There are at least four (some would break it down further into eight) distinct cooking styles in China that have evolved over time.  Dishes from all styles have of course spread throughout the nation (and world) though most regions have specialized tastes and stick to their own styles.  This disinterest in non-local food likely explains the lack of western restaurants (or even ingredients) in Chongqing.  A few pizza restaurants have opened, though none have flourished (with the exception perhaps of Pizza Hut, which is peculiarly a fancy — and expensive — restaurant in most large cities in China).

Fast food in Chongqing

Burgers are available at McDonald’s, though only at McDonald’s.  And KFC is both beloved and ubiquitous.  But that’s mostly it for foreign food here.  There’s apparently a single Indian food restaurant somewhere in town, but I never found it.  No Italian, other than some Chinese attempts at spaghetti with meat sauce.  And I tragically need to travel three hours to Chengdu to even think about ordering a burrito.  If you’re going to live in Chongqing, you better really like Chinese food. Thankfully, Chongqing food is the best in China.  Like  any Chongqinger will tell you: “Chongqing food is best in China!” Of course the Chinese, while humble at the personal level, tend to be quite boastful as a group, either when talking about their nation or even just their province.  So this forces me to be a bit skeptical when locals brag about how Chongqing is the best.  However, I started to notice a pattern traveling when I’d mention that I lived in Chongqing.  Whatever non-Chongqing person that I’d speak with would inevitably ask me about the food and upon hearing that I liked it explain: “Chongqing food is best in China!” Having now explored the country a bit, I’m inclined to agree.  Chongqing food is best in China!

The Sichuan peppercorn. It is also sometimes known as "pricklyash"

It helps that I prefer spicy food, as  Sichuan food is the spiciest in China.  Chongqing was once the largest city in the Sichuan province.  So large, in fact, that it was made into its own province of 32 million people.  It still seems to be considered the best Sichuan style food, even if it’s no longer a part of the province.  Sichuan food is best characterized by its prolific use of the Sichuan pepper, a unique, mouth-numbing spice used in tandem with the standard Chinese red pepper.  I’m addicted to the stuff, and desperately worried I won’t be able to find any once I leave Chongqing. Just to give them some lip service, there are three other primary styles: Cantonese, Eastern and Northern.  Cantonese emanates from the Hong Kong region and was the first style introduced to America when Chinese immigrants migrated to California in the 1800′s.  It includes Chop Suey and Dim Sum.  Eastern food is known for a liberal use of sugar and soy sauce and introduced the painfully bland rice soup Congee to the world.  Northern is the style of Beijing and beyond, the most famous dish of which is Peking Duck (which I’ve had many times this week, as I write this from a hostel in central Beijing). It’s also nice to require one less utensil at all meals; whether you use chopsticks or a fork, you’ll never need a knife to deal with any Sichuan food; it’s all stir-fried and bite-sized to begin with. I’ve already dedicated a post to my love of Baozi.  I’m going to try to capture the rest of my Chinese food experience entirely in this one entry.  Some things will be missed (like these awesome sandwiches on this incredible, english muffin-like bread — I never got a picture of it, dammit), but hopefully I’ll cover all the bases. Food Food Food

Chinese "family style" dinner. You need a group of at least six or more to do these justice, but it's a great way to explore lots of food. Dishes come out as they're ready and are rotated around to all on a lazy susan.

Crawfish, boiled in hot, spicy oil. Messy, and there isn't much meat in these things for all the effort, but they make a tasty enough snack. The restaurant that served these had large bottles of beer for the equivalent of 50 cents, so we'd order this from time to time to be good customers

Sizzling lamb, served in a chafing dish. Not bad, but too boney. Many dishes involve using a cleaver on a chunk of animal and then dropping the pieces into the wok, bones and all. Chinese custom is to place the used bones on the table next to your plate, or toss them directly on the floor, though it's hard getting used to this behavior (and I'd hate to get too comfortable with it and do the same back in the States.

Part drink, part jello. All weird. A friend of mine was eating/drinking this one night and it creeped me out enough that I had to grab a picture of it

Chinese moon cakes. I brought home cheap versions of them for friends the last time I went Stateside, but these are the fancy, expensive ones that the University gave me. They're sweet, chewy and rich, and are the primary food item of the Chinese mid-Autumn festival, which is almost as big a holiday as Chinese New Year. The insides of them are filled with a dense paste, generally made from lotus seed paste, though others use red beans or even peanuts. Really fancy ones include a salted duck egg, though I wasn't particularly down with it.

Zongzi: Special rice dumplings, wrapped in bamboo leaves. This was the University's other gift to me this year, this time for the April Dragon Boat Festival (or "Duanwu Festival"). The rice is sticky and mixed with either meats or sweet paste, then steamed. It's confusing not knowing whether you'll have a sweet dumpling or a meaty one, as they're identical on the outside. However, since I disliked both sorts equally, there wasn't much of a problem for me.

Gung Bao Ji Ding, or "Kung Pao Chicken." I'd been told all my life that food on Chinese menus in the States was totally different from that of China, so I was pleasantly surprised to find my favorite dish here in all its glory. A old Sichuan official named Ding had the title Gong Bao (meaning "palatial guardian") and the dish was named after him. It's on menus across the whole of China, though the Sichuan recipe (featuring its special pepper) is the best. I've yet to track down any chicken dish named after General Tso, though I'm still looking.

