Outside of the Middle Kingdom and Southeast Asia , there is probably no spot in the world more Chinese than New York City. When people think of American cities with heavy Chinese concentrations, usually San Francisco and Los Angeles are the first to come to mind. It often comes as surprise that New York City now has, by far, the largest Chinese population in the Western Hemisphere, and is the primary economic, cultural, and logistical center of Chinese life in the United States.
Throughout the 19th Century and the majority of the 20th, most Chinese immigrants to the continental United States came from Guangdong (the Cantonese province) and settled in California. In an era when ships were the dominant form of international transport, the West Coast was the logical destination for immigrants from Asia. Well into the 20th Century, even as air travel became increasingly feasible, most Chinese immigration still passed through the West Coast, since this was where the established immigrant communities were located.
Then in the 1980’s a dramatic shift in Chinese immigration occurred. Rural peasants from Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian province, just north of Guangdong, began emigrating en masse to the United States. The immigrants from Fuzhou did not share business and kinship connections with the established Cantonese communities in California, nor could they understand the Cantonese language, the lingua franca of most American Chinatowns at the time. Without ties to existing American Chinese communities, and with the ease of jet travel, the Fuzhou immigrants had little reason to settle in California, as previous generations of Chinese had done. Instead, they flocked to New York City, where a formidable labor vacuum was emerging out of the booming Chinese restaurant industry.
Since the 1980’s the Fuzhou population, and by extension the Chinese population of the United States, has grown by unprecedented numbers. With the quantity of Fuzhou immigrants long surpassing that of the Cantonese, New York has now become the main port of entry for Chinese immigrants in the United States.
Most Chinese immigrants in New York are not from the city of Fuzhou per se, but rather the small villages and townships in its rural periphery including Changle, Lianjiang, Fuqing, and Langqi Island. As someone who spent three years living in and around Fuzhou, the topic of Chinese immigration has always been of particular personal interest. So during my recent stop in New York, I made it a point to visit its various Chinese enclaves.
New York City has three primary Chinese communities, the Manhattan Chinatown on the Lower East Side, the Queens Chinatown in Flushing, and the Brooklyn Chinatown in Sunset Park. Excluding San Francisco’s Chinatown, each of the three New York communities on their own are more populous than any other Chinatown in the United States. The following is a photo essay from four days in New York. Enjoy.
曼哈顿 · Manhattan
Manhattan’s Chinatown is located on the lower east side within a massive tract of tenement housing blocks, not far from the former site of Five Points, the immigrant neighborhood showcased in the Martin Scorsese’s film “Gangs of New York.” For much of the 20th Century, the area which is now Chinatown was New York’s Little Italy.
The swarming, raucous, and grubby atmosphere of Manhattan’s Chinatown exemplifies the perfect marriage between New York City and China. With pirated DVD’s, fake Louis Vuitton bags, herbal viagra, and 50 cent patterned Chinese “famer bags,” there isn’t much you can find in China which can’t be purchased in Manhattan. It’s also probably the largest concentration of Chinese restaurants in North America, and at night vendors crowd the sidewalks hawking 烧烤 (Chinese skewers), 麻辣烫 (ma la spicy soup) and other Chinese street snacks rarely found outside of the Middle Kingdom.
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As New York’s oldest extant Chinese enclave, more Cantonese is spoken in Manhattan than anywhere else in the city. The Cantonese still form a solid population base on the Lower East Side, however they are rapidly being eclipsed by the Fuzhou influx.
Chinatown’s boundaries are clearly delineated by its housing stock. As the tenements lie upper middle class residential high rises, which vividly contrast the immigrant housing in their shadows.
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Although Fuzhou-ites can be found in all parts of Manhattan’s Chinatown, the commercial center of the Fuzhou population is East Broadway, aka 福州街 (Fuzhou Street)
For a particularly native experience, I recommend a perusal through the East Broadway Mall. With shops hocking phone cards, electronics, suits, and rice cookers, and a rudimentary basement food court selling authentic Fuzhou snacks and niblets, the East Broadway Mall (88 E. Broadway) could just as easily be located on a street corner in downtown Fuzhou.
法拉盛· Flushing
Hop on the elevated 7 train, and take it to the end of the line in Flushing. Disembark, and one is immediately transported into the most concentrated Asian population in the United States. To the east lies Koreatown, rather quiet and subdued compared with the massive Chinese colony to the west, which by most counts has now surpassed Manhattan’s Chinatown in population.
In terms of Chinatowns, Flushing is about as diverse as they come. Fighting through the crowds, one hears the sounds of Cantonese, Fuzhou dialect, heavily accented Northern Mandarin, Taiwan Guoyu, and shouts of “ma-sa-gee, ma-sa-gee,” all permeating through the noise and commotion.
The center of the Flushing Chinatown is at Main Street and Roosevelt, the third busiest intersection in New York and the busiest outside of Manhattan. It is chaotic, cramped, and crowded, even by Chinese standards. Flushing has a plethora of authentic Chinese restaurants and street food, making it an ideal spot for adventurous foodies. Like many ethnic neighborhoods in New York, one can easily consume an entire meal in Flushing without ever sitting at a table or using utensils. This is Chinese street food at its best, as many vendors and storefronts offer a multitude of Chinese finger food, much of it unavailable anywhere else in the US, and all at bargain prices.
After several rounds of street food grazing, I settled down to a meal at “Four Choise and Soup All Day Lunch Box.”
“Four Choise and Soup All Day Lunch Box” follows a formula common among New York Chinese dives: 4 servings are chosen from a buffet, plus a scoop of white rice and a bowl of soup, all for the low price of $4.95. The fare at “Four Choise” was was a unique blend of authentic Chinese 快餐 (fast food) and Fuzhou-style American Chinese food, which I found surprisingly tasty, albeit in small doses.
Owing to its comparatively low degree of commercialization and tourism, Flushing represents a less adulterated ethnic enclave than Manhattan’s Chinatown. With direct subway transportation to Manhattan, Flushing is an ideal destination for any traveler wanting to experience the Middle Kingdom on American soil.
布鲁克林 · Brooklyn
With so many ethnic pockets in the city, even many New Yorkers don’t realize that one of the largest Chinese communities in North America is located in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. Of the three Chinatowns, Sunset Park is the least touristy, and the most completely and utterly Fuzhou-ified. Passing along the main drag, 8th Avenue, the glottal sounds of the Fuzhou dialect fill the surroundings with hardly a word of Mandarin, Cantonese, or English spoken at all.***
Sunset Park is the place to go for the most uncensored Chinese experience New York City has to offer. As the youngest of New York’s three main Chinatowns, Sunset Park is home to a higher percentage of new arrivals than the other two Chinese enclaves. And without bona fide “tourist attractions,” Sunset Park’s Chinatown is NYC’s least frequented by outsiders. Businesses such as fish markets and 网吧 (internet cafes) appear to have been lifted right off the ground from Fuzhou and transplanted into South Brooklyn. Most restaurants serve an array of authentic Fuzhou cuisine and snacks, making it quite possibly the only Chinatown in America where one would be hard pressed procure that famous chicken of General Tso. And most shop owners don’t even bother to translate the Chinese characters on storefront signs into English.
To reach the Sunset Park Chinatown, take the D train to 9th Avenue and walk one street west to 8th Ave. Chinatown runs north and south from 42nd Street to 68th Street.
***It is a common misconception that the Fuzhou population residing in New York (and all over the US) does not speak Mandarin. While the Fuzhou dialect is the preferred language, since the linguistic reforms of the 1950’s the vast majority of Fuzhou children have grown up bilingual, speaking both Mandarin and the dialect. Only a tiny percentage do not speak Mandarin, and this percentage is likely lower than that of those who speak Mandarin but no dialect.
I stopped in for a meal in Sunset Park and you can probably imagine the novelty for the wait staff upon encountering a 6-foot white guy who can speak about 10 sentences in the Fuzhou dialect. After exhausting my limited arsenal of dialect, I chatted in Mandarin with the staff and several of the other diners, who were able to provide me with a detailed update on the constant state of construction in my old neighborhood in Fuzhou. Being several thousand miles away from your former home, and encountering a room full of complete strangers who recognize down to the address exactly where you used to live and work is an odd sensation to say the least.
The food served at the restaurant was typical Fuzhou fare. On the left are wontons, which in Fuzhou are referred to as 扁肉. The broth has a unique flavor which tastes quite different from standard wontons, or 混沌. Interestingly, the word 扁肉 is generally not understood outside of Fujian province, and the only place outside of Fujian (China included) I’ve seen it on a menu is New York.
On the right is a 包子 (bao), a steamed dumpling, common throughout China, but regionalized such that there is flavors vary from province to province (and country to country). The Fuzhou style 包子 is filled with sweetened pork, although quite different from the more common Cantonese 叉烧包 (cha shao bao), frequently served in most American Chinatowns.
Similar to the “Four Choise and Soup All Day Lunch Box,” many restaurants in Sunset Park also offer 中国式快餐 (Chinese fast food). 快餐 is common throughout China, and can be thought of as the Chinese buffet which is actually Chinese (as opposed to your typical US Chinese buffet which is about as American as Hot Pockets). Also, 快餐 restaurants rarely offer “all you can eat” deals (another very American concept), and instead either charge per serving or offer a package such as 4 servings plus rice and soup for a set price. With stir-fried green veggies, pork fat, squid, and whole fish, this Sunset Park buffet looks just as it would back in Fuzhou.
