Beijing: the Temple of Heaven

(This is part of a series of posts on our recent trip to China. We'll be posting throughout the summer as we bum around at or near home.)
Along with the Forbidden City (previous post) and Tiananmen Square (upcoming post), the Temple of Heaven is one of Beijing's most recognizable landmarks. As mentioned in our previous post, the Forbidden City, as the empire's main palace, was the ceremonial center of imperial power. The Temple of Heaven was the religious center of imperial power: it was the site of the central rites of the Chinese imperial religion, which was a mix of Daoism, ancestor worship, and prehistoric heaven worship, which you'll learn more about in an upcoming post on Dongyue Temple, a fascinating Daoist/court religion site in eastern Beijing.

For now, it's enough to know that Daoism (which Blogger doesn't recognize as the mainland-Chinese alternate spelling of Taoism--more information on the spelling controversies here), or at least the hybridized version of Daoism backed by the imperial court, features two parallel and interlocking hierarchies: one representing the order of the physical world, and one representing the order of spiritual world. What's unique and interesting about the belief system is that there is almost always a human who outranks any given deity. For example, a provincial governor outranks the city gods of his province, and the emperor outranks the provincial gods. Also, people are only allowed to worship the deities directly above them in the hierarchy--at least, without help from a priest or an official. At the bottom are the common people, who are only allowed to worship their lowly household gods. At the top is the Jade Emperor (almost always, depending on whom you ask), who is the ruler of heaven, and whom only the Son of Heaven (aka, the emperor, and second-in-command in the order of all creation) could worship directly. The emperor did so at the Temple of Heaven--along with the thousands of servants, priests, and courtiers who made up his entourage, of course.

The Temple of Heaven was originally built in the 15th century by the emperor Yongle, the same fellow responsible for the original Forbidden City. It sits on a north-south axis in the middle of an enormous arboretum, which is now a public park. It's central building is also its most iconic: the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, where the emperor prayed for (surprise!) good harvests, upon which the wealth of the entire empire depended. You can see us in front of the Hall below.


I have to say, of all the many examples of Chinese monumental architecture we saw on our trip, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests was the most photogenic--though I might give the title for most beautiful to the Grand Mosque in Xian (upcoming post). Too bad I had to contend with some impressive smog.
You'll notice that the Hall is perfectly round, like many of the other buildings in the Temple of Heaven complex, whereas most traditional Chinese architecture is rectangular or square. There is a reason for this: in Daoism, the circle is seen as a symbol of heaven, and the square (or the right angle, at least) as a symbol of earth. These two symbols are joined throughout the Temple of Heaven--the round Hall above sits on three round terraces which themselves sit on a huge raised square plaza--reflecting the Temple's function as a place where heaven meets earth. You'll also notice that unlike in the Forbidden City, the roof tiles here are blue, the color of heaven, not gold, the color of the (later) emperors.

You can't go inside the Hall, which is understandable but still a bit disappointing, though an exhibit in one of the nearby buildings gives you a pretty good idea of what it looks like inside: here's a photo of the view looking straight up from the center.
South of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests is a long raised promenade called the Vermillion Steps Bridge (below), which links the Hall to the Imperial Vault of Heaven, where the spirit tablets corresponding to the Gods of Heaven were kept.
As might be expected of the home of heaven on earth, the Vault and its surroundings are mostly circular, including the perfectly round Echo Wall encircling the Vault compound, which can transmit even a whisper along its inside circumference.
Just south of the Vault, then, is the Circular Mound Altar, a raised circular platform left open to the elements (below).
As you can see from this shot looking north from the Altar (below), the Vault was remarkably close-by in a city famous for its immense distances. This is because the emperor had to carry the heavenly spirit tablets from the Vault to the Altar whenever he wanted to make an offering, and the slightest mishap during the ceremonial procession--and by "slight mishap," we're talking a sneeze, or an ill-favored pigeon, or someone slightly out of step--could be seen as an affront to the gods, and thus likely to bring down a plague or a famine. Yet another reason why it probably sucked to be emperor, even though the emperor was by a long sight the wealthiest guy in the world. So in short, the Altar was serious business, as was the Temple of Heaven as a whole. Today, though, the site is not without its opportunities for levity. I mean, just check out this weird gargoyle--since when do gargoyles wear sunglasses?

Tienanmen Square and Chairman Mao's Mausoleum

Tienanmen Square is big. How big? According to Wikipedia, it's the largest open urban square in the world, at 40.5 hectares. What's a hectare? Danged if I know, but what you see behind us here is a little less than half of it.