An assortment of local favorites: Kung Pao Chicken up front. Fried corn (yumi) on the right -- Sweet, spicy, crisp and addictive, I've only found this once since leaving Chongqing and it wasn't nearly as good. Back left is egg mixed with tomato. This dish is everywhere in China, and served at all times of the day. I don't think they even mix any spices into it; it's just eggs mixed with tomatoes

Pringles are everywhere, though flavors change to suit the needs of the locals. From left to right: Hot & Spicy (Barbecue flavor, really), Seaweed, Aromatic Crispy Chicken, Crab, Shrimp, BBQ Steak

A Kabob guy. Quick, easy street food. One Yuan (14 cents) per stick

Street noodles. Fried up quickly with sauce and green onions, typically, with other items added as requested

Stinky Tofu. That's the translation of its Chinese name, and the official English name. It's not a misnomer. Tofu is placed in a fermented marinade and then fried. The taste is apparently mild, but the smell is horrendous. With a slight wind, the manure-like stench can be whiffed from more than a block away. It's popular street food, though fully unregulated due to the nature of its fermented marinade. It smells really really bad.

Jiaozi (jYOW-zuh): More traditional steamed dumplings. Also pretty widespread

A random sampling of beer. Budweiser was available at a few bars, though my supermarket carried PBR Light (never normal) for some reason. Heineken and Carlsburg are the two most prominent western brews. The beer in the top left is actually orange flavored and terrible, though a more popular version uses pineapple instead of orange and is far worse. The beer in the top right is only noteworthy for its NBA endorsement -- NBA is EVERYWHERE in China, whether officially or unofficially. Basketball is without a doubt the most popular team sport in China.

Silkworm larva. My friend and I came across these once and dared each other to taste one. Sadly, they're only sold in paper bowls of about fifty of the filthy bastards (mixed with green onions and other spices). I've known some people that liked them well enough but we thought they were absolutely disgusting and found no Chinese people would take them off our hands. We finally dropped them by a hungry dog, though it promptly ran away after a single whiff.

Hotpot. THE dish of Chongqing, available on nearly every block with identical menus. It's less than ideal for one or two people, but it makes for a fun (if wholly unhealthy and entirely messy) group experience. Similar to fondue, a giant cauldron of boiling, spiced oil is placed in the center of the table and diners select meat and vegetables from an enormous list (only in Chinese -- be sure to bring a translator!). The oil is quite spicy, so some opt for a light, broth-and-mushrooms substitute, though I found it offensively bland in comparison. If you know what you're doing, you can boil up some fantastic cuts of meat along with quail eggs, lotus root, potatoes, bok choy, mushrooms and fish. Order wrong, however and you'll get the more popular (with the locals) selections: cow stomachs, kidneys, intestines, penises, feet, brains and every other sort of offal available. I grew to love hotpot early in my stay in China, though eventually had to cut down to once a month after considering how much oil I was guzzling. I also suffer from tremendous diarrhea every day after enjoying hotpot, which is usually a sign that something's not right...

Most Chinese people in Chongqing just eat noodles in broth for lunch each day. But that's not why I'm posting this picture.

Fried chicks on a stick. Yup. There's also some corn there in the background which is also wildly popular, though the corn here in China is terrible. It always ends up tasting kind of chewy and stale.

McDonald's Ice Cream stands -- People here seem to like the burgers a bit, but they love McDonald's desserts. Instead of the apple pie, they instead serve red bean pies.

Yu Xiang Rou Si: Literally "Fish-tasting meat". If it lived up to its name, I doubt I would've tried it more than once, but the sauce is actually a sweet and mildly spicy ginger sauce and it's a fantastic dish.

Wok cooking. I've grown spoiled by the stovetop in my kitchen for how much fire it generates. It sucks that I can't simmer anything (the lowest setting is about "medium" or higher in the States), but you can't really get much from a wok without the kind of heat they use here in China. Things are cooked extremely fast -- entire dishes usually cook for less than two minutes.

The same guy. It's not apparent here, but he's actually cooking outside. His wife brings him cuts of meat as needed and then he creates every dish with the various bowls of sauces he keeps next to him. Epic mise en place

Chao Shuo. If Taco Bell is my unapologetic American food obsession (which it is), then Chao Shuo is my Taco Bell of China. It's basically just a big bowl of wontons (around 30 or so) in a large bowl of spicy broth with some green leafy vegetables and peanuts. It's all over Chongqing, but one restaurant in particular served the best damned food in Chongqing. I probably had this for lunch about five times a week for most of my stay in China. I miss the ladies that worked there -- none of us could understand a damned word the others said, but that didn't stop us from trying.

Side Note: Chongqinghua A ‘hua’ is a language or dialect.  Mandarin is actually known as “putonghua” by the locals.  Chongqing’s dialect is so off from regular Chinese that the language spoken in town is officially called “Chongqinghua.”  This was one of the biggest barriers toward learning Chinese early on, since it made testing out new words learned in class (taught in putonghua) unnecessarily difficult.  I suppose that’s part of the reason I stopped. I mention this, though, because Chao Shuo is an excellent example of how Chongqinghua works.  It involves adding a ‘T’ sound to the beginning of many words with  no explanation, and a pirate-y “arr” sound just as randomly to the end of words.  Thus the putonghua “Chao Shuo” is actually pronounced “Tao Tserr.”  Hence my frustration! Shao Kao I’ll miss street food.  It exists around the world, sure, but not with the flavor, character and variety of Asian street food.  Most South American street food was more expensive and less tasty (except maybe the choripan, which I’ve been missing lately).  How late-night Americans would just gobble up Shao Kao — a series of meats, breads and veggies on sticks, covered in spices and then grilled — if only the health departments would let them get away with  it.  Sadly, it’s not the kind of presentation that could work in the US.

