the opportunity to begin to experiment with cooking ourselves. I have already helped our friend prepare a couple of meals at her place for friends and thus begins a whole learning curve – not just about ingredients that are very different and how to combine them to make wonderful food – but also the mechanics of the kitchen. Most families live in small apartments – the space we ourselves are living in – one large room – is not at all unusual. This means space for the kitchen is not large. It is quite usual to just have one electric hot plate (or sometimes bottled gas stove – the gas bottle depot is just round the corner from us and fleets of delivery men on bicycles dressed in their blue & orange overalls can be seen setting off in the morning each with 2 large bottles balanced on either side of their bikes). Most things are cooked in a wok, one dish being prepared and left waiting while the next is cooked and the rice cooks in the rice cooker. When all is done the meal is enjoyed.
As in every culture, meals are so important & welcoming guests and eating with them is an vital part of hospitality. But to me, who is used to a little more space, to do this all in a small area with different ways of doing everything makes it hard work! Additionally it is hot so I am sweating and the open window & the light on attracts the mosquitoes so I feel bitten around the ankles. The kitchen sink leaks so waste water must not be poured down the sink but collected in a bowl & emptied down the loo in the bathroom and there
is no hot water in the kitchen to wash up with so the bowl must be filled in the bathroom & bought back to the kitchen . . . vegetables cannot be washed in tap water (do not drink tap water on any account, always use bottled water) so clean water has to be got – so many different things to remember, so many idiosyncrasies that the preparation of the meal for me turns into a strange, hot marathon and only redeemed by the friendliness & warmth of the guests.
I look on those who cook, whether in restaurants or in homes with new respect, but I know that as I become more familiar and experienced will not turn a hair in a few weeks time. Such are the things that make entering a different culture both fun & frustrating! We love China - it's fun, sometimes challenging but always worthwhile engaging with the nation and its people, and all their differences from us at a deeper level.
(I will leave the description of doing laundry until next time!)
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