With its three bustling Chinatowns, each swelling larger every day, the Chinese are increasingly expanding their stake in the ethnic mosaic of New York City. Even in neighborhoods which have not been traditionally inhabited by Chinese, it can be difficult to find a street corner in New York where the sounds of Mandarin, or Cantonese, or the Fuzhou dialect cannot be heard. Much has been written about the Chinese (and specifically the Fuzhou) immigration pipeline into New York City, and further reading, I would recommend The Snakehead by Patrick Radden Keefe (which I reviewed in July) or The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8. Lee. I still have more to report from my recent trip to the East Coast, and I’ll try to have additional posts in the weeks to come.
With the ease of international travel in the 21st Century, as an American it’s easy to forget the array of urban tourism that the United States has to offer. It had been since my roadtrip from Kansas to California just upon college graduation in 2003 that I had embarked on a true multi-stop adventure on American soil. So with two weeks off work over the holidays, I set off on a journey down the American East Coast, taking me through Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Here are some of the photo highlights from the trip.
The first stop on my trip was Boston. Here’s a shot I took from the plane upon descent into Logan International Airport.
Reno, NV likes to bill itself as the biggest little city in the world. I find this title more fitting for Boston. Although it is a prominent educational, cultural, and economic center, Boston, the city itself, is quite small in comparison to other major American metropolises. Even when you assume several of the surrounding municipalities figure into the urban core, Boston is still one of the US’s smaller major cities in terms of both area and population.
One reason for Boston’s compactness is that much of its street grids align up with their original designs from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This means lots of narrow windy streets, some barely wide enough for a single car to meander through.
The result of Boston’s old street grid is that it is arguably the most pedestrian friendly major city in the country (San Francisco also comes to mind). In four days, I was able to cover just about every city neighborhood on foot.
With its curvy street grid and bodies of water surrounding the downtown, Boston is not an easy city in which to find one’s orientation. You actually have to know where places are physically located, as opposed to simply going by an address or cross street like you would in New York or Chicago.
Boston’s downtown is a fine conglomeration of buildings from the past four centuries mixed in with modern high-rises.
I spent several hours on my first day exploring Beacon Hill, one of Boston’s most affluent neighborhoods, with its federal-style rowhouses dating back to the 1700’s.
Another one of my favorite walks in Boston was the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, a long, and uncharacteristically straight residential boulevard just west of downtown. Com Ave’s straightness is due to it being built on reclaimed marshland added to Boston in the 1800’s, hence many years after the original street plan was laid out.
For my travels outside of the downtown area, I relied mostly on the “T,” Boston’s rapid transit system. A week pass on the “T” was only $15 and I generally found it easy to travel wherever I needed to go within Boston as well as several suburban locations, by using the “T.” As far as American transit systems go, the “T” is pretty swank, with comparatively modern infrastructure and rolling stock. I also got a rise out of the public service recorded announcements from Boston’s chief of police constantly reminding everybody to “pay youa faaaa.”
Boston’s compactness makes it an ideal city for rail transit and the “T”’s per/mile ridership is higher than any American city other than New York. An extensive commuter rail network also connects surrounding suburbs and neighboring communities.
Boston’s West End was a downtown working class neighborhood, which before its demolition, was home to much of the city’s Italian-American population. In the wake of Urban Renewal, and among much controversy, the West End was raised in the late 1950’s, ostensibly to make way for the Massachusetts General Hospital. Many elderly Bostonians will tell you the real reason was racism and xenophobia towards Italians and immigrants. This lone tenement is the last standing remnant of what used to be the West End.
Overall, I have to say Boston is one of my favorite American cities. It has a historical charm, but also modern sights and sounds, local flavor but also a wide array of foreign influence, and an active street life redolent of Old World cities. Four days was the perfect amount of time to experience Boston, but I’m sure I’ll be back again to experience all New England has to offer.
The second stop on my trip was New York. My plan was to do as much exploration of the five boroughs as I could fit into 4 or 5 days.
At 71,000 people per square mile, Manhattan is one of the densest places on the planet, including Third World nations. To put that perspective, population density of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh is only 60,000 per square mile.
What I found most interesting in my exploration of Manhattan was its economic diversity. In addition to the nation’s most expensive homes and commercial real estate, Manhattan is also home to numerous housing projects, immigrant enclaves, and various other low income dwellings.
As much as I try to avoid tourist traps, New York does posses several spots which I would have kicked myself for not visiting, such as Grand Central Terminal (pictured above). While many American cities still have sumptuous rail depots such as Grand Central, the true beauty is that in New York (and much of the East Coast) these stations are still in heavy use by both commuters and long distance travelers, whereas in most other regions of the country rail transport has long since been replaced by airplane and automobile.
I knew I wanted to see the Statue of Liberty, but with a line wrapping itself halfway around Battery Park, an official visit to Lady Liberty would have likely consumed an entire day of my trip. Solution: The Staten Island Ferry. The ferry, which is the only form of public transportation to connect Staten Island with the rest of the city, is a free service (probably because nobody would ever go to Staten Island if it wasn’t free) and provides impeccable views of the Statue of Liberty as well as the skylines of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Jersey City.
Times Square is New York’s be-all-end-all tourist trap. By that, I mean everybody who visits the city clamors to see it, while everybody who actually lives there avoids it like the plague. While I can imagine the crowds and tourists becoming annoying after a while, I could certainly get used to receiving all of my news in ticker format.
New York has, by leaps and bounds, the most comprehensive public transit system in the United States. My 7 day transit pass cost $28, and there wasn’t a single location I could not conveniently reach via subway.
Once you leave Manhattan, many of the trains are elevated, which make for ideal sightseeing excursions. This “L” goes through Williamsburg, one of the more intriguing neighborhoods in Brooklyn, with adjacent communities of Hispanics, Hipsters, and Hasidic Jews.
New York has more Jews than any city in the world other than Tel-Aviv, and one telltale sign was this dumpster, on which is written in Hebrew “shomer shabbos.” If you’re Jewish (or if you’ve seen the Big Lebowski) you probably know this implies “don’t even think about using this dumpster during the Sabbath.”
Also in Williamsburg’s Hasidic neighborhood, I passed this specialty shop selling “designer coats.” Every single garment in the shop was pitch black. They were all out of thongs.
In addition to its concentration of Jews, New York also now has more Chinese residents than any other city in the Western Hemisphere. New York’s original Chinatown is located within a sprawling expanse of tenement housing stock on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. In the past, this area was home to Manhattan’s Little Italy, which except for a 2 or 3 streets, has now been completely swallowed up by the expanding Chinatown.
Referring to “Chinatown” in New York is becoming increasingly ambiguous as there are now actually three bustling Chinese enclaves in the Big Apple. In addition to the community on the Lower East Side, Chinatowns also exist in the Flushing, Queens (pictured above), and Sunset Park, Brooklyn. I am working on a more detailed post on Chinese New York which should be coming in a few days.
Due to the constant influx of undocumented immigrants, there is no feasible way to accurately count the number of Chinese currently residing in New York City. However, I’m willing to guess that as far as New York’s foreign population goes, the Chinese are definitely top 10, possibly top 5.
One unique aspect of the New York Chinese community is that it is predominantly of Fuzhou origin. Whereas most American Chinatowns are still composed of a majority Cantonese (specifically Taishan) population, New York’s Cantonese population has been dwarfed by pipeline of Fuzhounese pouring in over the past several decades.
By my count, Queens is quite possibly the single most ethnically diverse locale on the planet. After my trip to Flushing, I followed the elevated tracks of the 7 train on foot, en route through a kaleidescope of ethnic neighborhoods such as Corona (pictured above), one of New York’s main Hispanic enclaves.
Due to its population density, New York is one of the few American cities where mass scale street vending is feasible. Vendors such as the one pictured above, can be found on nearly every street corner hawking fruits, vegetables, hot dogs, falafel, DVD’s, watches, bagels, iPods, women’s underwear, or a multitude of other household goods (yeah, it’s basically just like China in that respect).
Relative to its population density, New York actually appears to have a relatively low number of homeless people living in the streets. I noticed this to be the case even when visiting poor neighborhoods in the South Bronx.
While I was able to see the majority of Boston in 4 days, this was certainly not enough time to adequately explore America’s largest metropolis. New York is enormous, in terms of area, population, and population density. This was only my second visit to the Big Apple, but I can say with Schwarzeneger-esque certainty “I’ll be back.”
Next stop on my trip was Philadelphia, and what would be more fitting than commencing my travels with an authentic Philly cheesesteak?
Philly has 2 “famous” cheesesteak spots, Pat’s and Geno’s, both located on the same street in South Philly. Locals have conflicting viewpoints on which is tastier, and many will even tell you that the best cheesesteaks are at neither. I tried Pat’s. It tasted about as good as it looks in this picture.
Philly is an interesting town, and the setup actually reminded me a lot of Chicago, with a downtown of skyscrapers and high-rises, surrounded by a checkerboard of diverse neighborhoods.
The difference however, is that much of Philadelphia is still suffering from the massive white flight and ensuing urban decay of the 50’s and 60’s. This has left many of its neighborhoods outside of Center City (that’s what Philadelphians call their downtown) in a crumbling state of neglect.
