Dining in China and the rise of punk

I spent the majority of the weekend sitting by the river.



On Saturday night, I met Maggie for dinner at a Japanese restaurant and on Sunday to the dumpling place with Lily, Lorenza (awesome new Italian who has spent the last month traveling through India). With Maggie, we had green noodles with a small amount of cheese and red hot sauce, some kind of flattened egg pizza with hot green leaves in the middle and vegetable salad. Eating salad with chopsticks was weird.

On Sunday, Lorenza and I went to the English language bookstore where I bought the longest book I could think of since I've already read the five I brought, two for work and some of them twice. So... I will be tackling War and Peace at some point in the next few months.. I also bought A Tale of Two Cities and The War of the Worlds.

At dinner that night, we got vegetable dumplings, flat doughy egg pizza-like thing and green stalks with tiny mushrooms. The dumpling place specializes in Northern Chinese food. I think the Chinese food in America is more like Cantonese (southern; nearer Hong Kong).



Dining in China is quite different than in America. You order a few dishes then everyone puts a little from each on their own small plate. It's odd if you each order one thing each for yourself. Chopsticks for everything and it's rude if you put the food right from the communal plate into your mouth; set it down on your mini-plate first. Green tea at almost every meal; water is expensive and difficult to come by at restaurants and bars. Most people on the street eat watermelons when they're thirsty because it's cheaper than bottled water and safer than tap water. Restaurants are SERVICE affairs, as it's expected they will be quick with your food. They bring each dish out as it's done and you start eating as soon as it gets there even if not everybody has their food yet. Spilling, slurping, putting your face down by the plate and elbows on the table are not a big deal. I've realized my American manners are a bit out the window because whenever someone new comes I wonder why they're being so timid. When the meal is over, you raise your hand, snap or signal to the waiter or waitress to bring the check and they don't think you're a pariah. If you are dining alone or with only one or two other people, you're expected to pay before the food is served. Lastly, no tipping. We tipped the first time we went out and they thought it was hilarious!

At "alldays," the convenience store that's everywhere. Most of the goods are packaged like at a 7-11 but in the front, they unfailingly have corn on the cob in a slowcooker and the Shanghai eggs (in the back of this photo):


Marshmallows are sold in an orderly fashion:


After dinner on Saturday, I went back to 4Live to see the 1234fest preview show. Brain Failure was down from Beijing. I think they are the Chinese band with the greatest potential to hit abroad that I've seen so far. They were a bit like Social Distortion and had all the stage moves down. They must be the most popular rock band in China because the crowd was nuts and it was super hot inside. It was 60RMB for four bands (=$8.40).

Brain Failure:


Going to a show in China is a different experience because the songs are introduced in Chinese and banter with the crowd is in Chinese, so everyone will cheer and I stand there wondering what the hell just happened. In other ways, it is exactly the same. The young women are at the very front of the stage in a single row trying to rock out and catch the eye of one of the band members while avoiding getting hit by the young men behind them who start slamming into each other at the first sign of a chord combined with a drumbeat. Mosh pits are a little different here, though.. one of the features is what I call the "Ring-Around-The-Rosy Of Death." Hold hands and spin around within a huge group of people as fast as possible.


I actually liked the first band better than Brain Failure because the singer thought he was the son of Iggy Pop and the grandchild of James Dean and the guitarist obviously liked Joe Strummer.


I found this bike of cute animals walking to the metro station. She's selling them. At the top are crickets and in the little cages are everything fuzzy. Chicks, ducklings, guinea pigs and bunnies. FUZZY


I really enjoyed the river ... and then I noticed there are cameras. Like, I'm just trying to sit on the wall and think about white dolphins and listen to some 1938 Orson Welles radio drama... ok?! They're everywhere if you look (lower lefthand corner).


A typhoon [hurricane] hit Taiwan over the weekend. It was pretty windy here but I've had worse in Providence. Stole this photo of Sepat coming into Taiwan:


Early Saturday morning, around 5:30am, there was someone on the other side of the river who exchanged waves with me. On the way to work today, I passed an old, toothless woman and smiled and she smiled back and said, "Hello" and I said, "Nihao" and these both made me really happy!