Tom’s Adventures in China

Dragonfly Larvae

Bamboo Worm

Yet more bugs and creepy crawlies, my favorite! In Southwestern China, some minority cultures are famous for eating stirfried bamboo worms and dragon fly larvae, so while there I had to give them a try. The bamboo worms taste kind of like salami flavored toothpaste: not chewy at all. They have a thin shell covering a pasty white interior.

The dragonfly larvae are pretty much all shell, crispy and kind of prickly (from all the legs) with a taste sort of like the way burning hair smells. High in protein, not too much for taste.

The Plateau

A Yak

Note: the # is so the site isn’t blocked here. This isn’t the case every time the word is used, but better safe than sorry…so treat the # as an “i”

Hey Guys, I’m leaving in 2 days and trying to bang out as many weird foods as a I can in the meantime. On my school’s spring semester trip to Yunnan Province in southwestern China, we made a stop on the very beginnings of the T#betan Plateau, where although the rest of the province is subtropical, the temperature was 30 degrees and snowy. What they say about high elevation areas is true: moving around takes a lot more energy and it’s harder to breath. This is not, as popularly believed, because “there is less oxygen up there,” it’s because there’s less air pressure at high elevations: less air pressure means that oxygen molecules in the air are more spread out, and although the oxygen content of the atmosphere is the same as at sea level, you inhale less oxygen per breath.

The High Mountains (and far from the highest!)

The region is known as Gyalthang in T#betan and Zhongdian in Chinese, but the regional governement has renamed the region “Shang-ri-la” (a fictional place in the famous novel Lost Horizon) in an attempt to draw more and more tourism into the region. It seems of course, as I’ve learned over the past few years, that whatever land or people tourism touches, true cultural diversity, true environmental beauty, and truly unique experiences melt away and leave only cheap souvenir shops and attractions in their wake (i.e. Epcot-like attractions at real places!!!). This is especially true for Gyalthang where the lure of the mystical “Shang-ri-la” has sculpted a reality that never was: come spin the world’s largest prayer wheel (which has no historical significance whatsoever), take a picture sitting on a yak, ponder Buddhist prayers that you neither understand nor attempted to learn about. This is tourism at its best….coming to look: bringing nothing but dollars with you and taking nothing but cheap souvenirs home.

Gyalthang

Regardless, this was still a very interesting region with interesting people. The T#betans of this area both farm and keep small herds of cattle and yaks, and the town of Zhongdian still has a Buddhist monastery that houses nearly 700 lamas (lama = Buddhist monk). The locals (espcecially the women) still choose to wear their traditional dress which is perfect for living in the high mountain environment.

T#betan Dress

Now on to the food. Since they live and work in such a high and cold region, the diet of the farmers is highly meat and dairy based. They drink black tea mixed with yak butter and mix this milky tea with barley flour to make a staple food known as “tsamba.” I had the opportunity to try both yak meat and tsamba. Yak meat isn’t remarkably different from beef. The tea tastes like warm milk/butter (which I didn’t care for too much), but when you mix the flour in, it tastes like cheerios. Tsamba is really high in calories and fats and gives the farmers the energy to work in their mountainous environment.

Yak Stew

Yak Butter Tea

Tsamba

Snake Wine

Hey Everyone,

First, congratulations to Josh on completing his Eagle Project, and I hope more of you will follow in his example in the future.

As a latest installment from China, my host Chinese family introduced me to the strange world of Chinese Traditional Medicine by helping me to a lovely drink known as Chinese Snake Wine. In this case, it isn’t like Gatorade where there isn’t any gator in it at all: there’s a whole snake stewed in the bottle along with other creatures such as seahorses, pipefish, and dried gecko lizards. The wine itself is an extremely strong liquor made from fermented sorghum (a type of grain) known as “Baijiu” (translated literally as white wine) which tastes absolutely horrendous and is so strong that they use it to clean windows. The creatures don’t add all that much flavor but they do make the baijiu all the more harsh and horrible tasting.

From a medicinal perspective, the wine is supposed to be good for the joints, or maybe the drunken haze drinking a bottle of this stuff will put you in simply cures all ills!

A Good Shot of the Lizards

Dog 2.0

Dog meat is one of those delicacies you just never grow tired of! If you consult a dog cookbook, you’d be amazed to see the variety of ways to cook man’s best friend. So, why not give them all a try? When my brother came to visit me in Beijing over the Christmas break, I thought I’d treat him to a dog dinner at a local Korean restaurant. This time, the dog was very different from the first dog hot-pot I had. It was made cold and dressed with a red tomato and pepper based sauce. It wasn’t as good as the first time, but just as tender and lean. It’s not very different from beef except for a slightly gamey taste. As always, I wouldn’t mind eating it again, and of course respect the right of Chinese people to enjoy eating it.