Behind us is the Forbidden City, which Justin blogged about in an earlier post. Ahead of us is the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong - the literal Chinese translation is "Chairman Mao Memorial Hall." We simply referred to it as the "Maosoleum."


The Maosoleum is closed on Mondays, which torpedoed me the last time I was in China, but was open this time. We actually found that we didn't have to wait long - we spent more time crossing the street and dropping our worldly goods in the bag check than we did waiting to get into the building. Wait, bag drop? You got it. Security at the Maosoleum was tight, and cameras are strictly forbidden (Wikipedia has a theory about that here). After the bag drop, you also have to go through a metal detector. Word has it that there have been a couple of attempts on Mao's body, including a rock tossed at the coffin.

So line for the bag drop, bag drop, line for the scanner, scan, line for the museum. During this time, some people popped out of line to buy flowers to set in front of the statue in the Maosoleum - if I recall correctly, they were yellow roses. While checking for the type of flowers on the internet, I ran across suggestions that they may be artificial flowers, and that when they're collected from in front of the statue, they're taken back out front and sold again. This strikes me as frankly kind of genius.

You go in, shuffling quietly in line, past a big carved quote by Mao on the main wall and a statue of Mao where the flower-purchasers step out of line and set the flowers out, often with a respectful bow. Then, you have a quiet, dark room with multiple layers of dense glass walls, and behind those walls is a coffin with a glass top, and in there is Chairman Mao. I wish I could say that my first reaction was something profound and reflective of Mao's significant role in world history and the shaping of a nation, but it actually was "Wow, Shasha was right. He is bright orange." For real. If you ever go, you'll feel the same way.

But then I did get a grip and have some profound thoughts, which unfortunately I can't remember four weeks later, and then we popped out the other side. Some people online complain at the speed with which you have to move through (there is even a rumor, at the same link as above, that it's actually a fake body in the coffin and they hustle you through so you can't tell) but I didn't mind the pace because there's not that much to see. There are, however, plenty of things to buy at the exit, ranging from cigarette lighters to giant desk trophies, which kind of takes away from the solemnity of the site. Still, overall, I recommend it.

Finally, this one goes out to YPMB readers:



"Another! Chinese Communist Party! First down! What?"

Beijing: the Forbidden City and Jingshan Park

(This is part of a series of posts on our recent trip to China. We'll be posting throughout the summer as we bum around at or near home.)

With the all-important food posts (1, 2, 3, 4) out of the way, let's move on to some of the sights. We'll be posting them out of order, so try to to be confused if the posts don't match what you know about our itinerary.

The Forbidden City
The Forbidden City (or the Palace Museum, as it's known to locals) is, surprise surprise, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of every tourist's first stops in Beijing. But the mobs of foreigners don't make it any less worth your time--mostly because they're there for good reason, as the Forbidden City is one of the most impressive sights I've seen in my life.

First, some background. The Forbidden City, besides being an essential Wonder of the World in Sid Meier's Civilization III, was also the Ming and Qing imperial palace, in service from 1420 to 1924. The place in its current form dates to around 1800, when a Qing expansion project was completed, though many of the structures in the current Forbidden City are older.

It is the world's largest surviving palace complex, and the overwhelming impression it leaves is of its immensity. Situated smack in the center of the city, and bordering Tiananmen Square to the south, the Forbidden City sprawls over a huge swatch of downtown Beijing. The current Forbidden City, which doesn't include the imperial courtyard gardens that were opened and paved over to make Tiananmen Square, is a rectangle almost 1 km long and 3/4 km wide. It takes about 30 minutes to walk from end to end without stopping, and exploring the whole complex (or at least the whole of what's open to the public) would take days.

The palace, like most monumental structures in East Asia, is laid out according to the principles of Feng shui, facing south with the main gate at the south end of the complex and with a hill our mountain at the back (north). Most visitors enter through the southern gate of the complex (above), which you'll learn more about in an upcoming post on Tiananmen Square. (Yes, that's a giant portrait of Mao on the front.) This gate isn't even technically the front door--two gates on the southern side of Tiananmen Square, almost another whole kilometer from the gate above, were the traditional entrances to the Imperial City.
The gate below, known as the Meridian Gate, marks the outer limit of the truly "forbidden" part of the Forbidden City: during the Qing dynasty, no commoners--and essentially no foreigners--were allowed past this gate. Violators were killed on the spot, as were any commoners unfortunate enough to glimpse the Emperor as he processed in or out of the gate--looking directly at the Emperor was a big no-no, seeing as the Emperor ranked only one step below the most powerful god.
Fortunately, the emperor wasn't home. There was, however, quite a strong military presence about--though understandably so, seeing as this is Beijing's greatest cultural landmark and a centerpiece of advertising for the upcoming Olympic Games.
Beyond the Meridian Gate lies the Gate of Supreme Harmony, across another cobblestoned expanse. The Gate of Supreme Harmony marks the entrance to the Outer Court, a series of gates, buildings, and courtyards used for ceremonial purposes. As you'll see, they're build mainly to impress, and they do a darned good job of it.
Between the Meridian Gate and the Gate of Supreme Harmony, a small man-made stream runs through the courtyard. This is a common feature of feng shui architecture. The stream is crossed by three bridges: one for the emperor and two for everyone else.
Don't tell the emperor that we stopped for a photo on his bridge!