All sticks are the same price, though you tend to get a lot more vegetables on each stick than on the meat ones. Chicken and pork are always available -- I don't know if I've ever seen beef. Dumplings, baozi, noodles and breads add a bit of starch to each meal.

Shao kao chefs brush each serving with oil then fry it up for a few minutes. Once cooked, they brush it over again and then use scissors to chop the food into smaller bits before putting it into a bowl or take-away dish.

Some shao kao stands are take-away only, though others provide tiny tables and stools on the sidewalk, creating late-night restaurants that are completely barren and open the next morning

The remnants from a shao kao meal. I'm mostly just pointing it out to show the ubiquity of the plastic bag in Chinese food. Sandwiches are served in it, and shao kao uses them as a means of not having to wash their actual dishes -- simply cover each one over with a plastic bag and dispose when done.

Raining Cats and Dogs I thought I could do it.  Really.  I mean, I’m ostensibly against eating pets, but when in Rome, right?  I’d been told in advance that they don’t eat dogs and cats everywhere in China, but they do in Chongqing.  It is indeed possible, though not widespread — you need to know where to look.  I found one of these places and considered it until walking past the bathroom by a crate of young dogs barking and wagging their tails fiercely at me.  Poor placement for canine eating newbs, like me.  I bailed on the attempt, both at the time and permanently. Yangshuo, a city to the southeast of Chongqing, goes as far as putting dog on the menu, slipped in between pork and chicken dishes as though it’s in the same culinary ballpark.  ”Don’t go to the market,” I’m warned while there.  Apparently dogs are strung up with all the other cuts of meat.  ”I’m still having nightmares two days later,” a girl tells me.  I’m sure my constitution would prove stronger than hers, but I don’t opt to test this theory. You Want to Kill the Fish? I don’t like cooked fish, typically.  Definitely not your red fishes, like salmon.  Fantastic when served up chilly on a chunk of rice with sushi, but utterly unappetizing when cooked.  I also don’t like fish bones.  I still remember that my mom’s friend, who was my dentist as a child, had to go to a hospital due to a fish bone getting stuck in his neck, and that haunts me with every sliver of  bone my tongue glides across when downing a freshly cooked fish. So reluctantly I let Kelly, a gentleman of an Englishman — despite younger Brits pointing over his way when I ask them what hooligans are all about — who was one of my first friends here drag me to a local fish restaurant he’d been raving about.  And sure enough, the meal is addictively good, regardless of the high bone count and fish eyes staring up at me through the whole ordeal.  Like the lamb above, it’s served in a chafing dish with vegetables and sichuan pepper oil and my mouth waters now at the remembrance of it.

Kelly and Adrian enjoying the fruit of my labor

“You ever kill the fish?” asks Adrian, an Irishman and fellow software instructor who’d come along to dinner with us. “Nah,” I tell him. “I’ve never been fishing.  Well, I mean, I think I went once with my Dad but we didn’t catch anything.  I’d like to!” “No, mate, here.” “Have I ever killed a fish here?  At this restaurant.  No.   No, I have not.” Smirking. “Seriously man, you can go back there and kill the fish yourself.” “You’re fucking with me.  You’re saying I can just waltz back there, grab a fish and kill it myself?” “You wanna do it?  Come on…” We step back toward the kitchen and some words are spoken in Chinese.  The people in the back either laugh or look or with curiosity but the man that is clearly in charge shrugs his shoulder and guides me over to a large fish tank with a fairly low water level.  He points in. “What, just grab it? ” I stand there, useless, pondering a fish. He mutters something under his breath and then moves in, grabbing the fish securely with both hands and offering it up to me.  I take the fish with both hands. And it immediately bursts forth from my grip, somersaulting through the air before landing improbably on the top of a keg of beer.  Rather than falling off immediately as one would predict a fish of its size to do, the terrorized beast manages to lodge itself between the tap and rim around the keg’s top, locking itself into place.  Despite tremendous effort on my part, the position of the fish  and its viscosity (or lack thereof) make dislodging it impossible at my level of fishmanship. The head cook moves in, looking less than pleased at this turn of events, though his staff at least seems more than amused.  Grabbing the fish firmly, he pulls it (with some difficulty, I’m pleased to say) from its awkward position and reluctantly offers it back toward me again.  I grip hold, lodging the tips of my fingers strongly into the fish’s fleshy sides. “Just slam it?” I ask. He lifts his arms above his head and brings them  down abruptly.  ”Sorry, fish.”  Still squirming, I lift the fish above my head and slam it with as much force as I can muster down onto the ground, where it lays, lifelessly.  One of the Chinese serving woman claps, and the cook reaches down and picks up the still fish to begin cleaning it off.  All the fun of killing and eating one’s own meal, without any of that messy gutting process.  Brilliant.

The owner, attempting to dislodge a fish from a keg of beer. Happens all the time!

Excitedly (and blondly) holding my fish, this time with a much tighter grip

Celebrating with a (now) dead fish

Meal time

Food in Xi’an I’m not sure what official cuisine style is used in Xi’an — maybe it has its own entirely.  But there were dishes I didn’t manage to see anywhere else, so I’m posting them here.

Shizibing: Fried persimmon cakes, with sweet, sticky filling on the inside. These are sold all over the place in Xi'an, but I've never seen them elsewhere. Fairly tasty.