Mmmm...jellyfish

Hey Guys. I hope everything’s going well back in the Bronx and you’re all getting excited for the summer. As the next installment in my “Weird Food Chronicles,” I’d like to tell you about the cold jellyfish salad that I had at a Korean restaurant down the street. I didn’t think jellyfish were edible, but apparently I was mistaken…this is Asia afterall. It came in long strips that look kind of like noodles and was dressed with a vinegar sauce. The consistency isn’t slimy at all, kind of rubbery and chewy like squid but a little different. The taste is actually pretty good and the way it was made in this dish, call me crazy, but it tasted almost like cappuccino. Fishy cappuccino…

Cold Jellyfish Salad

It looks harmless doesn't it? Looks can be deceiving...

Hello again everyone! I thought I’d tell you about one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever tasted in my life: China’s rather aptly named “Stinky Tofu.” It’s a bean curd fermented in a brine made of milk, meat, dried shrimp, vegetables, and spices for up to a few months. This process, as you can probably imagine, produces an odor that I can’t even describe to you. It’s not a rotten egg smell, it’s not quite a nasty cheese smell, it’s not quite a butt smell, but a mixture of all possible bad smells into one. It smells like you took a fine malt butt sweat vinegar and stewed some dead rats, poop, and the nastiest, moldiest, smelliest French cheese you can think of in it.

Now on to the taste. This is probably the only thing that I genuinely hesitated to eat in all of my weird food experiences, and they’re many now. The trick is not to breathe in through your nose when putting it into your mouth. If, God forbid, you do breathe, you’ll instantly be sickened and throw up everywhere. But, maybe adding a little throwup would improve the smell a bit. The taste is not as bad as the smell, but put it this way: it tastes just like the way it smells: pungent, nasty, rotten. It tastes just like a really sour aged nasty cheese. But apparently, people love it here, and they line up in droves to buy it at stalls all over China. I guess if you like really nasty cheese, you might like stinky tofu too. I, on the other hand, can’t even stomach the taste of pizza topping (Yea, I know, I’m the only Italian that doesn’t like cheese, get over it!) so I guess it’s just something I was predestined to hate. But if the Chinese like it, I respect that.

Its name in Chinese is Chou Doufu (Pronounced Choh Doh foo)

This is part of the skyline of Xi'an (ancient Chinese Capital). The "Crane" is practically the national bird.

This is part of the Beijing Skyline. You can't look in any direction without seeing construction.

This is what the Industrial Revolution looks like.

Hmm...Mordor anyone?

Hello again everyone! I’d like to first congratulate both Troop and Pack 162 for their great efforts and VICTORIES at this year’s Klondike Derby. The Troop 162 dynasty has begun! We haven’t taken the North Pole for two years in a row since I was a tenderfoot! Keep up the great work guys, you have  a troop/pack to be Proud of!

As part of my ongoing effort to shift a little away from food and focus more on people and places, I thought you might like to see what the rapid industrialization you’ve been hearing about on the news, reading about in the papers, and are undoubtedly curious about looks like. The truth of the matter is this: whether we want China to be part of our lives in the future or not, none of us have a choice in the matter. The Chinese are becoming a modern industrialized power, and while they have many hurtles to overcome, they truly are becoming an influential world power. My advice to you would be this: start reading about China, learning about what the people are like here, and if your High School (and eventually University) offers languages like Chinese, take full advantage of learning them because the days of treating China like a second-rate nation are coming to a close…

Construction is everywhere in China, no matter what city or town you are in. Roads are being built, subway lines carved out of the earth, and new high-rise buildings are being thrown up everywhere. The skyline of Shanghai has changed so much in the last 5 years that if you came back you wouldn’t recognize it. The same goes for Beijing where students came back to China after the summer vacation and found new strip malls, new high rises, and new subway lines completed.

As for pollution and environmental degradation: that will take a post of its own (and I’m working on more pictures for it too).

Cities without Character: there is one thing lacking in every single Chinese city I have gone to, and that is character. The cities were built so recently and so fast that a mood and local history have failed to keep up. I can explain this better by using New York City, White Plains, and New Rochelle as examples from our hometown. If you walk through the streets and neighborhoods of New York, you always know what area you’re in because the architecture will change, the mood and style of shops will change, the types of people and workers you see will change. For example, you can see a big difference between Harlem, The Upper East Side, and our area of the Bronx. Different people and businesses are in the area. Harlem has its distinct Brownstone architecture and African-American culture. Morris Park has many small businesses, private houses, and Italian-American feel. New York is diverse, it has a character, a “New Yorkness” that makes it different from anywhere else in the world.

Now lets look at White Plains and New Rochelle (cities very close to New York City). These are cities that are suffering loss of character because they are developing so fast. They are both trying desperately to become New York City, but they are building new malls, new shopping centers, new restaurants, new theaters, and new high-rises so fast that they’re not developing any character to go with them. There is no “White Plainsness” or “New Rochelleness,” there is just “Sameness.” This is what is happening in most Chinese cities. The new buildings, and new hotels, and new shopping centers, and new this, and new that are going up so quickly and in so many places, that all the cities look almost the same and have hardly any character. You have to look at the people themselves to see the different character of the places.

Anyway, that’s just my opinion, take it or leave it. And if you read this and you’re from or like New Rochelle or White Plains…my apologies (but you’ll never beat NYC!!!!)

I

Time for a new camera methinks...