Beyond the Gate of Supreme Harmony lies the centerpiece of the palace, the Hall of Supreme Harmony.
The Hall of Supreme Harmony, in addition to being the tallest building (by statute) in downtown Beijing and the oldest surviving wood structure in China, was the emperor's ceremonial throne room. Originally, this was where the emperor would hold court, though eventually the Hall was reserved for major events, such as coronations.

Symbolically, the Hall was the center of imperial power in the Ming and Qing dynasties. That didn't save it from the ravages of imperialism, though. The cauldron below, one of hundreds used around the palace to store water for fire-fighting purposes, used to be covered with gold, which was taken by the British and the French. Fire also took its toll on the Palace: the Hall of Supreme Harmony alone was destroyed by fire a dozen times in its history.
This fellow fared better (it probably helped to be made of bronze): one of the stylized lion-dragons guarding the Hall of Supreme Harmony, enjoying a light-hearted moment with its cub.
Beyond the Hall of Supreme Harmony lies the Hall of Central Harmony and the Hall of Preserving Harmony (below). These buildings mark the transition from the Outer Court, which was the public wing of the palace, to the Inner Court, where the imperial family and its numerous people lived. The first was used as a place for the emperor to rest before and after ceremonies--remember, when you're emperor, going anywhere involves a giant procession, so if you're tired or hungry, you don't want to have to process a half a kilometer back to your pad for a nap. The second is a rehearsal space--court rituals were bewilderingly complicated--and the site of the last stage of the imperial examinations, which all public officials in feudal China's massive bureaucracy had to take.
Beyond the Hall of Preserving Harmony is the Inner Court, some of which is closed to the public today, but most of which has been converted to a museum on life in the Forbidden City. Below, you can see a replica of the empress's sedan, which would be carried by servants. If you look closely, you can see an ornamental phoenix on each corner--the phoenix was the symbol of the empress, and the dragon the symbol of the emperor. Together, they infest souvenir shops throughout central Beijing.
Here's a replica of the emperor's coat. As you may have noticed, the emperors liked yellow--it was a symbol of the imperial family.
And here's a replica (notice another pattern? many of the originals are either in storage or in Western collections) of the ancestral spirit tablet the emperor would have kept in his quarters for morning and evening prayers.
Further back in the Inner Court is the emperor's own personal arboretum (don't worry, it wasn't his only personal arboretum--see Jingshan Park below or the Summer Palace in an upcoming post). It's a pretty space, though the emperors often shunned it--they were afraid of the possibility of assassins in the trees.
Jingshan Park

The northern (back) gate of the Forbidden City opens up to a view of Jingshan Park, which Nana and I explored on one of our free days in Beijing.
Jingshan Park consists of an artificial hill built from the material excavated in digging the Forbidden Palace's giant moat. The hill was built to satisfy feng shui requirements: it was seen as good luck to have a hill at the back (north) of your house and a river or stream near the front (south--see above). It has the added benefit of being the highest point of elevation in the city, affording some of the best views of the palace.
This was also where, while shooting the video below, I was attacked by the world's worst pickpocket. (Not really.)


The park served as the emperor's spiritual retreat. It's dotted with little Buddhist pavilions, though most of the Buddhas are gone, having long since been pilfered by the British and the French.
Below, you can see some long views of the city: first, Beihei Park to the north; then the Jingshan Park buildings.

And, just to make sure we end on a happy note: below you can see the tree where the last emperor of the Ming Dynasty hanged himself. After the Forbidden City had been overrun, this quiet corner of Jingshan Park was his end.That's all for now. Stay tuned for some more of Beijing's Greatest Hits, including: The Great Wall! The Temple of Heaven! The Summer Palace (through an apocalyptic haze)!

Chinese Food, Part Four: Western Food

(This is part of a series of posts on our recent trip to China. We'll be posting throughout the summer as we bum around at or near home.)