The inside of the shizibing

Fried meat pancakes. The meat fillings (I think there's a veggie option) are stuffed into the dough, then flattened and fried like normal pancakes.

This was a strange dessert made up of about seven or so different, multi-colored layers. Decent at best.

Tibet Our tour group decided unanimously that we didn’t much care for Tibetan food.  Most dishes seemed to be copies of food found elsewhere in China, only in Tibet the flavor was far less exciting.  They served some decent curries, but nothing that compares to Indian or Thai styles.  The major meat here in Tibet is Yak, and it’s not bad, but it is a noticeable step down from its bovine brethren.  The best option tends to be the momo, which has the shape of a jiaozi, but the thicker breadiness of a baozi.  I liked them, but I think we all were tired of them after about a week.

Cookie displays Tibetan white rice covered in sweet yak yoghurt. The yoghurt is slightly sour, though they pour enough sugar on top of the dish to counter it

The momo.

An entire roadside stand dedicated to yak jerky

Yak butter tea. Available everywhere in Tibet. Rich and creamy, there are both salty and sweet variants of it.

Shanghai Surprise My friend Jaimee was traveling with me through Shanghai and specifically sought out her favorite Chinese food while here: soup dumplings.  These small meat dumplings are made by dropping a dollop of jellied broth into each dumpling before cooking.  Once ready, the dumplings are bit into, which releases a single spoonful of soup, prior to being further devoured.

Dumpling chefs at one of the best soup dumpling restaurants in Shanghai (Jaimee did the research) work hard during the lunch rush.

An excited Jaimee is served a fresh batch of soup dumplings

Assorted fried, bready foods. The one on the left is a thin pancake filled with green onions. The circular ones are crisper and have meat inside

The meat cylinder is reminiscent of shwarmas, though the pork used here in these sandwiches (or wraps -- both options are available) is both sweet and spicy.

Fried baozi. Like the soup dumplings, these are filled with liquid as well as meat. They're insanely tasty, but I wasn't aware of the burst of soup inside until it came out and mildly scolded my face, hands and feet (and the feet of two others as well!) Despite this, I loved these dumplings. Once you grow accustomed to the danger, the flavor's incredible.

Beijing / Peking Even though no one calls Beijing by its old anglicized name anymore, the famous duck dish will always be associated with “Peking”.  I’m not nearly the duck fan Jaimee is.  In fact, I think the dish would be even more incredible with almost any other meat in place of duck, mixed into pancakes and served with hoisin sauce.  We had this about four times while Jaimee was in town; I didn’t go back for more after she left, though.

The standard Peking duck set up: Duck meat, duck skin, pancakes, cucumbers, hoisin sauce, assorted vegetables. For me, it's all about the hoisin

A duck close-up

Basically, I'll eat anything if it's made into a burrito

Sweet and sour pork and Beijing's version of Kung Pao Chicken. The latter is sweeter and more starchy here, but not as good.

Beijing's version of street food -- boiled rather than dry-fried. Also, the food remains on the sticks, rather than be placed into a bowl and cut into bite-sized bits.

Seahorses and Scorpions. As if this weren't enough of an image, the scorpions here were actually still alive and writhing, impaled on their little wooden skewers.

Starfish, squids and other things you wouldn't normally expect to have barbecued on a stick

Baozi (BOW-zuh): A small steamed bun, filled with meat and/or vegetables.  Ubiquitous on the streets in most Chinese cities, especially at dawn.

I’d loved these treats for some time in the States, though my time with them had been limited to occasional Dim Sum excursions.  Coming to China, I’d hoped to get more quality time with them, though I didn’t expect them to be quite as prevalent as they were.  Every city I’ve visited here (even Lhasa in Tibet) has hordes of street vendors armed with steamers (either modern ones or those of the traditional “bamboo and boiling water” variety).

The simple, pliant, white dough used to make the baozi steams well, allowing vast quantities of the snacks to sit around in hot steam for hours on end until the daily supply is depleted.  The most popular variant of baozi is “zhu rou” (“jew row” — ironically enough this means “pork”) and is often just a chunk of seasoned, ground meat inside the soft, hot bun, though sometimes small bits of vegetables (usually green onions) are mixed in as well.

An assortment of vegetable-filled baozi

Reaching into a massive pile of bamboo steamers for some pork baozi

Big Bucket o' Baozi

A monument to the Baozi and my appreciation of it

Baozi Night

It’s with this love of Baozi in mind (that still hasn’t much abated after a year of the little buggers) that I had some friends over for some homemade Baozi.  We all agreed that the steamed bread idea was fantastic, but that the Chinese were simply too limited in their ingredients.  Why not an  Italian Baozi, with marinara sauce, sausage, onions and mozzarella?  Why not a peanut butter baozi?  Why not a baozi inside another baozi?  Why not, indeed.

My lovely assistant Lisa helps prepare the dough before people arrive

The meat and vegetables table, where most of the Baozi magic happens

...and the sauces table

To make a baozi, flatten out the baozi dough (recipe coming up) into a circle and then pile ingredients into the center. Bring the dough together at the top and then twist it a little so that it closes nicely, or it'll burst in the steamer. This is a particularly enormous baozi, by the way

The "baozi inside a baozi" -- a fairly pointless exercise, but it seemed to amuse people. One small baozi filled with meat, and then a layer of barbecue sauce between the two layers of dough.