Center City, for the most part, is still in healthy shape as droves of city dwellers and suburbanites alike flock downtown every day for work, shopping, and nightlife.
Philadelphia doesn’t receive many accolades for its architecture, but I was a big fan of the downtown skyline, especially with its matching blue toned buildings.
In the geographic center of Philadelphia stands the City Hall, which when it was built in 1901, was the tallest habitable building in the world.
Alright, I know I’m going to get some heat for this, but the Liberty Bell is possibly the most overrated tourist attraction I have ever seen. Even after reading its history I can’t get over the fact that a) it’s basically just a bell and b) it’s much smaller than it appears in middle school social studies textbooks. I can think of at least 10 tourist attractions in Philadelphia alone which are more worthwhile.
One of which is Elfreth’s Alley (pictured above), which is claimed by many to be the oldest continually inhabited residential street in the United States. Most of the housing stock dates back to the early 1700’s.
Another Philadelphia neighborhood which I joyfully explored for several hours in single-digit temperatures was Society Hill, which contains the largest concentration of 18th and early 19th century housing in the United States.
In the intermediary area between the skyscrapers and antebellum row houses of Center City and the sprawling tracts of suburbia, much of Philadelphia is in a state of severe urban decay.
Scenes such as these two above, taken in North Philly near the campus of Temple University, are common throughout much of the city. Philadelphia’s former status as a manufacturing powerhouse and the ensuing evaporation of jobs to globalization has left the city with a massive population urban poor inhabiting the inner city’s dilapidated housing stock.
Philadelphia’s economic troubles are overtly apparent in its public transit system, appropriately called “SEPTA.” SEPTA stands for “Southeast Pennsylvania Transit Authority,” but to most people the name sounds more like a particular adjective which could accurately be used to describe the system as a whole. Fares are still paid using tokens, and day passes must be shown to SEPTA employees, who using a whole puncher, hand mark each pass before allowing the customer to pass the turnstile. Unlike the Chicago “L” however (America’s other ghetto-fabulous public transit system) SEPTA’s coverage is not comprehensive, and consists of only two subway lines which intersect at a massive unused underground mall/public urination ground below City Hall (pictured above). Thus, unlike New York or Boston (or Chicago), I would imagine surviving in Philadelphia without a car would present significant transportation obstacles.
Philadelphia does show signs of a resurgence, and areas such as Northern Liberties (pictured above) are experiencing gentrification as young professionals flock back to the city. Philadelphia’s proximity to New York and DC, and its affordable housing (not to mention its GDP, which is still 4th in the nation) are proving to be driving factors in Philly’s urban revival.
Let’s put all that serious stuff aside and get back to what’s truly important–food. This was Philly Cheesesteak #2, purchased from a street vendor in Center City. At $4, it was about half the price of the cheesetake from Pat’s…and it tasted about half as good.
The real culinary sleeper from my trip however was the Italian hoagie which I sampled in South Philly’s Italian Market. Although the cheesesteak receives most of the fanfare, I’d say I enjoyed the hoagie almost as much.
I planned my stay in Philadelphia to coincide with the Kansas v. Temple basketball game at the Liacouras Center. As Jayhawks fans from DC, New York, and Philly all descended on the Temple campus filling up half the arena, this quite possibly was the largest congregation of Kansans ever assembled in the city of brotherly love. KU won 84-52
“Aaaaaa-driannnnnnn”…(Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
Philadelphia is definitely the most underrated city on the East Coast, and possibly in the country as a who;e. People love to rag on it, and with good reason. It’s old, grey, run down, and is easily overshadowed by New York, DC, and Boston. But Philly has a unique charm (not to mention enormous historical appeal) which comes in no small part from playing second fiddle to its neighbors. It’s hip, affordable, unpretentious, and at its heart, a down home blue collar All-American kinda town. With America’s inner cities currently in the midst of massive urban regeneration, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Philadelphia as a major benefactor of this trend.
The final stop on my trip was Baltimore, where I only had two days to spend before heading back to Chicago. The highlight of my Baltimore stay was the Lexington Market, a venue of exchange which has existed on its current site downtown since 1782. Today, the majority of the patronage and many of the businesses owners are African American.
From crabcakes to fresh vegetables to homemade doughnuts to pig legs, and even raccoon meat (no joke), you can find just about anything at the Lexington Market. Mixed in with grocery vendors are restaurant stalls which hawk prepared Baltimore seafood, Southern style fried foods, and yes, American Chinese food, which these days seems to be just about everywhere.
This shot is from one of the Southern joints. I had tried pig tail before (although never at an American restaurant), and I don’t even know what smoked jowels are. Unfortunately at the time of this picture, I was already stuffed full of crabcakes (another highlight of Baltimore) so not much to report here on taste. But it does look enticing though, eh?
After 4 days in Boston, 4 in New York, 4 in Philly, and 2 in Baltimore (pictured above) I headed back home. With so many major cities in close proximity, all easily accessible with public transportation, the American East Coast makes an ideal destination for a multi-week backpacking excursion.
As a side note, readers might be wondering why I did not include Washington in my itinerary, and the answer is twofold. Firstly, I had already been to Washington, twice. The other cities (sans New York) I was all visiting for the first time. Secondly, a focus of my trip was to explore the older of the urban cores of the United States, thus my stop in Baltimore as opposed to the nation’s capital. Expect more posts on more specific aspects of the trip in weeks to come.
Time for another short update…I’ll have more thorough write-ups and pictures once I get back to Chicago. I’m in Philadelphia now, after 4 days in New York City. I had previously been to New York only once, so I spent a majority of my time exploring, riding around on the subway and exploring the city on foot. In New York, I was especially interested in its Chinese communities, as the major influxes of immigration for the past couple decades have been coming from Fuzhou, and I spent considerable time exploring New York’s three Chinatowns. My travels in New York also reinforced how effective public transportation can be when people reside in high density urban areas, as opposed to the suburban sprawl which has overtaken the US throughout most of the last half century.
Here in Philly and at my next stop in Baltimore, I plan to explore a cities which have seen more prosperous days in years past. My initial impression of Philadelphia is that the city looks and feels a lot like Chicago, only without much growth and development over the past fifty years, and considerably less ethnic diversity. I’ve already had my first cheesesteak (Pat’s) and today am going to see my first Kansas basketball game since moving back to the US (They’re playing Temple). Go Hawks! I’ll have more in-depth updates when I get back.
Well, it’s a rainy Sunday morning, and I’m just about to wrap up my four plus day stay in Boston. I’ve spent most of my time wandering various sections of Boston and the surrounding communities and have taken a lot of pictures, but am going to wait until I get back to Chicago for a more thorough update. I must say though that Boston is definitely one of the more livable cities in the United States. Thanks to it being so old and so much of it developing before the automobile, most of the city is a maze of winding narrow streets, all scrunched together in no particular pattern, with many of them leading either in circles or dead ends. I’m sure driving is horrendous, but as far as exploring the city via foot and public transportation, nothing could be more ideal.
I’ve spent the past four days exploring some of the oldest (and best preserved) luxury neighborhoods in the country, such as Beacon Hill, and my own personal favorite, the South End, a well as some of the more run down parts such as Roxbury and Dorchester, where my Grandpa (and most elder Bostonian Jews) grew up. I was warned by several people not to explore these neighborhoods out of safety concerns, but have found that the hoodier parts of Boston are not nearly as scary as some of the neighborhoods on the South and West Side of Chicago I’ve had to travel through for work. The major reason for this I am postulating is that Boston was never as heavily industrial as Chicago, and therefore the deindustrialization of the second half of the 21st Century didn’t hit quite so hard. In this respect, I am quite eager to see the contrast with Philadelphia, which I am guessing will have as much, if not even more, blight than Chicago.
Boston also has an excellent smattering of ethnicities. Unlike Chicago where ethnic boundaries generally have clear boundaries and don’t mix, Boston’s ethnic enclaves feel more eclectic. On one street you might see a Brazilian restaurant, a Chinese bakery, and an Eastern European deli. The Chinatown is located essentially downtown, in an area which is gentrifying. I encountered significant quantities of Chinese people, and Chinese businesses all throughout the city, so I’m guessing the population isn’t necessarily centered around Chinatown. I also visited the new satellite Chinatown located in Quincy, south of Boston proper. It isn’t large, but I imagine as rents are increasing in Chinatown, more and more Chinese are relocating to Quincy. Seemed like most residents of both Chinatowns were either from Taishan or Fuzhou.
In a few hours I’m off to New York City, currently the home of the largest population of Chinese in the Western Hemisphere. Chinese New York is especially of interest to me because it is the hub of the Fuzhou > US immigration ring which spans the globe, sends millions of dollars to remittances to China, and millions of pounds of General Tso’s chicken down the throats of Americans in cities and small towns all across the US. I’m also going to be looking at two universities, visiting some old friends, and hopefully exploring as much of the city as possible via foot and public transportation as I’ve done in Boston. I’m going to be taking the infamous Fung Wa bus to New York, which several Bostonians have advised me against doing, but hey, how much more dangerous could it be than one of those rural buses in China? More updates to come.
This past Thursday I sent in my last grad school application. On Friday I turned thirty. And tomorrow I am embarking on my first significant journey of my thirties. It’s been a long time since I’ve traveled extensively in the United States, with my last major trip being my road trip from Kansas to California in 2003. And with all the China excursions in the middle, it’s due time to explore more of my home country.