In addition to Dongbei, or "northeastern" food, Nana and I also sampled some Western Chinese food on our recent trip to China. Western Chinese food is heavily influenced by the flavors of Xinjiang cuisine. Xinjiang is China's westernmost province, and though it doesn't get as much press as Tibet, it's every bit as far-flung. Xinjiang was brought under Chinese domination during the opening of the Silk Road in the Middle Ages; culturally, the area has more in common with, say, Turkey than it does with eastern China, and Kashgar, one of Xinjiang's two major cities, is as close to Baghdad as it is to Beijing. This sense of separateness is made even greater by the fact that a plurality of Xinjiang residents are Uighurs, a Turkic people related to the nearby people of "the Stans" (Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan, specifically), and a majority of Xinjiang residents belong to one of the Turkic ethnic groups. As such, many of the same charges of "cultural genocide" bandied about in Tibet are current in Xinjiang, aka East Turkmenistan, as well.
However much the national-majority Han Chinese might be uncomfortable with Xinjiang's aspirations of independence, though, people from all over China seem to love Uighur food. In Beijing, Western Chinese is a well-represented ethnic cuisine, and in Xian, the traditional eastern terminus of the Silk Road, Xinjiang provides the dominant flavors.

Here we are enjoying a meal with Shasha and her boyfriend. Shasha says the restaurant is the place for Xinjiang food in Beijing. It's a giant dining hall across from the Xinjiang provincial consulate (fascinating tidbit: many of China's provinces, especially those dominated by ethnic minorities, such as Xinjiang and Tibet, are largely autonomous). It's where all the Xinjiang officials in Beijing eat.

First, we one of my favorites. This is a common appetizer/side dish: pickled green beans in hot sauce. The pickled green beans are actually a Dongbei thing, while the hot sauce is classic Xinjiang. Yum.

One of the things that makes Xinjiang cuisine a lot of fun is the way it blends Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Chinese flavors. At the top above, you can see a very Chinese tofu soup, and below it some Middle Eastern braised beef served with Chinese-style rice bread to be used like Indian naan.


This is another good example of fusion, picked up at a random diner in Xian on our last night in town: Chinese-style fried egg patties and soy-stir-fried green onions, with hot green chilies and Middle-Eastern-style spiced chicken.

Above we've got another variation on the spicy-meat-with-bread dish (this time it's shredded, stir-fried beef), coupled with stir-fried shoestring potatoes (a Dongbei staple) and other veggies in a tomato broth. Note the cooling yogurt at the lower right.
Then, of course, you don't get much more Middle Eastern than this: lamb kebabs and roast chicken. All in all, a delicious meal!

The verdict: if you're in China, try some Xinjiang food. Not only is it tasty, it's like a history lecture in your mouth!

Chinese Food, Part Three: Northern Food

(This is part of a series of posts on our recent trip to China. We'll be posting throughout the summer as we bum around at or near home.)

On our recent trip to China, Nana and I ate mainly two types of regional Chinese cuisine: Northeastern and Western. As described in detail in a previous post, neither of these varieties is commonly available in the US, though a few signature dishes from Beijing (see Peking duck, below) are well-known throughout the world. So sit back, relax, and enjoy (reading about) a brief sampling of Dongbei cuisine--which is not quite like anything most Westerners have ever had.

First, a short mention: though we weren't served this delightful treat until we were in Xian, Nana tells me the candied potatoes above are actually a Northeastern dish. Also, they're apparently extremely difficult to cook. The timing needed to create their hard candy coating is precise: plate them too early, and they're just a pile of searing-hot goo, but plate them too late, and they're like rock. These ones were just right, though--and so good I might have licked the plate, if it hadn't been so darned jagged. I'm not kidding: that candy coating is hard!

Mongolian Hotpot

Mongolian hotpot, like Korean BBQ, is one expression of the platonic ideal of steppe-horde cuisine: bring raw meat and veggies into contact with a heated piece of military equipment, then serve. With Korean BBQ, it's the overturned shield that does the trick, but with Mongolian hotpot, it's the helmet--fortunately, bereft of any remaining Mongol hair, thank you very much.

You can see part of our spread below. I'll also note now that this was one of several meals Shasha, Nana's roommate from Harbin arranged--if it weren't for her, we probably would have eaten cheap tourist grub for the entire trip!
Here's how hotpot works: first, you dump a bunch of herbs, veggies, spices, etc., into a plain , oily white broth. You can add hot pepper oil to taste--as you can see below, we had one pot spicy and one pot mild. Then, you heat the broth to a slow boil and dump the goodies in. Our goodies included thin-shaved beef, lamb meatballs, thick-cut seaweed, bamboo shoots, spinach--etc.

