寻根
It's been an incredibly long time since I posted anything to do with China or Chinese, so this post is all about getting back to my roots. Hopefully, this will convince John Pasden, Brainysmurf and Brendan to hold off on excommunicating me from the China Blog Mafia for just a little while longer.

Dan Washburn is on an amazing, enviable journey through China right now. He's taking the kind of trip I used to do, my last one being in 1995, when I covered most of central China before following the Silk Road all the way to Kashgar. The original plan was to go from where the Great Wall emerges from the sea at Shanhaiguan (Hebei) to where it crumbles into the desert at Jiayuguan (Gansu), but my ambitions grew from there, and it evolved into a two-month long odyssey. I also found out at many spots along the way that I was literally days behind travel writer Robert Storey (of Lonely Planet fame), and it became a kind of game to see if I could catch him---I never did, though. It ranks as one of my greatest summers, and one of these days I plan to scan all scores of my photographs. I fell in love with China's West, especially Gansu.

Dan is fortunate in that his tour is in the age of Internet and digital photography, so he is able to record it in real time. He's written a fascinating account, and has met people most Western journalists never do, so by all means give it a look. One of his photos particularly caught the eye of Stephen Frost, who emailed me the link because the picture showed a Chinese character he had never seen:


©2004 by Dan Washburn. Used with permission.The photo is of a noodle shop signboard in Shaanxi province. Dan wrote that the noodles are a local specialty called 'biang biang' mian (the two characters in the middle are read 'biang'). That character is non-existent in the standard Chinese lexicon. Stephen asked several of his Chinese colleagues in Hong Kong who were all stumped. They and Stephen suggested it was an artistic fabrication. My own feeling was that it might be a dialect term. I forwarded the picture to my wife, who was visiting her hometown Chengdu, and it turns out we are both right. Apparently, it is somewhat common for local people to create new characters for words in their dialect which do not exist in Mandarin. The Sichuan dialect has a similiar sound, 'biang', and people also created a character for it, though it is written slightly differently. Her father recalled a 顺口溜 (doggerel) from childhood that people used to help them remember the stroke order of the Sichuan version:

一点一横长, 二字下来口四方.
一边一个丝绕绕, 你也长我也长, 中间夹个马儿郎.
心字来打底, 月字来帮忙, 打个钩钩挂衣裳.

So what does it all mean? Spicygirl and her father think the sound is onomatopoeic. The noodles are called 'biang biang' mian because when making the noodles, the chef strikes the dough, or slams it on the kneading board, making a loud 'biang' noise. It would be an interesting, worthwhile project for someone to compile these doggerels and characters across the range of dialects. Maybe I'll start it myself if I ever make it back to China.

As mentioned, Spicygirl just returned this week from a month-long visit to her hometown, and she brought back a bunch of goodies. I thought I'd share some here:


People don't seem to have enough time to cook anymore; everyone is always working so they can buy a bigger house or car, and pay for the little emperor/empress to take English, piano lessons, etc. The culinary arts are a foundation of Chinese culture, and an important source of self-affirmation, nowhere more so than Sichuan. Companies are filling the void with prepared sauces that people made themselves in the recent past. At left is 郫县豆瓣 Pixian douban. This is the spicy bean baste that is the staple of Sichuan cuisine. It is no exaggeration to say it is the soul of Sichuan food: 川菜之灵魂. The most famous comes from Pi County, located on the outskirts of Chengdu, and the best is the 鹃城 Juancheng brand. This is another baffling mystery. Juancheng can mean either "Cuckoo City" or "Azalea City". As far as I know, neither of these is a nickname for Chengdu. Does anyone have an idea of the origin? Second from left is the mix for a dish called Shaojigong . I've never had it, but it is a chicken dish where diced chicken cubes soak in a sea of red pepper oil. Next is the packet for Xiangshui yu. This is a whole fish that also marinates in chili oil (in Sichuan cooking, everything steeps in chili oil at some point). Finally, at right, is the boxed version of Pixian douban, the same brand as the one at far left. We've got lots of other foodstuffs on the way. Spicygirl mailed five large boxes crammed with local specialties from the US consulate in Chengdu.


A product of Yibin 宜宾, this is Sichuan's most famous spirit, 五粮液 Wuliang ye. The name means 'five grain liquid', and it is made from sorghum, rice, glutinous rice, wheat and corn. Chinese liquor, or baijiu 白酒 is an acquired taste for most westerners. That is because if you slam this stuff down like most laowai tend to do, you will be in a world of hurt. Unlike Western spirits, baijiu should be savored, sipped, over a meal. If done properly, there is no better complement to a Sichuan repast than Wuliang ye. Me, I love the stuff. After I learned how to drink it, that is, and I wrestled with plenty of baijiu demons until I got to that point. It has become a rite of passage that every able-bodied male who enters my home for the first time has to drink a shot of Wuliang ye. This stuff costs around US$30 dollars a bottle, so it's probably not a bad idea to drink it slow.


I realize this topic has already come and gone in the China blog world, but this book is an investigative report of Chinese peasants by husband and wife team Chen Guidi and Chun Tao. The book details abuses of the peasantry at the hands of local cadre, and it became a huge bestseller before the Chinese government banned its publication and sale in March 2004. It goes by many titles in English, but the most literal is An Investigation Of China's Peasants. Many in the blogging world bemoaned the book's fate, but it became even more popular as a result, and black market publishers printed millions more copies. It is readily available anywhere in China, as you can see from my copy above, which cost 24RMB (US$2.90). The pirates even maintain the distinctive black on yellow design of the original. In fact, it is easier for someone outside of Beijing to get this book than to obtain a CD from one of China's most popular (and legal) alternative rock bands, Second Hand Rose.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 1:00 AM| |