Eating the baozi inside a baozi

The inside of the baozi inside a baozi

How to Have Your Own Baozi Party

The key ingredient is the dough.  Once you’ve got that, any ingredients are possible.  If you’re trying to go traditional, recipes for the ground pork filling are everywhere online.  Otherwise, get as creative as you like.

What you’ll need:

The Giant Buddha of Leshan

Leshan. (luh-SHAN)

Emeishan. (UH-may-SHAN)

Shan.  ”Mountain.”  One of the easiest Chinese symbols to recognize, and a surprisingly ubiquitous character, even in non-mountainous regions.

山

You can learn a lot about the mindset of a people by understanding how their language works (and thus how their thought patterns are organized).  Place the Chinese character for “cold” in front of 山 and you’ve got “iceberg.”  Use “hot” instead to make “volcano.”  Follow shan with the character for water (shui) and you’ve got the Chinese word for “landscape.”  Don’t ask me why.  It gets more complex, though: want to describe a vast crowd?  Put the symbol for “person” on either side of “shan,” and then end it with the character for “sea.”  The fun goes on and on…

Three to six hours north of Chongqing (depending on what collection of vans, trains, buses and rickshaws one takes) is the shan double hitter of Leshan and Emeishan.  Having already covered “shan,” I’ll skip to the prefixes and simply explain that “Le” (pronounced “luh”) means “Happy” and “Emei” (UH-may) means, well, “towering eyebrow.”  Both are major attractions in the Sichuan region for their millennia-old contributions to Chinese culture: Leshan hosts one of the largest stone Buddhas in the world and Emeishan (or “Mt. Emei”) is the highest of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China, and a spiritual pilgrimage to multitudes of Asian Buddhists.

There are direct bus routes from Chongqing to both attractions, though they’re actually slower than taking a speed train north to Chengdu and then busing an hour or so southwestwards to Leshan.  Buses from Leshan to Emeishan leave regularly (or you can be lazy and pay the equivalent of ten bucks for a taxi there).  Since, like most foreigners I’ve spoken with, I prefer Chengdu to Chongqing, I figure a night of exploring the northern city’s flashy nightlife again would be a worthwhile usage of my time.

The decision pays off.  While staying at the Mix Hostel again, I run into an assortment of travelers with a shared interest in Leshan’s famous Buddha.  Two Chongqing expat girls are also making Chengdu their temporary home for the weekend, and even though they won’t be coming to Leshan, they’re fine company for the evening.  As an added perk, they’ve both promised to take me around their home cities when I venture out west, and as those cities are Moscow and Riga (in Latvia), they’re good people to know!

Chengdu nightlife is a marked improvement from that of Chongqing.  For one, my temporary home city lacks a cohesive center, with hilly urban sprawl expanding out in every direction around the meeting of two particularly winding rivers (the Yangtze and the Yellow).   The layout, therefore is a slave to its surroundings, as roads, buildings parks and every other urban attraction is crammed in as the available land allows.  Not so, Chengdu.  Much like Xi’an, there’s a well-defined (over a thousand years) heart of town, with roads darting out from it in  all the cardinal directions.

Combined with being a far more foreigner-friendly town, it’s a helluva lot easier finding a good time at night in Chengdu.  Our makeshift group hits up a few clubs, though we unanimously decide to retire early given the morning’s 9 AM departure to Leshan.

The van ride back and forth from Chengdu is just over ten US dollars, though it doesn’t include the price of the park’s entrance (an additional ten).  The ride itself is about two hours long and gets us to Leshan just before noon.  For an additional fee, travelers can opt to take a quick boat ride that culminates in a few upwards at the giant buddha from the river that runs right by its feet.  It’s supposedly an incredible vantage point, allowing guests to first experience the Buddha ominously jutting out from the lush greenery that surrounds it, as those that re-discovered it a century or so back might’ve seen it.  But we’re all feeling particularly cheap, and gracefully opt out of the experience.

Leshan’s Giant Buddha Park is fairly expansive and lists a good 10-20 additional attractions on all of its signage, even if the massive Buddha is the primary reason for everyone’s attendance.  The long walk upwards (a foreshadowing of my upcoming hike at Mt. Emei) passes by and through multiple pagodas, fountains,  tea rooms and other assorted Chinese artifacts before reaching the massive line down to the Buddha.  The various features are all serenely beautiful and idyllic, but the top attraction here after the Buddha is clearly the English in the men’s rest room at the entrance of the park.

A small, dark unmarked cave next to the bathrooms led to this chipper fellow

One of the park's pagodas. I don't think we actually bothered to climb the steps this time, as anyone that's lived in China for more than a few months is usually pagoda'd out by this point.

A view of Leshan's clear, beautiful skyline from the park.

Pilgrims come here (and to Emeishan, as well as any of the thousands of Buddhist shrines in the country) to light candles as part of their pilgrimagee

Unfortunately, Leshan is a popular Chinese attraction, which means that on a weekend, the flag-waving tour groups are out in Full Effect.  Please see this article, if you haven’t already.  These groups are everywhere in Asia, and as more and more Chinese become prosperous, they’ll be coming soon to a town near you.  Remember how annoying those photo-snapping Japanese were in the 80′s when they first got the tourist bug?  Multiply that by the population of China and start getting ready for it.

A koi pond near the top of Leshan's park

The line twists and turns at the top of the mountain, before shrinking into a narrow staircase that goes down the mountain to the foot of the Buddha.  This narrow path, barely wide enough for a single person, causes a line that should’ve taken less than thirty minutes to last well over two hours.  Why?  Because the Chinese.  Cannot.  Stop.  Taking.  Pictures.