You can see the hotpot in action below.



Then, after taking your cooked goodies out of the broth, you can cool it off with some peanut sauce (center) or some seasoned broth (left). Then, enjoy!Your meal isn't over once all the goodies are devoured, though--there's a final course of noodles for you to add to the broth. (Japanophiles/Koreaphiles might be noticing some similarities to shabu shabu right about now. The dishes all have the same origin.)

At the place we went, which is apparently the hot spot for hotpot in Beijing, the noodles were hand-pulled, as you can see below. Dinner and a show, anyone?



Finally, then, a shot of Nana and me gloating over the hotpot we have just slain. (Little did we know, the battle had just begun . . .)Verdict: Tasty, but we definitely over-ordered, and I definitely over-ate. Also, that spicy broth is HOT, HOT, HOT.

Recognizable Beijing Cuisine

We had two duck dinners during our time in Beijing--one mediocre duck at a cheap-ish restaurant on our first day, when we weren't terribly hungry, and one superb meal at one of the places to eat Peking duck in Peking. (Note to self: exercise caution when typing "duck" over and over again.)

As mentioned, our first duck experience was ho-hum, though you can get a good shot of the pancakes below.
Despite the lackluster duck, however, the other dishes on the table were actually quite tasty: at right above you can see the classic cashew chicken, and at the top left another simple chicken dish.

Our real Peking duck experience came at a well-known establishment off Wangfujing Street, one of the main shopping districts in Beijing's downtown. According to a plaque by the entrance, this was where Kissinger ate when he came to Beijing. I can believe it--the duck was spectacularly crisp, served (by request) with plum sauce and a strong mustard for dipping. They also carve the duck at your table, which is a nice touch, and also guarantees you're getting your money's worth, which can be a problem elsewhere in Beijing.

Traditional Northern Lunch

During one of our free days in Beijing, after a tour of one of Beijing's historic hutong (more on that later), Shasha took Nana and me to a "snack street" establishment, where we could sample a bunch of traditional food stalls gathered under one roof. Below, you can see some approximations of good-old-fashioned grandma's cooking, Beijing-style.
Clockwise from the upper-left:

Fried dough with sugar
Fried spiced buckwheat/ground beef cakes
Stir-fried wheat pasta in soy sauce with veggies and wood ear mushrooms
Beef potsticker dumplings, each built like a brick
Skewered spiced mutton
Plain yoghurt

Below, you can also see the adventure-dining highlight of the meal: steamed beef trip (ie, intestine), which is a terrible thing to behold.

What does it taste like, you ask?Not bad, actually. The peanut dipping sauce was a stronger flavor than the tripe. Unpleasantly chewy, though, and with a bit of a strong smell. Not something I'd eat again, probably, but hey, it's fun to try.

That's all for now. Next up: the flavors of the Silk Road, represented by Western Chinese cuisine.

Panda!!!

Overall, I didn't think much of the Beijing Zoo. I remember thinking that the great cat exhibit, in particular, was pretty tragic. Concrete floors and bar windows on enclosures not much bigger than a bedroom - it looked like an underfunded city animal shelter.

But the pandas!


In the US, you will never see eight pandas in a single enclosure. First, the "rent" to bring pandas over from China is one million dollars, and second, I don't think China would send so many even if the price could be met. They don't ordinarily display this many in China: these are the Olympic Pandas, chosen by internet vote to come to Beijing for the Olympics. Shasha - my host roommate from my exchanges student days at CET Harbin - said (in disturbingly excellent English) that these pandas are also 2, much younger than the normal age of display. However, they came from the Wolong Panda Research Center, which was severely hit by the Sichuan Earthquake. One panda there died. So who's to say that at least now, they're not better off in Beijing? The Olympic panda enclosure is particularly nice, nicer than the Asian Games panda enclosure next door (bringing the total of Beijing Zoo pandas to somewhere around 14 - an embarrassment of panda riches!).

Justin and I admire pandas:


Did I mention that it was at least 35 celcius (one bajillion Fahrenheit) in Beijing that day? Perhaps that is the explanation for this panda. We all just decided that he was drunk.


And lest you think that this panda post will have no food connection, behold! I spent too much time in the panda enclosure and temporarily imprinted on a panda. Bonus: You can see Shasha and Justin reflected in my sunglasses if you click to enlarge.

A lovely anniversary present from the United Nations

Justin and I have a hobby: we like to visit UNESCO World Heritage Sites. We have done a pretty shabby job in Korea thus far - we've only visited Jongmyo Shrine (link to blog post), but we did much better on our trip to China, which I promise you'll see posts on. Someday.

