June 14, 2007
Dalian (CHINA)
Cooking Chinese, Culture Lessons at a Korean Restaurant, and a Night at the Jazz Club
Despite today being another great day, it didn't have the best of starts. After stepping out of the shower this morning I noticed my left eye is now a swollen black-and-blue that would make Rocky Balboa proud. All in all, I suppose it is better than the football injuries I acquired in the past.
For
lunch I met a friend who offered to help me learn how to
cook a simple Chinese meal. We started off by
visiting the local vendors tucked away in neighborhoods
- a vegetable here, meat there, bread over there, and so
on - before settling down to do the chopping. Although I
have cooked plenty of times in my life there have been a
limited number of occasions where I have actually
prepared food. I was in charge of cutting the lamb
chops into small pieces (chopsticks require that all
food is bite size) and dicing the cucumbers into thin
strips. Afterward, we used a skillet to cook the meat
with a variety of other vegetables, and the sliced
cucumbers were mixed with some kind of gelatin and soy
sauce.
I wish I could say the cooking experience was a resounding success, but I am afraid I would be lying. Personally, I can eat anything. In fact, one of the Chinese sayings I use most often explains that there is nothing I don't like to eat: 我没有东西我不喜欢吃。However, a couple roommates sampled the food and immediately spit it out with a look of disgust. I found it all to be fairly amusing.
After cleaning up the dishes I headed back to the office for an afternoon of work. There wasn't a whole lot of excitement, but I did get a call from Scarlett. She has a friend who is going on a company outing to a local village to pick cherries, eat traditional village food, and afterward they will all go golfing. Although I am a rubbish golfer, this sounds like a great opportunity to try something new. So, on Sunday morning I will head off with a group of Chinese people I have never met for a day of the unknown.
I
stayed behind at work today to make up for lost time at
lunch, but by 6:30pm I was on my way to a famous Korean
restaurant to meet a friend (of a friend) from Hong Kong.
Wang Bo (English name: Bonita) grew up in Dalian,
but she now studies mathematics in Hong Kong. She took
me to a great Sichuan (the spicy food that is my
favorite style of cooking) restaurant last week, and
this was my chance to return the favor.
I always leave my Chinese friends in charge of ordering food to guarantee I try something new, and tonight's food did not disappoint. For Korean food, it ranks high in authenticity (which is often tough to accomplish). Perhaps when I was young I associated all Asians in the same general category (being unable to distinguish races or nationalities from appearances/customs), but now it is second nature.
After
a couple hours spent discussing Chinese culture -
something I can never get enough of - I met Gage (University
of Florida) and Ryan
(Clarkson University) for a
night at the Blossom Jazz Club.
Both Ryan and Gage are musicians so they were busy
critiquing the music and instruments while my jazz
knowledge is limited to one simple factor: whether or
not the music has me tapping my feet (which it did).
The
only unfortunate part of the jazz club is the price of
drinks. Although USD$3.50 does not sound like a lot by
Western standards, I hate wasting such money on
something as trivial as a gin and tonic.
Fortunately, a small quickie mart down the street offered an easy solution: beer costing USD$0.24 for 640ml (roughly two cans). Although the glass bottles are all re-used - and likely ridden with Hepatitis C as a result - the beer was stored alongside the ice-cream and was thus ice-cold.
After the final performance of the night we headed back to the apartment to get what sleep we could. It is certainly a good thing, but I cannot remember the last time I felt like there was enough time in the day!