One of the most crucial skills I learned during my 3 plus years in China was the benefits of efficient circuitous traveling. In other words, choosing a starting and ending point, then traveling from start to finish with short overland trips, stopping frequently along the way, and always leaving room for improvisation. By my measures, the only region in the US which this can be accomplished with any degree of efficiency is the East Coast. So here’s my itinerary.
I fly into Boston the morning of 12/23. I head back to Chicago from Baltimore on 1/5. In between, I’m also planning multiple day stays in New York City and Philadelphia.
The reasons and goals for this trip are multi-fold. First and foremost, over the past year I have been reading extensively from the literature of urban sociology. As this is my hopeful future field of study, I want to take the chance to experience some of the earliest examples of urbanization in the Americas. Thus, I’m going to be shying away from the typical tourist draws and instead focusing on ethnic enclaves, transportation systems, sites of gentrification, areas which have experienced significant urban decay, and several of the districts and neighborhoods specifically studied in Sociology texts I have read. And yes, I will be visiting multiple Chinatowns along the way.
I’m also going to be catching up with various family and friends whom I haven’t visited in a very long time. My uncle my six cousins will all be in Boston for the holidays; Yueting, my best friend from Fuqing, is currently studying in Philadelphia; and I have various friends from college, Kansas City, and Jewish summer camp smattered throughout the East Coast. I’m also going to be scoping out several of the schools where I applied.
From a logistical standpoint, I am curious how my travel methods and techniques I utilized in China will translate into American public transit systems. I have lived without a car since I moved to Chicago in 2007 and am eager to further test what I hope will be the future of transportation in the United States. The circuitous travel method would never work in the Midwest, South, or West without a car, but I am confident I should be able to make all my destinations out East via subways, commuter trains, and of course the now-famous Fung Wa Chinatown bus service.
I’m going to be writing updates along the way, but probably will hold off on thorough write ups until I am back home since I’m going to be squeezing a lot into 2 weeks. I’ll also be tweeting a lot, so follow @BenRoss if you want to keep tabs. Oh, and as for finishing 《奋斗》, that’s going on the backburner until I get back. More updates from the road. Leaving for Boston in less than 12 hours.
After two weeks of traveling, I had reached the end of the line. Nanjing was to be the last stop on my journey from the Yangtze Delta to the backwoods of Anhui and back to the Delta. I had to return to Shanghai to catch a flight back to Chicago, and Tex had to get back to Wenzhou to start teaching again. After a few days of relaxing and enjoying the laowai life in Nanjing, we busted out the backpacks, and headed off for one final hurrah, a day trip to Yangzhou.
Yangzhou is a relatively modest sized town about an hour and a half from Nanjing via train. From what we had gathered, we could walk most of the town in a single day if we had an early start. Before our trip, I admittedly didn’t know much about Yangzhou. In fact for many people, (myself included) they only know Yangzhou in the context of being the birthplace of Yangzhou (young chow) fried rice…that, and former Chinese president Jiang Zemin, although I’m guessing the the fried rice probably receives more fanfare.
Tex and I set out with the simple goals of 1) exploring the Yangzhou city area on foot and 2) seeking out the world famous Yangzhou fried rice. It didn’t take us long to tackle the second goal, as our bus from the train station dropped us off immediately in front of this restaurant, named simply “Yangzhou Fried Rice.”
Fried rice has a certain allure in the West as being one of those sought after Asian dishes, presumably made carefully from fine ingredients in fancy kitchens and dining establishments across the Middle Kingdom. In reality, fried rice is essentially the Chinese response to leftovers. In most Chinese households, fried rice is what happens when you are stuck with cold rice and leftover scraps of meat and veggies from the previous day’s meal. The rice is thrown into a wok, along with a fried egg, and then mixed with whatever excess foodstuffs might be lying around the house. It is not intentional, gourmet or exotic. It’s simply practical, a functional method for the disposal of leftovers, which of course was also the impetus for the invention of Chop Suey in California.
Now with all that being said, Yangzhou has become known across the Middle Kingdom (and in many parts of the world for that matter) for Yangzhou Fried Rice, a special recipe, which is prepared intentionally, and is commonly eaten in classy restaurants, by those with a refined taste for Chinese cuisine.
If I had to break it down to a simple explanation, the secret ingredient to Yangzhou Fried Rice is…everything! According to the free brochures at the Yangzhou Fried Rice restaurant, the ingredients include “white rice, sea cucumber, dried scallops, chicken thigh, Chinese ham (火腿), fresh river shrimp, mushrooms, fresh bamboo shoots, peas, etc,” however this is just a small sampling. Unfortunately I didn’t take better notes at the time, but I remember counting nearly 20 different substances in my rice.
When all was said and done, there wasn’t anything which jumped out as particularly special about Yangzhou fried rice. It was just…well…fried rice, albeit a rather multifarious recipe, but still on the whole, fried rice. Definitely not worth a trip to Yangzhou just to sample it, but it surely worth eating if you are there.
Other than eat fried rice, there really isn’t much to do per se in Yangzhou, but fortunately the city has some rather picturesque streets and architecture, so we spent most of the day meandering around town.
There are of course the requisite 80’s style bathroom tile buildings and cement cages.
But overall, a rather large amount of the local infrastructure and housing stock is of vintage style.
Like Suzhou, and many other cities in Jiangsu, Yangzhou is a water town with canals flowing throughout the city.
Unlike Suzhou, Yangzhou has not undergone an explosion of modernism and industrial development, and there are no skyscrapers, industrial parks, or compounds of Westerner businessmen and their latte-sipping wives.
Many of its locals continue living the simple life, pictured here washing clothes in the street with their neighbors.
Most of the canals were lined with ornate cement bridges and railings, making Yangzhou one of the more aesthetically pleasing small Chinese cities to explore on foot.
Unlike Fuyang and Taihe, Yangzhou is not poor. As is the case most of southern Jiangsu and Northern Zhejiang, the pocket books people of Yangzhou have benefited greatly from the economic development of the post Reform and Opening up era. One manifestation of this is the Dairy Queen we found there. While it may not seem significant at first, 18 RMB (approx $2.50 USD) for a Blizzard is an astronomically large amount to pay in a country where ice cream can commonly be purchased from street kiosks for 2 RMB. Accordingly, Dairy Queen (simply called “DQ” in China, there is no Chinese name), is generally found only in the wealthiest, most developed cities in China. As you can see from the picture above, Tex was quite excited by our find.
Yangzhou has recently been focusing on exploiting its tourism potential and in the eastern part of the city, a large tract of neighborhoods had been leveled to make room for a new tourist street (pictured above). It’s part of a new trend in Chinese city planning which I like to call “tastefully touristy” development, where buildings and streets are reconstructed, in a careful attempt to mimic the architecture of times past. While it’s never as good as the real thing, these developments do provide some sense of historical authenticity, as opposed to the typical plasticy tourist traps.
As much effort as was put into the tourist area, it still paled in comparison to the extant canals and dwellings which still make up the majority of the Yangzhou cityscape.
I also found Yangzhou to possess some of the best public landscaping I have seen in China.
Several of the canals are lined with tour boats…
…as well as restaurants on the water.
In one of the public parks, Tex and I came across the site of retirees partaking in their daily half hour exercise regiment. A woman in the middle of the group led the exercises with a cheer cadence which was repeated loudly by the group throughout the workout. Here’s a video below.
more canals and bridges…
even more canals and bridges
Yes, there was definitely no shortage of water in Yangzhou.
Like anywhere in China, Yangzhou also had its default “scenic spots,” like this temple which we did not bother going into. Often times “attractions” such as these are simply commercialized versions of the sites and buildings which can be experienced for free in their natural context anyway.
We had planned to take the last train from Yangzhou to Nanjing which left around 7 pm, so we spent our final hour in Yangzhou exploring this bustling snack street.
Shawarma (or 土耳其烤肉, “Turkish roasted meat” as it’s called) is apparently a growing fad in Chinese street dining. We had to have a little taste before our final meal in Yanghzou, which consisted of…
…yup, you guessed it, more Yangzhou Fried Rice. We figured since we’d come all the way, and probably would never be back in Yangzhou, we owed it to ourselves to try the famous fried rice from at least two different restaurants.
As an interesting side note, Yangzhou Fried Rice is actually quite expensive in Yangzhou, typically going for about 15 RMB (approx $2.15 USD) for a serving like this, even in most hole-in-the-wall eateries. In most parts of China, fried rice in restaurants such as these is priced in the mid single digits.
We topped it off with an order of gulaorou (sweet and sour pork).
China is known for cramped bus seats, and low hanging doorways, but this is something I had never previously come across in my travels: a miniature toilet. I tried to get the brooms and the trashcan in the picture to capture a relative size comparison, but let’s just say this contraption would have been ergonomically perfect for me when I was about 5. The characters on the wall read:
Bowel Movements Prohibited; The pipes will get clogged
Finally, here’s a shot at night of the tower pictured at the top of this post. If anybody knows the name and/or the history of this monument, please feel free to speak up in the comments section. It was quite a spectacle at night. I couldn’t help but wonder how often the sides have to be repaired from erhant motorists crashing into it.