In any case, today is big news in UNESCO nerddom: twenty-seven new sites have been added! And to make this just kick-butt for us, one of them is not three hours from where we are currently hiding out from the tax man in Halifax, Nova Scotia: Joggins Fossil Cliffs! I sense a road trip!

PS. Thanks for the many anniversary good wishes we've gotten in e-mail, blog comments, Facebook, etc. As anybody following this blog could tell, we've had ups and downs this year, but the important part is that we had them together.

Justin's mother's parents spent their first married year abroad in France, where Justin's grandfather was serving in JAG. Same situation with us and Korea: neither of them spoke the language, they were newlyweds, and they ended up with a strange-smelling little co-resident whose name started with A. (We love you, Aunt Anne!) And they're getting along pretty darn well. So I venture to suggest the foreign first-year to all married couples. If you can make it over there, you can make it anywhere!

Chinese Food, Part Two: Dumplings

(This is part of a series of posts on our recent trip to China. We'll be posting throughout the summer as we bum around at or near home.)

It's our one-year anniversary today (that's right, 7/7/07), and aside from the nice seafood dinner planned for tonight, I'd like to celebrate with a paean to the humble dumpling, Dongbei staple and midnight savior of hungry college students everywhere.

The Dumple
Also known as the "dumpling" to normal, non-Homestar-Runner-obsessed folks, the dumple can be found in nearly every corner of China, with some important regional variations. In the US, you're most likely to find "potstickers," which are the northern jiaozi, though outside northern China (i.e., in the rest of China, or in Korea, Japan, or the US) they're more often served pan-fried (guotie), whereas from Beijing north they're almost always boiled or steamed.

Thick-skinned boiled dumplings are very popular in northern Chinese cooking for a number of reasons. First, the wheat used to make the dumplings is actually more plentiful in the region than rice, which makes a thick dumpling a good way to stretch more-expensive "goodies" like pork, beef, and vegetables. Second, boiled dumplings also conserve oil, which historically doubled as a winter heating fuel in the coldest parts of northern China. Third, the standard pork-and-chive dumpling is an excellent match for the mild pickled veggies, tofu, and soy vinegar that dominate most northern meals. And finally, dumplings can be wrapped long before cooking and then served up in a flash, making them very easy to fit into a busy lifestyle--and into a busy retail setting.

As a result, dumplings have assumed the same position in northern Chinese cuisine that pizza has in most of North America: Chinese people, especially families and students, turn to dumplings for a quick, cheap, and satisfying meal--and in this case, at least passably healthy, too.
In other parts of the country, though, dumplings take on a slightly more sophisticated veneer, influenced by the dim sum tradition of southern China. In Xian, we ate at a dinner theater (skipped the show--looked pretty tourist-trappy) whose set menu consisted entirely of dumplings, dim-sum-style, some of whose ingredients and presentations were rather creative. For example, one dish included cabbage dumplings that looked like bok choi and pork dumplings that looked like pig's snouts (below, top and middle), while another included fish dumplings that looked like stylized koi (below, bottom).The big hit of the night, however, was a baked-then-fried ground beef dumpling with Xinjiang-style spices (no photo--it didn't last that long) that was a dead-ringer for any number of Middle Eastern meat pies. Yum!

Next up: Some colorful examples of Dongbei/Beijing cuisine, including the famous Peking Duck.

Chinese Food, Part One: Introduction

(This is part of a series of posts on our recent trip to China. We'll be posting throughout the summer as we bum around at or near home.)

Well, Nana and I are back in North American and slowly overcoming 12 time zones worth of jet lag, which means it's time to start tackling our enormous backlog of China posts. We'll start with the food, for no other reason than the fact that I need more time to work on the other photos. (And, um, I really love food.)

Chinese Regional Cuisine

In case you haven't noticed, China is huge, and local cuisine varies dramatically by region, from Korean food in parts of Manchuria, to Thai-style food in the south and southwest, to Persian- or Central-Asian-style food in the West, all Chinafied, of course.

In the US, most Chinese food is of the Hunan or Szechuan varieties--the first spicy-sweet (think General Tso's Chicken), the second spicy--with liberal doses of Cantonese in major cities and on the coasts--seafood, white sauce, dim sum, and sweet-and-sour pork. This is because most Chinese immigrants to the US come from these regions, bringing their home cooking along with them.