Hello everyone! I hope that your Holidays and New Year went well and that your preparations for the Klondike Derby are going well. Remember, it’s your job to keep the North Pole in Troop 162’s hands for another year!

Anyway, the next item on the menu is Cicada Kabobs. Cicadas are the big nasty bugs that make an amazing amount of noise in the trees during the summer. Here in Beijing, they sell them as kabobs in their larval stage before they get their wings and start to make noise. Every summer, they come up from their underground burrows where they’re snatched up to make some tasty morsels at the night market. Of course, once again, they among other things are most likely only sold in China for tourists, but regardless, I had to give them a try.

They’re about an inch and a half long and come five to a kabob. The texture of course is a hard outer shell, but unlike other bugs, the inside is quite moist and resembles (in both taste, consistency, and texture) pieces of fried zucchini or squash. I know I tend to say this alot but, they taste pretty good.

Cicada Kabob

Well there you have it. Fried Scorpion Anyone?

A Closeup...Sorry my camera was acting up.

Whenever you see some survival expert or Fear Factor contestant eating scorpions and almost getting sick from the taste know that they’re lying and that they secretly love them: Simply put, scorpions are delicious. Once again, scorpions are an attraction at the Beijing Night Market meaning that they’re there so that tourists will pay to eat them so they can have a conversation piece at cocktail parties. The Chinese in Beijing don’t eat scorpions. My roommate (a native of China) has never eaten scorpions before, but most of my American friends have. However, I have some classmates who went out into the desert in Western China and there were plenty of scorpions for the eating there for the local people. It’s said that the if it walks on the earth, crawls on the ground, swims in the ocean, or flies in the air the Chinese will eat it. I’m happy to see that in some places, this is true.

At the Night Market, you can get your scorpions as fresh as you want them: even kicking and trying to sting you as they’re put on kabob sticks and fried up. The stinger looks like it’d leave a nasty wound, but you don’t have to worry about the poison killing you when you eat them cooked. The venom is an enzyme (like the kind found in saliva that breaks down food, except this this one will break down your flesh!) and when it’s heated past a certain temperature, it breaks down and is no longer poisonous. So you have nothing to fear from eating a cooked scorpion.

They come five to a kabob and go into the oil kicking and stinging and come out crispy and ready to be savored. The best way to eat them is to bite down and slide them off the stick with the stinger and all. The taste is not bad at all, crispy, salty, and actually a little like almonds (from the poison of course). They’re probably the best bugs (actually arachnids like spiders) that I’ve eaten and I wouldn’t mind having a scorpion kabob or two in the future! They also sell these really big black scorpions that I’d imagine are a little more juicy, but they’re expensive and I haven’t found them yet. But of course when I do, I’ll eat one just for you guys.

Mongolian Horse

The Endless Steppe

Sunrise on the Steppe

Hey Everyone. As part of my continuing “cultural” articles, I thought I’d tell you about my disappointing and disenchanting experience in Inner Mongolia. Just a few hours north of Beijing by train begins the vast expanse of grassland known as “steppe” (Pronounced Step) that stretches from the Pacific Ocean across central Asia until you hid the deserts of the Middle East, the Gobi, or the Siberian Taiga, depending on the direction you’re headed.

Nomadic herding has been the main way of life in the region for centuries where families would move their herds of cows, yaks, reindeer, camels, or sheep (usually sheep) seasonally to better pasture. This is what gave the armies of Genghis Khan the ability to conquer an empire from Korea to Egypt during the middle ages: his people did not have to wait for better seasons to move, they didn’t rely on crops, and they carried all they had with them on horseback or on the backs of camels.  So, essentially, the entire culture was one mobile unit.

The Mongolians live in large dome shaped tents called “gers” or “yurts.” They are masters of herding and animal husbandry (the herding and breeding of livestock) and they are the masters of the vast wilderness they live in. They get all of their food from their animals and their diet is heavily meat and milk based (they even brew a wine known as airag from horse milk!). Even their houses are made of felt produced from sheep’s wool. In Mongolia, Kyrgzyzstan, Kazakstan, and some parts of Russia, they still live this way (albeit, most likely not for much longer). In China however, they have been encouraged to settle, and in settling, they have lost their identity. They now no longer have to move, they have electricity, they have modern medecine. But this also means that their culture is dying. They now have the “better life” that we in the West all think they should have, but in their environment, they can’t just clear out and become accountants and bank workers like we in the “civilized world” become.  They still live on the grassland, but without the same identity they used to have. Now they set up yurts for tourists to come and have an “adventure” on the grassland and witness a culture that doesn’t exist anymore. No one can argue that nomadic life is hard, but at least it gives those who still live this way the ability to live in a way that is truly unique. Besides, we have enough lawyers, accountants, and businessmen as it is! Genghis Khan must be turning in his grave, wherever it is…

Regardless, the scenery is still stunning, and the Mongolians are still experts at riding horses (albeit only for the tourists). They ride small Mongolian horses that are about the size of ponies and they’re able to bend and pick things up off the ground while the horse is galloping. It’s amazing, but I wish they didn’t do it merely for our amusement!

Might as well be Disneyland...The Ger Camp

If you can explain this one to me, I'm all ears!