Postcard From Shenzhen
By Yin Yee Kiong
It’s much cooler, much, much cooler. The afternoons are still warm but not humid. The mornings pleasant and the evenings rather cool. One can sleep without airconditioning now. The days are shorter – dark by six – and will get shorter still. This is the pleasantness of seasons. Of course in the south of China we don’t get the extremes or the contrasts they have in the north where I am told autumn (the golden season) is really beautiful. But we also don’t get the bone-chilling cold of winter nor the scorching summer too.
One can tell the seasons by what is in the market too. Vegetables I have not seen before have appeared. As for fruits, persimmons are in season – lots of it in the market and on the streets. Do you know you can’t pick persimmons off the tree and eat them? I was told this when I saw strings of them hung out in farm houses in Japan. They have to be ‘cured’ or something like that before they are ripened and marketed. Hey I could be wrong or have not understood the German/Japanese of Akiko. Don’t take it as gospel.
Other fruits are disappearing – water melons, rock melons etc. And no more rambutans, mangosteens (such as they are – we throw those away at home). You know what, the Chinese are as ignorant about coconuts as the kweiloh. One sees coconuts as old as my grandfather – which one sees in the coconut-shys of old English fair grounds.
Something else has also appeared on the streets. I saw these three big burly guys in funny clothes and hats squatting on the pavement. In front of them were exotic stuff – bears paws – the whole arm actually. There was of course the inevitable bears’ penis and bile and every part of the poor animal. I reckon if we put them all together we can create a Frankenstein bear.
The biggest guy levered his massive arm upwards from his waist suggesting the masculinity I can attain if I buy his stuff. The blank look I gave him probably disgusted him. His friend was more honest, he sized me up, stuck out his small finger and wiggled it. We all laughed. How did he know?
I have never seen a bear’s penis before and have no way of knowing what that thing is. It could be anything – a goat’s, a dog’s, a buffalo or just an old twig. Or, and this is not too far fetched, a human one. Why not? An American guy (an executive with a big firm) has been sentenced to six years in prison for dealing in human skulls (according to the Global
Times). He exports these skulls which he buys for 23 rmb to America for lots of money. When the police raided his house they found over a thousand skulls. If skulls why not penis?
Anyway these ‘mountain men’ (that’s what they looked like) gave up on me. There are some things you can’t do anything about.
Oh yes, there are other new stuff on the street – small reddish crabs, buckets of them – which had lots of takers. A lady questioned the seller about the meat and he immediately deshelled one and showed her the fleshy inside. Anyway he needn’t have bothered with her, he has enough customers.
One thing has not changed however, the old lady who sells rotten seafood. Yes rotten. Come rain come shine she is there. You can smell her a mile off. The legs and claws are practically falling off the crabs. The fish are dull eyed and stinks. She also has mangy cats in cages. Around her are several mutts who follow her everywhere. I have seen this lady push her cart across the busy road from the Old Qtr where she lives. I say she sells seafood but I have yet to see anyone buying her stuff. Well what she can’t sell she will bring back tomorrow and the day after and so on. It actually doesn’t stink as much these days, either because I have grown accustomed to it or because it is not so hot.
What else is new?
The Shenzhen authorities are talking about banning electric bicycles. The reason is that they are clogging the roads. One laowai has commented (in a column in the SZ Daily) that these electric bicycles users are ‘lawless’ – they ride on the pavements, don’t wear helmets and often carry more than one passenger.
I couldn’t resist by replying that it’s easy for a high paying expat to pontificate from his airconditioned ivory tower when he can spend in one night’s carousing what these poor guys spend on food for the family in a month. Helmets cost money. They can’t afford a car so what do you expect them to do when they are a family of three or four? Public transport costs money. In any case the metro does not cover the whole of SZ (yet).
Lawlessness? What about drivers who don’t stop at pedestrian crossings, bully other road users and park on the pavements? What about the almost exponential growth of cars?
Cars are noisy, they spew fumes, they consume lots of fossil fuel (draining the country’s foreign exchange) and most cars do not have passengers so the cost per person is much higher than that for electric bicycles which are by the way, silent, clean and efficient.
What will these poor guys do if electric bicycles are banned? Will the government buy their bikes? How are they going to bring their produce to the market (espy if the distances are long) or carry their wares to sell all over SZ? The buses and metro will not allow livestock nor will they allow stoves and pots and pans which food hawkers need to make a living. How will these guys live?
Why should the poor be the ones to sacrifice?
Why not enforce limited access into the CBD, or encourage car pooling by charging drivers who have no passengers. Why not raise the tax on cars to reduce its numbers?
Until the government has tried everything to contain the explosion of car ownership and has done all it can to make car owners more responsible road users, it should not pick on the small guy.
Isn’t a socialist government supposed to look after the ‘small guy’?
Going by what one sees in SZ one would not think so.
The Utterly Useless Food Guide
Decided to skip the local fare and instead go for something nearer home. Thai.
We have passed Thai Elements before in Coastal City. It looked nice and judging with the number of customers, must be good.
Well Thai it was last Friday.
We ordered the ‘green curry’, veges with salt fish and seafood tomyam and a couple of other stuff.
We asked for rice which never came.
The tomyam came first – small bowl, two prawns and rather insipid.
Then the green curry. It didn’t look like any Thai green curry I have ever seen. It’s green all right like a sick green parrot, or rather a sick green parrot’s vomit. Looked like mashed avocado infused with a sprinkling of spices, really, thick and goey. I couldn’t eat it and sent it back to the kitchen with the threat that I would report the chef for flouting the Trades Description Act. Or better still report him to the Thai Embassy for insulting Thai cuisine. Of course the waitress did not understand my impeccable Chinese which was a good thing.
The veges with salt fish had no salt fish and tasted more Chinese than Thai.
I looked around, everyone (or almost everyone) was having a good time. However my neighbour and his partner did not finish their food – I hope not because of me. But otherwise every plate went back empty. Shows how much the Chinese know about Thai food – just like the English know about vindaloo or the American, Chinese food.
And if the food was not authentic Thai, neither was the décor (other than the mandatory Buddha carving on the wall). The ceiling was decorated with distinctly Inca drawings.
Inca, Thai, same difference, in any case no one was the wiser and no one cared.
We left in a hurry to look for another place to fill our stomachs. A simple wonton noodle in a simple café simply hit the spot when the pretentious restaurant did not.
The best food is still from the humble cafes or roadside stalls. They do one thing and do it well.
All this talk of food and all I am having for lunch is sweet potato. Well our elders tell us it was the staple during ‘Japanese Time’. Here’s to the humble sweet potato without which many of us would not be here today.
What’s the smell? Bloody burnt rice, my second pot today! Must get rid of it before the boss returns, open all windows, air the place!
Can’t write and cook rice at the same time . . .