During our trip, we visited two regions whose cuisines aren't generally known in the US. In the northeast, we ate Dongbei (literally "northeastern") food, characterized by an abundance of pickled and fresh vegetables, milder hot sauces (with stronger pepper flavors), grain-based noodles and potatoes (rather than rice-based noodles or rice), game meats, and lots of green onion, ginger, and vinegar. Dongbei cuisine, and especially the Beijing subset, which draws flavors from a wider variety of regional Chinese cuisines, also includes a lot of Mongolian and traditional Manchurian foods, such as hotpot and, yes, Mongolian/Korean BBQ.

In Beijing and in Xian, we also ate Western Chinese food, which is heavily influenced by the Muslim populations along the Silk Road. Xian cuisine features a heavily Chinafied version of far-Western Xinjiang fare, characterized by lamb kebabs, spicy wheat noodles and stews, and a kind of sesame flatbread a lot like Indian naan.

We'll show you samples of all of these foods, plus a few other oddities, though we'll start with the humble dumpling . . . stay tuned!

Back In Seoul

Nana and I staggered back to our new apartment in Wolgye-dong, Nowon-gu, Seoul in the wee hours of this morning--look for Nana's second installment of "Landing at Incheon Is Harder Than You Think" sometime later today.

Safely in Xian

After a whirlwind few days in Beijing (and after Nana weathered an inexplicable 24-hour fever), we're safely in Xian. We'll post again once we get back to Seoul.

Behind the Great Firewall?

Can't tell if any of these posts are getting through the filters--though it looks like they aren't, because I didn't get a notification for the last one. In any case, if you can read this, know that we're safely in Beijing and having a great time (though the weather is incredibly hot). More details after we get back, plus (hopefully) an arrival post from Xian.

Fiction Post! (Not Korea-Related)

Opium Magazine Online, a web-based outlet for short-short fiction, is running a tiny little story of mine called "National Road." It's on the landing page now, will be on the sidebar for most of the day, and will be archived this evening. Short-short fiction is a fun challenge--it's really hard to tell a story in so few words, and you often end up with a lot of sharp angles and jarring shifts. I'm really grateful that Opium is putting one of my efforts up. Check out the story if you have a moment; you can leave comments here or at Opium.

The Sound of One Hand Clapping

A philosophical question:

At what point does kimchi become rotten kimchi, and cease being just kimchi? Seeing as the main ingredient of kimchi is rotten (okay, "fermented") cabbage to begin with.

I say it's sometime between the moment it falls into the food trap in the kitchen sink, and three weeks later, when the new tenants of your apartment find it (and promptly drown it with bleach).

In other news, starting tomorrow, Nana and I will be in China through the 28th, when you can expect a few rushed China posts before we hie on to Halifax.

Moving Right Along

Here I am reporting to you LIVE from our new apartment in Wolgye-dong (our former dong was Jungye-dong. And now I have "A Whole New Dong" from Aladdin stuck in my head. Thanks a lot).

Our moving odyssey commenced last week, as we received the prized new keys on Friday.

Saturday's highlights:

After finishing up at the school, Dr. Kim took us to a used furniture store to buy a new couch for this place. Our last one felt kind of like sitting on a faux-leather wrapped concrete stoop. We got a really nice squishy floral print jobby and Dr. Kim, ever generous, also threw in a cherry-red leather chaise that Justin can stretch his knee out on after a long day on his feet. Dr. Kim did all the haggling for us and then lent us his truck for some schlepping. Plus, the school picked up the tab, since the furniture will stay in the APIS family after we go. Dr. Kim is a hero.

I had to stick around here while the air conditioning man installed the AC unit (wrongly, we suspect) and the used-furniture people delivered the couches and our new wardrobes (no closets here, unlike Brownstone). I passed time by scraping scum out of the kitchen cabinets with a pie server and spraying down the mildewy bathroom. Don't get me wrong - I like this new apartment. The neighborhood is much closer to the school and the layout is cozier. But I do not have a particularly high opinion of whoever lived here last, nor of the cleaning ladies who did the place on Friday. Sweeping is good, but it's not cleaning. I've set out trays of baking soda in two of the cupboards and two trays in the bathroom alone, which today I've also sprayed down with bleach (hence any incoherence in this post).

While I was here, Justin was off nearly getting arrested. In Dr. Kim's truck. In our boss's truck. Attaboy, Justin!

As Justin tried to leave the parking garage, the garage ajeoshi ("aa-juh-shee," means "old guy") started yelling at him in Korean and gesturing in a way that seemed to indicate that Justin was not allowed to have parked there. This is clearly not the case, as we've parked there in a different borrowed car before - it's a pay garage. He kept shouting and gesturing and called over somebody in a police-style uniform (could also have been some form of building security) to back him up, so Justin called Paul, our trusty Korean-speaking school administrator. Then, an ajeoshi from upstairs who recognized Justin from our regular comings and goings of the past year, came down and started yelling at Garage Ajeoshi, which was apparently a good thing because it culminated in Justin being released.

