Chinese Restaurant: Cai Gen Xiang
Another common restaurant that seems to hide on every back street of China is Cai Gen Xiang, or 菜根香. The name isn’t too important, though, because the red stripe gives it away. But be forewarned: this is one of the most unfriendly places for foreigners to eat. The menu is strictly Chinese, and you run a big risk in ordering something gross. The food certainly looks gross:
There were only two things on the menu I liked. The first, pictured above, is 腊肉鲜笋饭, or la rou xian sun fan. I could never remember the whole name, so I would just say, “Wo yao la rou nei ge nei ge nei ge…” and they’d know the rest. It’s a pot with rice, potatoes, bamboo, green vegetables, mushrooms, and preserved meat. Hey, it’s actually good! The other thing I liked to order was 狮子头 (shi zi tou, meaning lion’s head). I don’t have a picture of that one, but it’s a ball of pork in a soup with green vegetables.
I know venturing into unknown Chinese restaurants can be a bit scary, but if you’re daring enough to try something new, look for the red stripe!
Chinese Souvenirs: Protection Decorations
I’m pretty much at a loss what to call this thing. It was given to me by the first school I taught at in Hefei. The school had a little farewell lunch for all the foreigners. One of the people present was our Chinese teacher, though we both knew not a lot of teaching got done. Mr. Liu sometimes didn’t show up to Chinese class or showed up drunk, and, truth be told, the foreigners just weren’t good students to begin with.
Mr. Liu had tried to teach us a song in his class. Now that we were leaving the school, he thought he would redeem himself in front of his peers and asked, “Would the foreign teachers sing the song that we learned together?” We all said, “Uh….” Nobody knew the song. Mr. Liu, embarrassed, sat back down, and somebody else presented the item above to each of us.
The most I can tell you about it is that the characters on the front, 镇宅 (zhen zhai), refer to protecting one’s house from bad spirits. Order yours today!
Chinese Souvenirs: Olympic Mascot Dolls
This has got to be my favorite souvenir from China… and my favorite stuffed animal ever. I love the Beijing Olympic mascots. While Olympic mascots are usually rather ugly, the Chinese designers put a lot of thought into theirs, and it shows.
Interesting fact, if you’re not going to visit the link above: the names of the five “Fuwa,” as they are called, are Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini. When the syllables of their names are strung together, they say, “Beijing huanying ni,” or, “Beijing welcomes you.”
Before the Olympics, there was a sort of “Fuwa hysteria” where every street vendor worth their weight was selling knock-off stuffed animals, key chains, posters, buttons, T-shirts, and what have you. All around Beijing and Shanghai, there were also official stores selling the same things but at a higher price (and higher quality, of course).
The Yingying doll in the picture was bought at an official store in Beijing. One of my biggest regrets about that trip was only buying one. When I went back to Beijing after the Olympics were over, all the Fuwa stores were gone. The street vendors stopped selling Fuwa merchandise, too. Everyone had moved on to the Shanghai Expo and its lovable mascot, Haibao.
Chinese Souvenirs: Knots
One of the most widely available souvenirs in China is the knot (中国结, or zhong guo jie). How can you look at that and not think of China? It’s such a popular decoration (for good luck, as I’ve been told, which is really no surprise), three different people gave one to me in the span of two weeks.
In 2006, before I left a summer camp in Hefei to go teach in Wuwei, the director gave my brother and me a medium-sized knot. When we were getting ready to leave Wuwei, one of our students gave each of us a small Chinese knot. Two other students pitched in for a gigantic one. I’m sure the kid who gave us the small one felt foolish. What he doesn’t know is that the small one is my favorite.
How to Remember Chinese Tone Order
There are four tones in Chinese, they’re numbered from one to four, and Chinese speakers often refer to them as “first tone, second tone, etc.” To review, the first tone is flat , the second rises , the third dips , and the fourth falls .
Okay… that’s swell and all, but how do you remember which one is first and which one is fourth? It’s easy to get them mixed up and makes reading typed-out pinyin a pain (wo3 yao4 gen1 ni3 shuo1 hua4).
Then one day, I wrote the tone markings side by side: . Revelation time! They looked like a minus M, or -M. The M can even stand for Mandarin. The minus stands for… look, I’m not going to do all the work. Now, whenever I forget if the falling tone is second or fourth, I just have to think of it as it fits into the -M formula.
Making Sense of Chinese Bus Stop Signs
Riding the bus in China isn’t exactly a fun experience, especially when you’re trying to get on during the busy hours (also know as all hours of the day). Eventually, though, you’re going to need to figure out the bus system in your new Chinese city. I know many expats don’t like bothering with the bus stop signs, because they’re too confusing, so we’re going to walk through this together.
The big mass of characters above the word BUS are the names of the bus stops read from top to bottom. The red highlighted one is the stop you’re at right now. The two characters next to the bus stop number, 下站, refer to the next stop. The red numbers in the top-right corner tell us when the first and last bus run (frustratingly, most of the buses end before 9:00).
Don’t forget to look at the top of the sign, which displays the current stop in characters and pinyin. This is a great way to start tying the two together. If you can start recognizing simpler characters like 大 (da) or 中 (zhong) in the names of important bus stops, it makes it a lot easier traveling around town. But if you don’t care to learn how to read Chinese, at least copy the characters (the best you can) in your notebook so you can compare them with other bus signs when you’re ready to return.
But on the bus, none of this will do you much good, because the stops are announced (if at all) in Chinese, and the marquee (if there is one) doesn’t always work. The easiest thing to do is count how many stops are between you and your destination on the sign, then keep track of how many times the bus stops while you’re on it. I know all of this makes perfect sense already, but the first few times you get on a Chinese bus can be pretty scary. Good luck.
Haibao’s Expat Guide: Ordering Noodles
Youtube warning for those reading from China:
When my brother and I were in Changzhou, we wanted to do a series of videos about the Shanghai Expo mascot, Haibao, giving advice to new expats in China. The first (and only) one we did focused on breaking away from the McDonald’s habit and eating local food (”la mian” and “dao xiao mian” noodles).
Alas, the weather got too cold after we finished “ordering noodles” to do anymore filming. Going around town with a Haibao puppet garnered a frustrating amount of attention, anyway. It’s hard to film when everybody wants to stand in front of the camera to watch what you’re doing.
We had some help with the puppetry and voice acting, but all filming and post production was done by JR.
Don’t Give Up on Chinese!
Every few months, I go through my old bedroom in my parents’ house and find new things to give or throw away. On returning from China, it was apparent I don’t do this enough. Man, I have a lot of junk. So I went through everything again and ditched even more stuff. Then the garbage man hauled the trash away, and I wheeled the garbage can back around the house. Curious, I glanced inside the can and saw that one thing didn’t make it into the garbage truck. It was my little case of character flashcards from my Chinese 1010 class.
I guess that’s a sign that I shouldn’t give up learning Chinese just yet. Don’t worry, I haven’t!
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