Beat the Heat with Chuaner

The capital continues experiencing a heat wave as everyone attempts to keep cool this summer.  Temperatures climbed to 107 degrees fahrenheit today (I think that is something like 10 degrees celsius).  Though Beijing's sidewalks are far too dirty to attempt the old "cooking an egg on the sidewalk" stunt, the capital boasts some great ways to beat the heat and make those hot summer days a little more fun, especially when it comes to eating.

Chewing down some chuaner

Chuaner, pronounced chawrr, originates in China's troubled Xinjiang Autonomous Region.  I always make the joke, "Xinjiang.....2% of China's population......50% of the tastiness."  And yes, no one ever laughs when I tell it in person either.  Anyway, the chuaner is a Chinese form of barbeque on a stick that everyone likes to eat during the summer months.  I am pretty sure that the restaurant behind my house employees a seasonal chuaner chef, because he doesn't work there in winter, only during the summer months.  Also, most places use a hairdryer to help heat the chuaner.  I like to think that this not-so-secret ingredient adds extra flavor and dander to the food.

You can get almost anything barbecued with chuaner (the name of the spice used to season the food).  Lamb is the most popular, and there are few things as satisfying as eating a giant leg of lamb on a hot summer day.

Everyone loves lamb

My neighborhood, Beixinqiao, now sports more chuaner restaurants than people, making it easy to enjoy this Chinese form of summer barbeque.  If you're having trouble beating the Beijing heat, grab an Arctic or a Yanjing and enjoy some chuaner.      

Moving Jobs: Takin' Care of Business

You may or may not have noticed this blog's recent name change.  "ChOFFICE SPACE" no longer seemed appropriate, because as of last week, I am now working at a new job.  My days of coming into the office and reading news articles for nine hours straight have ended and not a moment too soon.  I spent so much time on the BBC website that they should have made me an honorary foreign correspondent.

A smart woman once told me that no foreigner working in China ever made it here without being "duped".  Truthfully this statement is pretty accurate, and I am sure most of my expatriated friends would certainly agree.  Though the job is normally a bust, laowai usually end up staying for a few years.  Some might ask why, and to this I simply reply the adventure of it.  Life in the Middle Kingdom certainly isn't easy, least of all for the Chinese that don't have the option to leave.  However, this is what I find rewarding.        

Now it's x-treme

Striking out and leaving your job for the uncertainty of a new position can be stressful.  However, in my case it certainly felt needed.  So wish me luck at the new job, and enjoy my rebranding efforts for the blog.  I am thinking of just turning the logo sideways.  The kids seem to love that these days.

Also, here is a cartoon that I thought was funny

      

Persistence is Futile: Efforts to Convince Friends and Family to Visit Beijing

Literally Everything in China is Under Construction

Convincing friends and family to visit me in China is sort of a futile effort.  Let's be honest, China has a very well-earned image problem in the rest of the world when it comes to attracting tourists.  It's smoggy, crowded, and hectic.  Not exactly most people's idea of dream vacation.  Especially not for my friends and relatives that vacation down at the Gulf of Mexico year after year.

Summer Palace

Despite this, my mother has decided to visit Beijing sometime in July, and the planning process has begun for the trip.....and so have the headaches.  We hold very different ideas of what a vacation in China should include.  The fact my father refuses to come continues to escalate this "Travel Planning Cold War" to new heights.  Their constant threats to pull-the-plug on the trip don't make matters easier either.  And I continually feel the need to explain to my girlfriend that my father doesn't hate her culture, he just doesn't want to visit or have anything to do with it.    

Temple of Heaven

Another problem I continually encounter is that everyone seems to think there're a lot more tourist attractions in the Beijing area than there really are.  Don't get me wrong, there's the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Lama Temple, and the Great Wall.  However, they are in really close proximity to each other, with the exception of the Great Wall, meaning you can visit most of the city's major POI in a few days.

Obviously, curved roof =
Chinese tourist attraction

Spending two weeks in Beijing means a visitor will have to tap the city's less traditional tourist attractions such as the 798 District or just kickin' it in the hutongs, both of which appeal far more to this lao wei Beijinger than another trip to the Forbidden City.  Welcome to the Forbidden City.  If you'd like to see what was inside of the palace, please schedule a trip to Taipei, Taiwan.  This problem is exacerbated by the fact that not many people, including myself, don't consider the monolithic, Orwellian structures of the CPC as tourist attractions, at least not yet.  Maybe one day, the image of the Great Hall of the People will become the defining image of the city, but I wouldn't count on it.