After our 8 hour soujourn in Yangzhou, Tex and I caught the train back to Nanjing. The following morning Tex headed back to Wenzhou, and I took the bullet train to Shanghai, where I crashed for the evening with some old friends, hurridly stocked up on tea and supplies from a Fujianese tea shop, and then flew back to the US the following afternoon. After two weeks of non-stop fieldwork and writeups, and then two more weeks of travel through eight different cities, it had been my shortest (and most efficient) trip to China to date. I’ve got a few more posts in the works formulated from thoughts and experiences from the trip, but will probably shift the focus of this blog more towards Chicago (including the Chinese community here) in the coming months. As of now, I have no set plans for any future trips to China. Thanks to everybody for following this series, and I’ll do my best to keep the content flowing.
In Anhui, Tex and I saw what we went to see, namely under-developed, low income, areas of rural China with little outside contact. Now it was time to return to the friendly confines of China’s big city foreigner “comfort bubble.” Neither of us had previously visited Nanjing, former capital of the Republic of China as well as several dynastic governments, so we decided to stop to scope it out for a few days
We were met in Nanjing by Andy Goldstein, a fellow American (and member of the tribe) who has been living in Nanjing for the past five years. Andy had a nice summation of Nanjing. He said it is the Chinese equivalent of Boston. Not as big as Beijing and Shanghai, but multiple universities, and brimming with intellectual activity. In this respect, I would definitely agree with Andy’s summation. After our rapid pace of traveling through Anhui, Tex and I took a 3 days to relax, sight see, and enjoy the former capital of China.
The streetscape of Nanjing looks very much like that of any other major Chinese city.
As far as major Chinese cities go, I found Nanjing to be quite livable. It’s small enough that you can get just about anywhere by cab for under 20 RMB, and even the subway which currently only has one line was quite useful all things considered. I have to say that Nanjing would be an ideal location for somebody who wants to experience a large Chinese cultural center, but without all the hustle and bustle (not to mention traffic congestion) of Beijing or Shanghai.
In terms of its architecture and streetscape, Nanjing is very much a southern city. However, in terms of the personality types it attracts and the general vibe of the town, I found it felt a lot more like Beijing than it did Shanghai or Guangzhou.
Although not nearly as expansive and populous as Beijing and Shanghai, Nanjing is still quite large and developed, and has one of the more well-defined skylines of the Middle Kingdom.
The only major site Tex and I had on our itinerary was the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall. In the winter of 1937/38 Japanese troops invaded Nanjing as part of their Chinese conquest effort. During the ensuing siege Japanese soldiers killed between 100,000 and 300,000 (depending who you ask) civilians. It’s 300,000 if you ask the Memorial.
Admission to the museum was 5 RMB (about 60 cents USD), which probably reflects the central governments desire for people to learn about the events in Nanjing in 1937.
Accordingly, every caption was written in English, Chinese…and Japanese!
The message was clear. The powers that be wanted as many people to see the museum and learn as much about the Nanjing Massacre as possible…which is why I found it rather ironic that cameras were not allowed in to the majority of the museum, and hence few photos follow.
I had done a decent amount of reading in regards to the Nanjing Massacre, and in addition to the historical events themselves, my interests also extended to how the they would would be presented in a Chinese museum. Two years ago I visited the Japanese war museum at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo for that same reason. The Japanese museum presented a rather curious view at historical events which undoubtedly would infuriate those who had experienced them first hand. You can read some of them in this post I wrote two years ago.
As for the museum in Nanjing, in terms of curation, it was by far and away the best museum collection I have seen anywhere in China bar none. There was a copious amount of artifacts, images, and information, all given insightful and well-written multi-lingual captions and explanations, that would have given any American museum a run for its money. (From my experience, well-presented museum exhibits in the Middle Kingdom are few and far between).
However, the museum reinforced a theory which I have been nursing along for the past couple years. That is, that Chinese propaganda results in the exact opposite of the intended effect when applied towards Westerners. Let me use myself as an example.
Just like most historical man-made tragedies, there are certain fringe groups who maintain that the Rape of Nanjing either a) didn’t happen or b) accounts of it are grossly exaggerated. The academic credence given to these theories is somewhere in the neighborhood of Holocaust denial and Bigfoot sightings, but it is certainly enough to get China (and most of Asia) in an uproar from time to time.
As we meandered through the museum reading captions on the walls, we were constantly bombarded with rhetoric such as “This proves that the Japanese brought great suffering on China,” and “The history cannot be denied.” As a Westerner, I couldn’t help thinking to myself that the preponderance of evidence (photos, artifacts, personal accounts and taped testimonies) meticulously displayed in the museum were perfectly ample in shedding any possible doubt one might have about the events in question. But every time I read the word “prove” in a caption I couldn’t help the knee-jerk reaction that the authors clearly had an agenda. In my Western-educated psyche, this incited the natural feeling of doubt about the claims which were being “proved.” In other words, I never had a shred of doubt about anything I had heard about the Nanjing Massacre until I visited the Memorial Hall. This is not by any means I have any concrete doubts of what happened in Nanjing, but it is an interesting psychological question to ponder.
I would be interested to hear what kinds of feelings this over-extended (by my Western standards) rhetoric brings about among people who have been educated in the East, and how it might differ from mine, which I feel are quite typical of those educated in the West.
The museum is located outside of the Nanjing city walls in an area which used to be on the outskirts of town. The reason why, which we learned, was that it was built on the site of a mass grave uncovered years later. The final exhibit of the Memorial Hall was a walk through areas of the body dumping grounds which had been partially excavated and were open to viewing.
The end of the museum is marked by an eternal flame with the character 祭 (ji4), which refers to offerings to sacrifice.
Once we were outside of the actual museum, we were allowed to take pictures again.
After the Nanjing Massacre Memorial, we took a walk along the moat and city walls which partially surround the city. The skies were clear and temperatures were in the 70s, which was fortunate because most locals told us Nanjing only gets about 2 weeks of nice weather all year. The rest of the time you either are freezing (most buildings don’t have heat), or roasting in the heat of the summer.
Ancient Chinese god of fertility?
Like Beijing, Nanjing also has an active community living in old hutong style houses. Although the buildings are old and dilapidated, and many lack modern plumbing, its inhabitants are not from the lower class. Rather, they are upper-middle class holdouts who have elected to preserve their traditional neighborhoods rather than move into the modern high rises which can be found all over the city.
This particular neighborhood was just inside the south side of the Nanjing city wall.
After 4 days of trekking through Anhui, Tex (right) and I decided we wanted to relax and be laowai again for a few days in Nanjing. So on our second evening in town, we met up with Andy (left) at a bar downtown which served stout beer for 30 RMB a glass, roughly the equivalent amount of money needed survive on street food in Anhui for a week. As it so often does, the evening morphed unintentionally into a karaokeefest when a young Chinese man in his twenties invited the three of us (as well as our newly acquainted couch surfer friend Stephanie) to join him and his friends in his private KTV room.
The man (left) was in charge of an organization of tennis coaches, and had been treating several other coaches to an evening of binge drinking and off-key renditions of Chinese pop songs. He had invited the four of us into his room presumably to garner more face in front of his associates. I’ve found myself in this type of situation countless times in China and creates an excellent opportunity for symbiotic usury. We get free alcohol, excellent oral Chinese practice, and rambunctious evening of entertainment. The other party gets the requisite face generated from having a group of foreigners constantly toasting him throughout the evening in the karaoke room he has hosted.
In addition to the drinks and singing, another element of the Chinese male KTV experience is the KTV girls. For a fee ranging anywhere from 100-500 RMB, these girls can be “rented” for the evening to sing with, flirt, and pour drinks for patrons. They also tend to consume a decent amount of the alcohol that the host has payed for as well. This is certainly nothing I would seek out and pay for myself, but when somebody else is footing the bill….why not?
The girls generally come from different parts of the country (especially Dongbei and Anhui) and are attracted to the profession as a way to escape the dullness of their rural lives. Being a KTV girl is a profession which is generally frowned upon by Chinese society, and thus leaving the hometown is a necessity.
About three hours after we had been invited into the karaoke room, the bar closed down and a waiter brought our host the bill. The total came to over 10,000 RMB (approx $1400 USD). In accordance with Chinese social norms, our host paid the entire bill himself, without expecting any contributions from anyone else in attendance.
Being the veritable Boston of Chicago, Nanjing has its fair share of college campuses, and some of the finer ones in the Middle Kingdom taboot. Many of them are concentrated in a single university district. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the following pictures are all from Nanjing Normal University.
With its multiple major universities, Nanjing also has a quite sizable foreign student population. In most Chinese cities, when you first meet another foreigner you ask them “Where do you teach English?” In Nanjing you ask them “Where do you study Chinese?”
Many of the campuses are located in the vicinity of Nanjing’s “Student Street,” in the heart of the student district (unfortunately not actually pictured here). The street and surrounding area has a Starbucks, a McDonalds, small restaurants, tea shops, a specialty shop which sells Heinz tomato ketchup and Captain Morgan’s, and various barbershops, net bars, and other establishments to serve the massive student population.
lots of basketball as well
and of course, lots of abortions. In this particular add the Nanjing Dongda Hospital Institute is advertising “Painless Abortion…Endless Holiday…Full Package 350 yuan.”
At Nanjing University they have what I am told is the most extensive Institute of Jewish Studies in the Middle Kingdom. Now, keep in mind, this is not an institute for Jewish people to learn about their history and culture, but rather one for Chinese students who are not necessarily of Jewish lineage or belief.