Trapped on the staircase, one’s initial awe and wonder quickly turns to boredom and listlessness before outright annoyance, as the people holding the line up take picture after picture.  Don’t get me wrong — the view’s fairly lovely.  It’s just that the view doesn’t change much from one step to the next.  But these people stop on EVERY STEP.  And they take MANY MANY pictures.  And then they turn around and take pictures of me, in all my Caucasian (and now disgruntled)  glory.  It’s a good time.

Outside the park the others board a bus back to Chengdu and I take my leave of them.  There are buses to Mt. Emei, but a taxi offers to take me directly to my hostel there for only ten bucks and I capitulate due to exhaustion, hunger and the heat.  An hour later, I’m dropped off at the Teddy Bear.

The long, twisty line to the bottom of Leshan's Buddha. It's the zig-zagging line down in the lower left that basically eliminated movement from the line

Wandering through the park, hair only slightly orange

After motorcycling over 2000 kilometers (something I still need to write about), 15300 doesn't seem quite so far...

Figures carved into the rock face as we (slowly) walk down through the line. People stick monetary notes into any available holes in the wall for good fortune.

The head of the giant Buddha...

...and its equally giant feet

Me, the giant Btddha of Leshan and someone's finger

A bridge at the base of Leshan's park

Thousands and Thousands and  Thousands of Steps

An early part of the climb. One of the larger monasteries is at the top of this bunch

The staccato tap of my bamboo walking stick on the cement steps leading to Emei’s peak clicks as rhythmically and reliably as a metronome by the morning of my second day up one of China’s most sacred mountains.  My steady pace isn’t in any way a sign of confident mountaineering (if one can even call it that when the path is fully paved and manicured); it’s a sign of my exhaustion.  My legs are cramping and the thinning air doesn’t work well at all with my less-than-healthy physique.  No, if anything, my clockwork zombie-like stride is a function of my exhaustion, as I count off a precise hundred steps at a time now between each break.  By now I’ve lost count of how many sets  of steps I’ve counted my way through.

But that is how I know this fucking bastard of a mountain has at least twenty thousand steps.

Day one started off far less painfully.  The Teddy Bear Hotel came recommended by the Mix Hostel in Chengdu, and their advice has always steered my right before.  The woman at the front desk lacked any semblance of English speaking ability, but she was able to point me toward a wall full of information for hikers, and my Chinese was just good enough to negotiate for a room and some hot meals.

A view of the large, mostly empty mountain

Emeishan’s path is comprised of a series of tall rounded hills, culminating in a monument-topped peak offering supposedly epic views of the surrounding countryside.  ”Supposedly,” I say, because upon eventually reaching the top, coated in two days of sweat and grime, I’m greeted by clouds so dense that not only are the vistas completely blocked off to me, but the top of its famous statue — four white elephants supporting… something — is lost in the mist.

Here would be an excellent place to state that getting to a place is half the fun, and in my experience with this mountain this is entirely correct.  But my guess is that the reaction of the millions of Chinese that make a pilgrimage to the top every year is completely different.  I say this because few Chinese people seem to actually climb the mountain.  Its base is of course clogged with an almost obscene amount of human traffic, and the top is similarly crowded.  But thanks to a bus route that leads almost to the top and a cable car that finishes the job, few locals can actually be found on the trail.

No complaints here.  I vehemently disagree with the prevailing attitude in Chinese tourism that “long lines mean an attraction is worth seeing.”  As such, it was extremely liberating to pass the cable car waiting line and immediately see the densely crowded path dwindle down to little more than four or five others per hour.  Even with public transportation doing most of the work for people, the few hundred steps required to get around prove too much for some locals, which leads to a strange rickshaw-like service where two green-vested Chinese men hoist a bamboo chair on their shoulders and cart people about for a small fee.  It’d be amusing if it weren’t for the fact that these human taxis share the same path as everyone else and have no problem barreling over humble walkers — like myself — to reach their destination.

Monkey! These little bastards are far less friendly than their cousins in Peru were

My bamboo walking stick is too nicely cut to have originally been for free, but that’s exactly what it is from my perspective, as I find the well cut rod leaning up against one of the many trash bins that have been placed upon the path.  It’s thoughtful that they’ve been placed here, but fairly futile; despite the few hikers out on the mountain, there’s a surprising amount of food wrappers and water bottles casually tossed out onto the ground.  The walking stick is a fine addition to the trip, though.  My thigh muscles are just about shot as I come across the small monastery that will be my home for the evening.

Twenty of such monasteries and temples are spread throughout the mountain, and most of them have no problem hosting pilgrims like myself for the evening, for a fee of course.  I’d originally planned to reaching a larger building labeled “Elephant Bathing Pool” on the map to stay there for the weekend, but as the air cools and the light begins to dim, it seems less likely I’ll reach my destination this evening.  I try not to let on to this (or my intense exhaustion) as I haggle the price of a room down from a ridiculous 150 Yuan a night down to 80.

Dinner’s included in the deal, and it’s a pleasant surprise to find the room endowed with an electric blanket for warmth.  I pass out almost immediately after dinner and sleep on straight until seven in the morning.  The monks are nowhere to be seen, and I unlock the door on my own and continue upwards.  Despite the lack of hikers, there are still plenty of small kitchens arranged throughout the mountain and I stop at one for a breakfast of cold, spicy noodles.