What we suspect happened based on info from Paul was that the ajeoshi, upon seeing a whitey in an American truck, spotted the chance for a shakedown. Unfortunately, he did not bank on Justin being a dumb whitey who did not understand that he was being shaken down. Instead of producing extra money, Justin attempted to clarify the situation. The presence of the uniform, perhaps intended to turn up the heat, instead made attempted bribery about the last thing Justin wanted to do. Silly whitey!

After that misadventure, we returned the car and spent yesterday working our backsides off moving via Korean taxis, which, fortunately, are dirt-cheap over short distances. The five-minute ride from our old digs to our new ones usually costs between $2 and $3. We worked all day and took four loads back and forth, unpacking and repacking the roller bags at each end, leaving our old Brownstone apartment covered in unused cardboard boxes and plastic packaging which you can't throw away here but you also can't recycle until recycling day, which is Saturday. So we were looking stuck.

Every week, in addition to Recycling Saturday, Brownstone celebrates what we call "Random Recycling Day," a day other than Saturday in which the recycling ajeoshis (that's your new vocab word for today, in case you haven't noticed) show up with the truck and you can bring things down. Random Recycling Day occurs on no perceptible pattern - perhaps it is a lunar calendar? - and is just as likely to happen on Wednesday, Thursday, Tuesday, or Friday as the Monday we desperately needed it to be.

But lo, the gods were with us! We cracked the curtain this morning and the recycling team was there. Perhaps this was some form of cosmic repentance for the whole parking-shakedown thing.

Then the professional movers arrived, and let me tell you, these guys are PROFESSIONAL. First of all, they looked genuinely distressed that we had packed our own possessions into cardboard boxes. We thought we might have to unpack it all for insurance reasons (they can't insure anything we packed) but since it was all nonbreakable, they were willing to move as-is.

These two guys went through our apartment like the Red Army through Berlin. You name it, they packed it. They dismantled the bed and boxed the bed linen. They took down all four sets of curtains for us, including un-drilling (word?) the curtain rod and manually unhooking the curtain from its rings. One guy managed to carry out the bookcase all by himself by standing against the skinny tall side and tilting the bookcase over onto his back. It was unreal.

And then came the even MORE amazing part. It's not inconceivable that movers would dismantle the bed, and it's logical (although not guaranteed) that they'd reassemble it at the new apartment. But have you ever heard of movers making the bed? And those curtains that they took down for us? Well, they re-hung them for us over here. Seriously. Part movers, part interior decorators.

And the funniest thing was how they seemed to think that I, as a girl, shouldn't be doing anything. When they saw me pick up a bookcase and start to move it across the kitchen, they both lunged at it, horrified, and tried to take it away from me. I'm twenty-four and five-six, and although I'm no linebacker, they're not that big, either. I just kept wondering what they would have thought if they'd seen the stuff I moved yesterday. Like, you know, the thirty-five inch computer monitor. Or the refrigerator. Stuff like that.

Well, I didn't argue with them. I respect people's culture, and if people's culture tells me to sit on my butt while other people move heavy objects, well, that's the culture for me! Also, after yesterday's refrigerator extravaganza, I feel like my whole body has been worked over by a meat tenderizer. So maybe they have a point.

Anyway, Korean movers = success, especially because we didn't have to pay for them. Dr. Kim got Brownstone to pay for the movers because technically they broke our lease - we had to move because they wanted to sell our apartment. Have I mentioned that Dr. Kim is a hero?

You know what else is a success? KT internet! We blogged about our early internet woes (here, for instance, or here) last fall, which was on a different provider, Qrix (or something like that). We switched to KT last year and had excellent service with no disruptions all spring. Unfortunately, we were unable to communicate to the installer that we wanted all of the room ethernet ports turned on, so we were forced to snake fifty-foot cables through the apartment, duct-taping them to the floor, to have service in the offices.

Today, internet timetable is as follows:

11:00 AM: Service in Brownstone apartment.
11:00 AM-12:00 PM: Computers in transit to Benest apartment in Wolgye
12:30 PM: Installer arrives at Benest apartment.
12:45 PM: Service in main room of Benest apartment. Installer requested to activate other ports. Server leaves to find assistant.
1:10 PM: Assistant arrives and tinkers.
1:30 PM: Internet service in all rooms.

Coming from the US East Coast, which is under the fascist jackboot of Comcast (caution, link has music), this is as mindboggling to me as movers who hang curtains. Way to go, the Korea!