Andy told me that once a year, one of the professors with invites him (along with any other Heebs he can round up) to attend class for a day so that the Chinese students can get ask questions to bona fide living, breathing, talking Jews. Andy and the other Jews are then give demonstrations of Shabbos, Hanukkah, and other Jewish customs.
Yeah, these shots are totally cliche, but it is always somewhat refreshing to see a pinch of the countryside in the big city.
Ok, so now to the most important part…food. Anybody who has set foot on Chinese soil at one time or another has probably eaten baozi (包子). Essentially baozi are hand-made dumplings cooked in bamboo steamers. They can be eaten almost anywhere in the Middle Kingdom, and they vary a great deal from region to region. The inside can be filled with either meat, vegetables, or just about any combination of the two. Last summer I even saw multiple shops selling mapo tofu baozi (麻婆豆腐包子) in Beijing, and pizza and curry baozi selling in Tokyo 7-11’s.
What the Yangzi River Delta region is known for however, is what are called 汤包 (tang1 bao1), our “soup baozi.” Rather than being made of mantou bread, as are most baozi, the soup baozi have a thin, impermeable casing, more similar to that of a regular dumpling. Inside, in addition to the pork ball, is a pocket of “soup” which if the entire baozi is not consumed at once, will explode all over an unexpecting consumer’s clothes when bit into. If you pop the entire thing in at once, you can appreciate the outside, the pork ball, and the soup all at once. We ate these at Student Street every morning for breakfast
Her’es a local chicken dish which andy ordered, but unfortunately I cannot recall the name. The inside is giblets of woodchipper chicken* stewed in peppers, and on the outside is a bread onto which the chicken can be placed upon.
*woodchipper chicken is a term I invented myself. It is the most common way to serve chicken in China, and gets its name because random parts of an entire chicken (bones, head, feet, etc.) are all chopped up randomly as if they were simply thrown into a woodchipper before cooking.
As alluded to above, we spent most of our nights in Nanjing reverting back to laowai again, and the Nanjing student street is an excellent place to do that. On our second evening, Andy introduced us to the legendary “Nanjing beer lady.” While most nearby bars serve 12 oz bottles of beer for no less than 10 RMB, a while back an enterprising middle aged woman on student street set up a few chairs in front of the small kiosk she ran, and started selling cold 18 oz. beers for 3.6 RMB. Being that it is China, and there are no open container laws (or at least none that I’ve ever seen enforced) foreigners, always in search of the cheapest cold beer, would congregate for hours on the sidewalk, chatting and getting drunk off beers that cost less than 50 cents a pop.
The Beer Lady herself is of a rather nasty disposition, speaks no English, and requests for beer are always replied to with “Get it yourself. The fridge is around back.” Nonetheless, it’s the cheapest booze in town, and the Beer Lady always attracts a decent crowd when the weather in town.
Here’s a shot of our Nanjing Crew on our last night in town. From left to right that’s Tex, Shakiri, Andy, Stephanie, me, and on the far right the Beer Lady’s daughter and grand-daughter. No word yet on whether they will take over the business when the Beer Lady decides to retire.
新街口 (xin1 jie1 kou3), Nanjing’s central shopping district at night
And finally a shot of the Nanjing Train Station at night, which is conveniently connected to the city center by Nanjing’s newly built subway system.
And that’s all for Nanjing, a pleasant, vibrant, culturally stimulating city in which I would consider spending more time if I ever moved back to the Middle Kingdom. After our stint in Nanjing, Tex had to return to Wenzhou to work, and I had to make my way back to Shanghai to catch my flight back to Chicago. However, on our second to last day traveling, we took a day trip to Yangzhou, and the ensuing travel log will be the final entry in this series…coming soon.
After spending two days exploring Hefei and wandering the streets Fuyang, Tex and I still wanted to travel deeper into the backwoods of Anhui. Our goal had been to see some of the most underdeveloped and isolated (relatively speaking) locales in the Middle Kingdom, and we wanted to dig even further into the thick of it. There is no better way to do this than head deeper down the administrative ladder of the Chinese map. But before explaining the next leg of our journey, let me provide a brief explanation of how Chinese administrative divisions are broken up.
The massive political unit we know today as the People’s Republic of China is broken down into a massive Confucian municipal hierarchy, much of which has been in place since ancient times. Modern China is broken into 22 provinces(省) and 5 autonomous regions (自治区) which are essentially the same as provinces, as well as 4 municipalities controlled directly by the central government. Each province is broken into geographic regions referred to as “cities,“ (市) with the largest city generally designated as the capital (省会). In addition to housing the provincial government, capital cities are also generally the hub of transport and commerce for each province. Each “city” region is then broken into various “counties,” (县) with the city center serving as the de facto hub of government, transportation, and commerce. Within each county, there is a county seat which serves as the de facto hub of the county. The pattern continues down several more bureaucratic levels, so that every last smattering of buildings across the Middle Kingdom is relegated to its place within the whole hierarchy.
Fuyang is a city (市) and Tex and I wanted to travel to one of the surrounding counties (县) under the administration of Fuyang, so we consulted the map, and decided to head to Taihe (太和), a county seat which appeared to be roughly an hour away according to the map. The beauty of traveling in unfamiliar parts of China is that transportation patterns are entirely predictable, and based around this municipal hierarchy. Thus, as Tex and I both accurately predicted, there is a mini bus running from Fuyang to Taihe, which departs roughly every twenty minutes. There are no set times, and no advance tickets. The bus simply leaves when it gets full. There are always enough people wanting to travel from the “county” up to the “city” that there is a constant flow of traffic in either direction. Likewise, there were also buses from Fuyang to Hefei, which ran every 5-10 minutes, and from Taihe, there were similar shuttles en route to surrounding villages. This same pattern applies virtually everywhere in China when traveling from a city to a county town.
The bus cost 10 RMB (approx $1.30 USD) each way and was ridden mainly by farmers and merchants from Taihe making their regular trips back and forth from Fuyang. As is common in rural China, the bus made frequent stops along the road to pick up new passengers.
Taihe was like a miniature version of Fuyang, with its drab architecture and modest streetscape.
The reactions we received from most locals was as if we were martians arriving on earth for the first time. It was as if they had heard of the existence of 6 foot white guys, but didn’t fully comprehend it until they saw them in person. It was difficult to stop anywhere without making a scene.
Fuyang (where we went in the previous entry), although poor and underdeveloped, is not what I would consider “rural.” Taihe, on the other hand, was I would say, more rural than urban. Thus, you encounter numerous sites that aren’t typically seen in cities, such as this veritable corn/rice processor. It looks like an old truck engine, and has the cacophonous sound of an electrical generator, but in reality, it’s sole function is to produce a rudimentary snack which sells for a mere 1 RMB per bag.
The operator pours a mixture of half rice and half corn into a funnel at the top, and then after much smoke, clanging, and dust a cylindrical tube with the consistency of a cheeto shoots out the end. The cheetoish mixture of corn and rice is then broken into sticks about a foot in length and bagged for sale. The pure rice/corn mixture without any artificial additives or flavors, provides a nostalgic reminder of what chips tasted like before the advent of modern food science.
Although Taihe is small, rural, and for lack of better terminology, out in the sticks, this does not mean it was by any means desolate. I couldn’t find accurate figures, but Tex and I both estimated there must be at least 200,000 or so people in Taihe. Bear in mind, this is a town which can be traversed on foot in roughly half an hour.
A common street snack we found, especially near schools in Taihe was this concoction made from bean noodles.
The finished product looks like this, and like most street food in Anhui, sells for 1 RMB (approx 15 cents USD).
It isn’t every day that martians descend on Taihe, especially just as school is letting out. This, accordingly, caused quite the ruckus near the school gate, as a mob of elementary school students watched Tex and me curiously as we payed for our snack and ate.
The timid curiosity quickly morphed into rabid excitement as the children discovered that these two odd creatures could communicate with them in their native language. The scene which would then ensue was like nothing I have ever experienced in the Middle Kingdom.
While eating our bean noodles, a mob of students began to gather, who along with their parents on the periphery, all wanted to get a glimpse at the two six-foot Chinese-speaking white dudes, Out of the blue, a little girl handed me her school textbook and asked me to sign my name on the first page.
Figuring it was but a minor request, I complied and signed my name in both English and Chinese on the first page of her textbook.
Seeing how I had agreed to her request, student after student, pulled out their textbooks, all waving them in my face and pleading for an autograph.
Tex, who stands a good 4 inches taller than me, couldn’t escape either. Soon the both of us had aching hands from all the signatures. But the excitement on the students’ faces was too much for us not to comply with their small request. We each signed every last student textbook, plus a few datebooks from parents.Everything was going fine until all the attention attracted a police officer. The officer shot us a questioning look, and Tex and I, somewhat worried, decided that we weren’t really doing anything wrong, and even if we were, it wasn’t as if we could have escaped anyway since we were surrounded by a veritable wall of children. The officer approached me, asked where I was from and what I was doing in Taihe. As kids were still shoving textbooks in my face and pulling on my jacket, I nervously told him that we were from the United States and we had come to Taihe to experience Chinese small town life. After a brief pause, the officer reached into his pocket, pulled out his police notebook, and politely asked if Tex and I could each autograph it in the margins.
The whole experience lasted 25 minutes. and when it was over, several hundred Chinese children, a handful of parents, and a police officer were all in possession of the autographs of two American tourists. You can view a video of the fiasco here.