Up over 9000 feet, the landscape starts to change.  Snow covers large patches on the ground (and trail) and deciduous trees give way to evergreens.  It’s no doubt gorgeous, but the monotony of the steps begins to get to me.  I’m almost excited when a feisty monkey attacks me at the sight of granola, simply because it breaks things up a little.  Toward the top, there are suddenly thousands of people again, but the area at the top is large enough that it doesn’t feel cramped.

Sunrise at the Golden Summit is apparently not to be missed, but my pace doesn’t get me there until well after one in the afternoon.  The cloud cover here would’ve made a view of the sun impossible anyway.  On a good day, one can apparently see the “sea of clouds” below, but the sea levels have risen to the point where one can’t even see the entirety of the Buddha statue.  At the statue, monks and pilgrims both circle around the monument, always in a clockwise direction.  I grasp the gesture, even if not its significance, and make a quick circle around it myself before heading back down.  By bus.

Human rickshaws

Regular trash, recycled trash, happy cat

Steps...

...steps...

...more steps...

...and foggy steps (closer to the top)

A monkey family. There's actually a section of park toward the bottom called "Monkey viewing area," though I didn't actually start seeing any until much farther up the mountain

My monastery home for the evening

...and the same monastery disappearing in the distance the next morning

The largest monastery I passed along the way. Chanting played endlessly from a tape that was broadcast loudly across the grounds. For its size, I only saw two monks walking about.

Almost all the monasteries had at least one shrine like this one. The few pilgrims to visit leave anything from money to cookies and soda

The end, almost in sight

The Golden Summit, hidden in clouds. I think there's a Buddha on top of the elephants

Worn down, exhausted and filthy at the top of one of China's most sacred mountains

A stone map of the mountain near my hotel. The red X at the bottom is the approximate location of my starting point. The green circle midway through is where I slept the first night. The location of the Golden Summit should be obvious

Dinner at the Teddy Bear. Sichuan style cooking is my favorite in China (a good thing, as it's the style of Chongqing) and is almost always spicy.

Chinglish

As far as ostentatious male hair coloration goes, you can generally break the world down into three groups of people:

1. Those that never think mens hair should be bleached, dyed, frosted, highlighted or batiked.
2. Those that think such behavior is perfectly normal
3. Those that are cool with it until you reach 30, at which point.. really?

I can already tell from the subtle burning across my scalp that this is probably not a good idea

Those that fall into camps 1 and 3 (a significant portion of the world, I’m sure) probably don’t back some of my fashion choices this year, and as I typically am not a “camp 2″ guy in general, I’m not sure I do either.  I can’t fully explain my rationale for the travesty that would engulf my flowing locks like a perverse halo for a good portion of the year, other than to say that much like whitewater rafting or Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights (I know it’s a classic, but I could rarely handle more than five minutes of it at a time), it’s something I never need experiment with again.

The idea for the change (the first one, at least) came about over a casual conversation with Adrian Daniel “Sully” Sullivan (who answers to all four of those names) about his dalliances with hair dye over the past four years he’s spent in China.  Upon my first meeting with the man, his hair had settled upon a subtle bleached frosting that seemed to complement him well, though he’s had blue and green periods in the past.  The primary explanation: If you’re a foreigner here in Chongqing, you already stand out more than a Phish-head at the Republican National Convention, so it’s not like any other peculiarities will cause you to stand out more.

Why not go a little blond?  Nothing drastic or crazy… just a little extra color to liven things up a bit.  And if it goes horribly awry, it’s not as though there’s an abundance of friends around to relentlessly torment you into getting a quick buzz cut.  Anything goes, right?

It would’ve been a perfect plan were it not for the fact that I speak no Chinese.  And the average Chinese hair stylist?  Not a master of the English language either.  So it is, that I ended up with this:

So this is what it's like to be a ginger

Yes, despite the assistance of multiple pictures of handsome men that pulled off hair dying much better than I, this rust-colored affront to nature is what the Chinese hair salon thought I was requesting.

It’s not a total failure.  Halloween is just around the corner, and Lisa and I had been racking our brains to come up with good costume ideas for the Singapore Restaurant’s holiday party.  Since nothing with this hair color could clearly have come from Earth, it provides us with a starting point for what would be award-winning alien costumes.

The award-winning alien costumes, and our prize -- a large bottle of champagne. Note how good this hair color actually looks with green skin. Sadly, my skin is normally of a pinkish-orange hue and the "champagne" was a sickly purple color and tasted like triaminic cough syrup. But the bragging rights were still good.

After a week as a ginger, I became bound and determined to make the most of my situation and return to the stylist for a more standard bleaching.  Why stop at ginger when there are so many brighter but equally unnatural colors available to me?

Problem solved?

Hair: Phase 2. Fish: About to die.

Yes, another great success!  My students are amused and I decide to roll with it for as long as I can to get the full experience.  Sadly (or thankfully), all good things must come to an end, and with only one month to go before a fairly respectable wedding, I decided it was time to end this little reindeer game and return to dark brown normalcy.

My attempts as seeking the assistance of the local Chinese thus far proving awkwardly unsuccessful, I recruited the help of Cookie AKA Jenny from London.  A steadfast ball of energy, social grace and interestingly colored hair, Cookie likely had more experience with this sort of thing than almost anyone else I knew here and was only too glad to assist.  I told her in advance of the importance of more “formal” coloring for my upcoming wedding and she assured me that I’d be back to brown in no time.