Sometimes planning a trip can be more exhausting than the trip itself.  Certainly, helping other people plan a trip is more exhausting than the actual trip.  I just hope that I get some good memories out of this experience....



  

Audio Books: An Alternative to Alternative Rock

I have never been too fond of audio books as a substitute for the real thing.  Remember when they were called book-on-tapes.  Man the 80's and 90's were crazy, right?  Mostly, I use them as something to help me fall asleep.  Sort of like a sleeping bill made from the voices of B-list celebrities.  Every time I hear the dude who played Carlton on the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reading Timeline, I become a narcoleptic. I just don't really retain much of the story from audio books, and this problem has led me to avoid them for the past several years.

However, I recently purchased one from audible.com, Amazon's audio books website.  I got really pissed when I realized that I'd purchased the abridged version by accident, but truthfully it was my own fault.  I leaped before I looked.  My experience listening to the story has been mixed.  On the one hand I needed a change.  I listen to my ipod during my half hour commute everyday, and I have simply run out of music.  Obtaining new music remains a challenge here in China, and a good audio book was a great, though expensive alternative.  On the downside, the dangers and distractions of the Beijing jungle prevent me from catching everything that happens in the story.  I am constantly asking myself how certain characters got into situations, or in some extreme cases, who the characters even are.

I will definitely have to read the actual book someday.  It is book two of a three book Star Wars trilogy, and I want to complete reading them before the new Disney-ized films hit screens.  When getting an actual copy of the book proved too expensive (tai gui la), I decided to find and download the audio book online.  Besides at this point in my life, I have a backlog of books that I need to read.  I plan to use audio books as a way to listen (read) classics that I'd otherwise skip.  Anyone up for War and Peace while trapped in Beijing traffic?

Of course, the recent surge in Star Wars related press influenced my choice in audio book.  I even hear their planning on giving Boba Fett his own film, which is awesome, because everyone loves the Fett-man.....

     

    

Cooking Up Culinary and Cultural Understanding

Few foods express the individuality of the chef as much as chili.  Everyone’s chili is unique, and everyone thinks theirs is the best.  Ever wonder what chili would taste like with M&M’s in it?  Throw some in there then and make your own crazy M&M chili.  Remember that time someone found a thumb in their chili at Wendy’s?  No? Really?  Okay….Supposedly they planted it there anyway, but it just goes to show you that you can literally put anything in chili and still call it chili.  The great part of this is the awesome flavors that people come up with for their chili experiments.      

Cooking chili in Beijing has proven itself more difficult than you might initially think.  For one, chili ingredients tend to be very expensive.  It cost me nearly $50 yesterday for a basket of chili ingredients that would only cost me around $7-$15 in the United States.  Chili is no cheap dinner alternative here.  You really have to be dedicated to making it, or you’ll just end up bankrupt and hungry.  Also, obtaining some of the necessary ingredients requires visiting one of the city’s “western” grocery stores.  “Western” in this case basically just means they have a canned food section.  However, it still means that you have to get on the bus and take yourself to the Sanlitun district.  

      

When asked by my girlfriend what food I wanted her to cook the most, I replied chili.  No question.  Most foods are easy to get in Beijing, and the capital is certainly not short of great options for burgers.  After establishing my craving for chili, we had an interesting discussion about the “freewheeling” nature of cooking chili.  I found her hunched over her ipad looking up recipes online.  She made some comments about the large number of western spices that she was going to need to buy.  I told her not to worry and just to use whatever spices were available. 

“Would it still be chili then?” she asked. 

“Of course, you can put whatever you want in chili,” I told her.

This initially perplexed her.  To be fair, what other kind of food has listed recipes that you can totally ignore and still accomplish your culinary goal?  I am hoping she comes up with some kind of east-meets-west chili.  Either way, I am getting a free meal out of this, so no complaining here.  I am just excited to see what she’ll come up with for me.    

You sort of have to understand the general Chinese mindset about food.  No nationality on earth care more about food than the Chinese.  They just don't care about food in the American sense.  In the United States, people mainly want to know whether the food tastes good.  As KFC has proven, it doesn't matter if you substitute chicken patties for buns, as long as people think it tastes good.  In China people tend to focus on other factors, like how "correct" are the preparation and presentation.  Basically, does this food look like its supposed to look.  You'll notice many Chinese citizens visiting the United States obsess over whether American Chinese food is "authentic" or not, without caring whether it tastes good.  This sort of answers the question of why fortune cookies and crab ragoons haven't caught on in China, and probably never will either.    