Like most small agricultural towns, Taihe’s development is centered around a permanent market located down the center of its main street. This is where agricultural middlemen (generally not the farmers themselves) come to sell their goods, and townspeople come to shop for groceries. While it’s mostly foodstuffs changing hands in the market itself, storefronts along the street sell kitchen supplies, T-shirts and slacks, umbrellas, bicycle parts, remanufactured car altenators, funeral garments, sandals, maternity clothing, toothbrushes, PCV piping, or any other household objects needed to carry on daily life in Taihe.
As we had been noticing throughout Anhui, chicken was definitely the meat of choice in Taihe.
While we did also see a fair share of pork, beef, lamb, and fish, chicken was still king. I am no expert on agriculture so correct me if I’m wrong, but my best guess was that this was a reflection on space constraints. Anhui contains some of the most densely populated farmland in the world, and chickens generally have a higher yield per acre than would pigs or cattle.
Another pleasant culinary surprise we found in Taihe was some of the tastiest peanuts Tex and I had ever consumed. While peanuts are common in most parts of China, their taste and texture vary widely by region. I am no penutologist either, but I would posit this probably has something to do with the soil and climate. This particular batch, sold at the market, was fried up with hot chilis. They could also be purchased salted or plain.
Well, I’m not sure exactly what you would call this, but Tex and I both settled on referring to it as the “Chinese Jell-O Mold.” As we marveled at this strange concoction, passers-by solicited their opinions to us as well, as this is not a common item in most necks of the Middle Kingdom. One told us, “It’s delicious you should try it.” Another cautioned, “You wouldn’t like it. It’s disgusting. Stay away.”
More street snacks. These candied fruits on a stick however are no local specialty, and can be bought just about anywhere in China. Their Chinese name always seems to escape me somehow.
Like major cities, small towns across China have also seen rapid population growth as many agriculturalists (or more accurately the children of agriculturalists) have left the farm to seek jobs in town. The incipient residential developments often contain wide avenues such as these, which are developed to accommodate rural China’s burgeoning automobile culture.
The older, more central parts of small towns, which were laid out long before automobile traffic became common in the 1990s, generally look more like this. Enough space between buildings for a person or two to walk through is usually enough.
This of course does not mean the occasional car won’t wiggle its way through streets such as this, but in a town like Taihe, most traffic on such streets is still pedestrian or bicycle.
Another frequent site in small towns, caged barn yard animals on wheels. Small Chinese towns always have a way of getting me nostalgic about locally based agriculture. When you eat in a place like Taihe, you can be pretty certain that the vegetables and rice that you are eating were all probably pulled out of the ground within a fifteen mile radius and 48 hour time frame of where you are eating them. Same goes for meat, which was probably a living, breathing, eating animal less than 24 hours before it made its way to your plate. This pattern of freshness and local eating remains the norm in areas of the world like Taihe which by in large do not have access to modern refridgeration techniques.
People who follow this blog regularly probably know I have a soft spot for Chinese propaganda slogans. Not that I necessarily agree with all of them, nor that I even agree with the concept of displaying vague statements in awkward public meeting spots, but nonetheless I find this form of rhetoric worth some examination. This flavor of sign is extremely common in rural China. It reads:
Stabilize, lower the birth rate
Accelerate the construction of the New Countryside
The enforcement of China’s Family Planning Policy has always been trickier in rural areas than in cities, mainly because the rural lifestyle favors having additional children, economically speaking. This, combined with lower levels of education, more traditional thinking, and generally higher levels of corruption, have led many rural families to continue the practice of exceeding statutory birth limits. The government, in its rhetoric to combat this practice, often takes the angle that a lower birth rate is necessary for the future development of the country.
As is frequent in many Chinese municipalities large and small, the oldest street in Taihe is generally occupied by the lower class, and thus is rather dirty and and not well-kept. Chinese people can be quite sensitive of this and as Tex and I strolled down this street snapping pictures at sites like these, we had several locals tell us to stop taking pictures. “You should take pictures of something beautiful, not this. You are just doing this to show your American friends how poor and dirty our town is,” they would say. Which I guess, in effect, is true to some extent.At this juncture we also had an extremely difficult time convincing them that we were not journalists on assignment. “This place is not for tourists. You are wasting your time here. There is nothing to see,” we were told multiple times.
Well not all the town was dirty and poor, especially not the government buildings, such as this, the “Taihe People’s Courthouse.”
I’ve always maintained that one major area of city planning where China could really use some work is that of waste management. Sites such as these were common in Taihe.
school children on their way to class
A homeless man relaxes on the steps of a storefront on 古街 (Ancient Street), the oldest street in Taihe, with most of its buildings dating back to the late Qing Dynasty.
Another shot of “Ancient Street.” In China, buildings this old (over 100 years) are ironically quite uncommon. Due to relatively short cycles of architecture, wars, limited construction materials, general turbulence, and razing to make room for new developments, I would maintain there are probably more 100-year-old buildings in Chicago than there are in any city in China.
What I really love about places like Taihe is the feeling of isolation you get. Sure, they have the internet, and sure people are traveling to and from Fuyang, and to Hefei, and from there to Beijing and Shanghai, but the sense of isolation and consolidation with the small town and the its surrounding agriculture is something I never feel in big cities.
During our walk we even encountered a church.
more private houses
The outskirts of small Chinese towns are typically surrounded by scattered houses such as these, where the inhabitants continue to farm, but are close enough to town center that they can stay active in town life as well.
another one of the main drags of Taihe
Here’s another common site in the countryside: small children wandering around unsupervised, and often playing with sharp, pointy, and/or flammable objects.
For retirees, their days are often passed playing and spectating at card and board games which take place out in the open public.
Games range from regional versions of poker…
…to mah jongg, which is also highly regional, with different parts of the country each playing with a slightly different rule set. Regardless of any difference in rules, money almost always exchanges hands.
For our last meal in Taihe, Tex and I decided to sample 太和板面 (Taihe board noodles). And no, that is not a typo, these are 板面 not 拌面, with 板 implying a board or flat surface, which represents the shape of the noodle. We had seen signs for 太和板面 all over Taihe, and even a few in Fuyang, and without much other choice in dining options (Tiahe like Fuyang, has hardly any restaurants), we decided to check it out. The restaurant consisted of a single room with an open kitchen (see above) and two tables set up for customers. The noodles cost 4 RMB (about 60 cents USD) a bowl, and the owner warned us that they were “extremely spicy.”
Regardless of the sticky table and the rusty bowls, the meal was magnificent, and concurs with my past experiences that many of my all-time favorite meals in the Middle Kingdom have also been some of the most economical. The noodles came bathed in a broth, which as the owner had warned, was extremely spicy. They were surrounded by green veggies, bits of wood ear mushroom, and a few scattered morsels of lamb ribs. After Tex and I had both cleared our plates, and sat staring at one another for a moment, panting, as our mouths recovered from the inferno of hot pepper. We both agreed that this had been our favorite meal in Anhui thus far.
After three and a half days in Anhui, we were finding ourselves noticeably exhausted by dust in the air, the loogies on the ground, and the cigarette smoke in emenating through poorly-ventilated indoor spaces. While these are all common nuissances, and easily blocked out by most veterans of the Middle Kingdom, their magnitude throughout Anhui was turned up to a notch which left us longing for the relative peace and tranquility of the coast. Our clothes and backpacks were covered in dust, our lungs were choking in dust and smoke, and our digestive tracts were longing for a break from street food. It was time to wrap up the Anhui adventure and head back to the “modern” world. We took the mini-bus back to Fuyang, and from there boarded the overnight train to Nanjing. More to come as we wrap up the adventure.
Chinese capital cities are funny. In many ways, they are all exactly the same. The same boxy buildings, with the new ones all being built by the same Sichuan migrant laborers, the same wide streets with bike lanes. Even the names of the streets parks are mostly the same: Wuyi Lu, Zhongshan Lu, Renmin Gong Yuan, etc. etc. At the same time, each Chinese capital city has, as Samuel Jackson elegantly put it in Pulp Fiction, “the little differences.” Ride a cab in Fuzhou, and jasmine flowers will be hanging from the rearview window. Take a bike ride in Chengdu and notice that all the bikes are equipped with a special holder for your umbrella. Visit a private home or restaurant in Changsha and keep an eye out for the Mao Zedong poster on the wall.
In more ways than not, Hefei was the default, generic Chinese capital city. It’s main “little difference” was the numerous signs that its people were less well off than those in other Chinese capital cities. There were some sky scrapers, but they were modest in height. A few fancy restaurants, but they considerably more affordable than those in other capital cities. And there were public parks, however slightly less landscaped and beautified than those out East.
However, Hefei was only a prelude to what Tex and I would encounter as we continued on our journey to the backwoods of the Middle Kingdom. As the goal of our trip was to visit some of the poorest and least developed regions of China, we decided to visit a city called Fuyang (阜阳). Located in the northwestern part of Anhui, and the heart of the Chinese Central Plain, Fuyang is statistically the poorest city in the province, and shares much cultural and economic similarity to neighboring Henan. Our journey began from the Hefei train station.
This time we rode the 空调快速 (air conditioned high speed train), or as I refer to it, the “moderately air conditioned and somewhat fast” train. These trains are a big step up from the 普快 trains which run most rural routs but not as fast nor as posh as the 动车组 trains increasingly running the main routes between major Eastern cities.