“Auburn, eh?  That doesn’t really sound like brown…”

“No, it totally is,” she said.  ”Oh my god.  You’ll look fabulous!”

“I’m kind of trying to look less fabulous these days.”  My spider sense tingled violently as she rubbed the not-at-all-brown dye into my hair, but the girl was just too excited about her current project for me to reject her and I allowed the travesty to ensue.  Brown dye should not froth in one’s hair like rancid grape kool-aid, should it?  According to Cookie, it should!

Auburn doesn't even seem to be a distant cousin of brown

Doing my best to rock the purple hair. Despite being the least natural color thus far, it looks the best I'd say

A week before the wedding I pay a final visit to a new stylist.  It’s not that I think one Chinese stylist might be better than another; I simply can’t get the laowai discount twice.

What is the laowai discount?  Simple.  Offer to let them take your picture to put on their door or in ads for a rebate.  It’s usually good for at least thirty percent off.  This time around, the brown finally settles in, at least under Chongqing’s omnipresent gray skies.  The warm, bright sun in Thailand permeates through my hair in odd ways, bringing out a bit more of the purple, though it takes a bit of focus to notice and looks only slightly unnatural.

No regrets.  But probably no need for any repeats either…

As all my clothes, notes and collected belongings from close to a year in China lay stacked across my apartment, a single piece of looseleaf paper scribbled with recipes keeps filtering its way up to the surface.  I try to organize these entries in a mostly linear format, but if posting a quick food entry leaves me with one less paper cluttering up my apartment, why not just post it now?

Food shopping at an outdoor market

Cooking lessons in foreign countries are widely available, at least in larger, metropolitan areas, and generally don’t cost much more than the price of the meal being cooked.  I’d been meaning to take one for some time, but didn’t actually make my way to a restaurant offering the service until reaching Hanoi, Vietnam.  Most other travelers I’ve talked to seem to share a distaste for Hanoi, believing the Vietnamese in the south to be far friendlier to tourists.  I did not have this experience at all, and felt far more comfortable in the north.  The surplus of clean friendly hostels (none seem to exist in the south) helped tremendously.

One such hostel, The Drift, posted a single advertisement for morning cooking classes at a restaurant called The Green Mango.  Eight in the morning on a Sunday is a bit early for my tastes, but the description of the class sounded ideal: Shop through an old town market for ingredients, and then create a three-course meal of your choosing from about thirty different options.  Normally, all students would have to agree on the menu and split the resources while preparing the food.  As I would be the lone student today, the class is instead a private lesson, and the kitchen is mine.

My workspace

Papaya Salad

This salad, popular throughout southeast Asia, can be modified to serve as many people as necessary.  The only ratio to keep in mind is water:vinegar:sugar:chili sauce = 3:2:1:1/2.  It will seem like a lot of liquid and sugar, though once the salad is fully drenched, it should be lightly squeezed out before serving.  Aside from that, the recipe is simple: mix all ingredients and serve in a large lettuce leaf.

• green papaya(s), shredded
• carrot(s), shredded
• crushed peanuts
• crushed sesame seeds
• coriander/cilantro
• basil
• 1 lettuce leaf to serve the salad in
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup vinegar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/8 cup chili sauce (to give it some bite)
• a dash or two of salt, to taste

Using chopsticks to mix together the papaya salad

Posing with the final product

Sweet and Sour Prawn

The shrimp they’ve got down here are ridiculous, with some being as large as a baby’s arm.  We opt for some amply sized fellas down at the market, and quickly get them battered up and fried.

Batter:

• 1 egg
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup cold water
• salt

Get a good amount of oil hot and ready and then run each prawn through the batter before dumping it into the oil.  Flip once and then remove, once golden brown and lightly crispy.  Place on a bed of paper towels to let the oil drain off a bit.

Veggies:

• one red pepper, chopped
• one green pepper, chopped
• chopped pineapple
• chopped onion
• chopped tomato
• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
• a handful of small, red chilis, sliced

Place garlic and chilis in a small amount of oil and lightly stir-fry.  After a minute or so, add the remainder of the vegetables.  Stir fry for three minutes or so and then add the sweet and sour sauce:

• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon water
• 2 tablespoons vinegar
• 1 tablespoon ketchup
• dash of salt

That’s about enough for one serving.  Keeping that same ratio, you can make as much (or as little) sauce as you like.  Add the prawns for about thirty seconds and the meal is done.

Preparing the sweet and sour prawn under the watchful eye of.. some Vietnamese guy (I forgot his name)

Sweet and sour prawn, complete

Beef with lemongrass and chili

• Beef, sliced into bite-sized portions
• 1 stick lemongrass, thinly sliced
• a handful of red chilis, sliced
• 2 tablespoons chicken stock
• 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
• 1 tablespoon chili sauce
• one red pepper and one green pepper, sliced
• coriander
• salt and pepper, to taste

Big chunks of lemongrass aren’t easily chewable, so care should be taken to get it sliced as thinly as possible.  The red chilis should be about the same size.  Mix the chilis and half the lemongrass slices with the beef and put a dash or two of salt and pepper on it before setting off to the side.

Mix the chicken stock, oyster sauce, chili sauce and salt in a bowl and set aside.

Stir-fry the garlic and remaining lemongrass over high heat for about thirty seconds.  Add the green and red pepper.  Add the beef and fry everything for another minute or two.  Add sauce and cook for thirty more seconds, then serve.

Stir frying the beef

The final product

My Vietnamese lunch