Keeping this in mind, it's no wonder my girlfriend was surprised that she could just throw out the chili recipes she found, and just create her own culinary masterpiece.  It just goes to show you that differences can be culinary as well as cultural.          

ANZAC Day

Future King and Queen of the
Commonwealth Realms in Australia

Happy ANZAC day to all my Australian and Kiwi readers out there (all "none" of you).  Some of you might be thinking, "what is ANZAC Day?"  It just so happens that I am an expert regarding the subject because I spent a few hours last night learning about it firsthand from the person on the bar stool next to me.  ANZAC Day commemorates the soldiers of the Australia New Zealand Army Corp lost during the allied campaign at Gallipoli.  The day is usually celebrated with a sunrise service, breakfast, and afternoon parades that honor Australian and New Zealand's veterans.  The day is sort of equivalent to Memorial Day in the United States, but with some important historical ties to the concept of Austalian and New Zealand's identities as independent nations (both are currently Commonwealth Realms).

An Australian veteran during an ANZAC Day parade

It's also a big deal in other parts of the British Empire, with services in London, Hong Kong, and Singapore taking place this morning.  The guy last night brought me up to speed on some of the more colorful traditions associated with ANZAC Day.  He told me that it is the only day that you can gamble in pubs and bars in Australia because people play this game called "2 up".  The game was a favorite pastime of ANZAC soldiers and the tradition of playing it remains an important part of ANZAC Day.  He told me it is an easy way to spot Australians and New Zealanders living abroad on ANZAC Day.  Despite this fun tradition, the holiday is a quite somber affair, from what I can tell, with the emphasis on honoring veterans and those lost during wars.    

Ceremony at the Cenotaph in Hong Kong

ANZAC Day service in Singapore

Getting to learn about other nation's holidays is one of my favorite things.  Though familiar with the Gallipoli campaign and ANZAC Day before last night, I didn't realize how important it was to the identities of New Zealand and Australians, especially those in the diaspora.  Some even argue that the Gallipoli campaigns galvanized the national identities of Australia and New Zealand, uniting an otherwise fractured group of territories.  Whether or not this is true, expect to see some of your Kiwi and Australian friends visiting the nearest Cenotaph today.  Make sure to remember that it is toughest to be away from home on the holidays most associated with your national identity.  Sometimes people just want to tell you about "home."



Photos courtesy of the BBC World Service              

Cuju: Beixinqiao's Favorite Hutong Hangout

Everybody has that place they don't make it too often enough.  Maybe it's the location or you're just tired after a long day of work, but you never seem to find the right time to visit even though you want to go.  For me it's a bar called Cuju in the hutong behind my apartment complex.  And despite its small size, the bar has a big following in the expat community.  

The composite featured on their website

Quite possibly the world's smallest bar, Cuju is one of those places that you have to know where it is to find it.  It is isolated on a winding hutong alleyway, standing as an oasis in an otherwise bar-less area.  The place is famous in the expat community for showing notable sporting events live.  In the case of the East Coast of the United States, this means 12 hours later, so picture a bar that is willing to open at 4 in the morning for some events.  I watched the NFL playoffs here back in January at 4 am, and the crowd was standing room only.  Considering the place holds about 20 people, this might lessen the accomplishment, but hey this is Beijing, so I’ll give it to them.  The place also has a Moroccan food menu.  I am not entirely sure what the Hell Moroccan food is, but I know enough to know that I like it. 

Intimate space

NFL Playoffs Live.  Look in the left-hand corner
 and you might recognize the dashingly handsome lao wei

Though I love the place, my roommates hate it.  Honestly their hatred for the place, encouraged by my unrelenting praises, has crossed the line to becoming a running joke.

Me:  “Want to go have a drink at Cuju tonight?”

Roommates:  “I'd rather have a cavity filled.”

I must concede that one of their complaints is certainly well founded.  For a dive bar, it is very expensive.  The only thing on the menu below $5 is the happy hour beer.  However, if you like rum, and we all do, they have the most amazing selection in the capital.  They just started stocking Kracken rum from my home state of Indiana.  Though a shot of it will cost you an arm and a leg, you can't really put a price on home.

The bar even hosted a Mardi Gras event featuring cajun food.  And keeping with the general theme of this piece, I missed that event, but I heard through the lao wei grapevine that it was un bon temps (my French is about as good as my Chinese).  

I plan to rekindle my love affair with the place during the NBA playoffs.  Go Pacers.  Any Beijinger looking for a fun place to watch some games, matches, and tournaments can't go wrong by checking this place out.  Don't let the small size fool you, this place is big fun.        

http://cujubeijing.com/