As an interesting note, some of the “manners training” from the Olympic period last summer seems to have had a lasting effect. Notice the passengers respectfully waiting in line to enter the train, rather than bum rush the doors, as would have been typical of pre-Olympic China. This is still the exception, not the rule of how to board a Chinese train, but it is nice to see some headway has been made.
Tex made a new friend on the train with his PSP and some rudimentary Chinese. I’ve always maintained that there is no better environment to learn Chinese than on a “hard seat” car of a Chinese train.
As we disembarked and wandered around Fuyang, we both realized that we had finally made it to our destination, the backwoods of China. Fuyang is not the kind of place I would recommend to any casual traveler, Chinese or Western. The air is stale, trash litters the streets, and the sounds of cheap motors, yelling, and loogie hocking ring through the air…And I mean much more so than would be expected in the typical Chinese locale.
If Shanghai is the most comfortable place for Westerners not “used to China,” than an Anhui town like Fuyang would probably be the absolute worst. For Tex and me though, this is exactly what we came to see. During our first conversation after arriving in Fuyang, a young boy in his late teens asked us directly “Why the hell would you ever come here?”
We spent the day wandering the streets of Fuyang, and chatting with locals who invariably assumed we were journalists, spies, American secret agents, or some combination of the three.
Although much of the streetscape resembled that of small towns, in actuality Fuyang has a population of several million people, making it a rather decent-sized Chinese city. The best modern day analog to Fuyang I could think of would be Kaifeng (minus its historical signifacance), another city of several million, which has seen much of the Deng Xiaoping initiated reforms completely pass it by. From the rough Mandarin dialect, to the architecture, and the demeanor of the locals, Fuyang increasingly reminded me of my ‘05 trip to neighboring Henan province.
With an annual per capita GDP of 3529 RMB (2005 figure) Fuyang is, by this measure, the poorest city in Anhui. When locals would describe their hometown to us, the most common adjective was 没钱了, “no money.”
In a “no money” environment, examples of public beautification are scarce. Here was one of such, a mural in an alleyway which reads “Love our China, Love our Great Wall.” For most people in Fuyang, this was probably the closest they ever could get to China’s most famous landmark.
Still a common sight when I first arrived in China in 2004, the rickshaw is rapidly disappearing from the Chinese transportation landscape. In the midst of China’s rapid economic development, an increasing number of cities have imposed rickshaw bans within city limits, relegating these vehicles to city outskirts. However, in Fuyang, while there are automobile taxis, the majority of public transportation is still carried out by the more economical rickshaw. This is especially impressive when you consider that the standard taxi fare for most destinations is a mere 4 RMB.
Much of Fuyang’s housing stock is constructed out of the infamous white bathroom tiles, ubiquitously used in China in the years directly following the Reform and Opening Up. There were no high rises nor expensive condo buildings.
Another interesting facet of Fuyang is the local dialect, which is a true dialect in every sense of the word. Unlike the various native languages spoken in most southern provinces, the Fuyang dialect, although quite different from standard Mandarin, is 90% comprehensible to any Mandarin speaker…assuming they listen closely and pay careful attention. Unlike most southern provinces, where locals must code-switch into Mandarin when speaking with outsiders, most people in China’s Central Plain continue communicating in their dialect even when speaking to outsiders or foreigners. Because of this, the Mandarin spoken on the streets in Fuyang is arguably more difficult to comprehend than that spoken in Fujian or Guangdong, the two provinces probably most notorious for Chinese linguistic diversity and poor Mandarin. Tex and I both had a great time doing our best to adapt our listening skills to the local dialect, an important skill for any student of Mandarin.
As the day wore on, lunch time approached. Fuyang has a surprisingly high concentration of Hui Muslims, and thus the correspondingly high frequency of Lanzhou La Mian (pulled noodles) restaurants. We wanted to try something more authentically Anhui-ish, so we decided to bypass the La Mian, and poke our heads into some of the local restaurants, which were few in number and located only on major thoroughfares. The conversations would all go something like this.
me: 你好，我们要吃饭？ 能不能看看你们的菜单？
老板：菜单？哈哈，没有菜单。 你看看那边告诉我你想吃什么，就OK了。
Translation:
me: Hello. We would like to eat. May I have a look at your menu?
restaurant owner: Menu? Ha! We don’t have any menu. Just look over there (pointing to open cooler of vegetables, meat, and fish) and tell me what you want to eat. That should be good enough.
We began to notice an annoying trend which would hold true for much of Anhui: No menus! Whenever we asked to see a menu, we received a chuckling condescending remark as if we’d just asked for fillet mignon and a bottle of Dom Perignon.
There are two major problems with menuless restaurants. Firstly, when doing the whole “point and order” dance, you never know exactly how your food is going to be cooked. Secondly, without a menu as a reference point, prices tend to ascend considerably between the time you order and the time you receive your bill. As we traversed from restaurant to restaurant, an alarming trend became apparent. There are no menus in Fuyang!
What we did find, however, is that Fuyang, even more so than Hefei, has a cornicopia of street food. While street food can be found just about anywhere in China, the sheer quantity in Fuyang was more than any other place I have traveled in the Middle Kingdom. When I asked a vendor about this, she answered succinctly “People in Fuyang are poor. They don’t have money for restaurants. If they want to go out to eat, they eat street food.”
After discovering that the local cuisine was, in effect, street food, Tex and I decided to follow the lead of the locals, and sample the local “cuisine.” It would not disappoint. One of our best finds was the Anhui chicken corndog, a fried and breaded cylindrical column of chicken goodness. Upon being ordered, the corndog would be deep fried (again), and then served piping hot. State Fair anybody?
Even the littl’uns were in on the street snacking.
When it comes to meat, Anhui people* have a preference for chicken. Here they are serving the 香酥鸡肉饼, a Chinese crispy chicken sandwich, similar to a 肉夹馍. Look out Wendy’s. You may have some competition out East.
*Anybody know of a better demonym for Anhui?
With our stomachs full, we set forth to explore the city center, not the typical architecture you’d expect to see in a city of several million.
In the geographic center of Fuyang lies this odd sculpture, surrounded by a field of dirt.
Behind the sculpture and the field is this ominous urban pond, flanked in bathroom tile apartment buildings.
One of the more aesthetically pleasing sites in Fuyang is the Ying River, which runs through the edge of Fuyang. As we continued our walk to the outskirts of the town, night fell and we became increasingly hungry once again. After 24 straight hours of eating nothing but street food, Tex and I agreed we’d suck it up and try one of the “point and order” menuless restaurants.
We would be pleasantly surprised. This first dish we ended up with consisted of tofu, carrots, lima-like beans, mushrooms, and peanuts mixed together in a sauce. Since there was no menu, I have no idea what you would call this dish, but if I had to describe the flavor, I would say it was 咸 (xian2), a word which doesn’t have an exact English translation, but could loosely mean “salty” or “savory.” This seemed to be the norm for most of the local cuisine in Anhui, as hot peppers and sugar were used only sparingly.
Next we picked out a popular dish called “lion heads” (狮子头). Contrary to what their name implies, these are essentially pork meat balls. The only reason I knew to order them was that I spied them sitting pre-made out on the counter in the back of the restaurant. When I’ve eaten lion heads before they’re usually served in a sweet sauce. In the Fuyang restaurant, I assumed this was how they would be served as well, but instead they were delivered floating in a soup and surrounded with sprouts. The flavor again was 咸 (salty), with not a hint of sweetness or spice. Tex and I both overwhelmingly approved.
In terms of the city environment, Fuyang could be accurately described as a very 乱 (disorderly or chaotic) city, even by Chinese standards. Case in point, this fine example of perpendicular parking.
We spent our only night in Fuyang exploring the bustling Hui Muslim quarter, and yes, eating again. Other than their traditional head gear and their abstention from pork consumption, the Hui are virtutaly indistinguishable from the majority Han Chinese. Their native language is Mandarin, and their physical appearance only slightly deviates from that of the Han majority.
Like most other locations in Fuyang, the Hui Quarter was covered with stalls selling street food, on most of which were posted signs such as these indicating that the food was Hallel.
In keeping with Muslim dietary laws, as well as local preference, the majority of the street food in the Hui Quarter was chicken based, such as these “New Orleans Roasted Chicken Wings.”
The woman selling the wings had no idea where or what New Orleans was, but that didn’t matter. They were delicious.
In typical Chinese street food fashion, Tex and I parked ourselves at an outdoor mini-table, and proceeded to stuff our faces with street food, discarding the refuse on the ground below. In accordance with Muslim law, no alcohol was sold within the Quarter. (Beer is usually a mainstay in these kinds of Chinese open food markets). However, when we checked with the locals, they guided us to a convenience store, just outside the Hui Quarter, which sold 3 RMB bottles Qingdao.
We were also informed by multiple locals (both vendors and patrons) that it was ok to drink within the Hui Quarter. They just didn’t sell it themselves. As you can see from the picture, we were not the only ones to take this advice to heart.
In Fuyang, Tex and I got our first real taste of Anhui life. However, Fuyang was still a city. For a better view of rural life in Anhui, we decided to take a microbus to a 县城 (small town/county) an hour outside of Fuyang the following day. It would prove to be the highlight of our trip. More to come.
