Street Food

[Again, this is one of my magazine articles.]

Without a doubt, my most pleasurable moments in Xi’an have come, sitting on little plastic stools at less-than-entirely-sanitary tables, savoring a plate of noodles (5 yuan) and watching the whole madcap nighttime drama of the city unfold around me. I seldom feel more connected with my fellow city-dwellers than I do crowded around a chao bing cart, rummaging amid piles of vegetables, meats, and tofus for the perfect midnight meal combination.

Xi’an is highly regarded for its variety and selection of street food. Weather (and other factors) permitting, you can find vendors at any time of day. That said, the variety of food on offer shifts over the course of the day and there are definite differences between the food one can find in the morning, afternoon and night.

Morning

As early as 7 in the morning, small carts line the streets. Most breakfast food involves either eggs, flour or a combination of the two. The most common morning treats are you bing and you tiao, fried dough. Bing is circular and tiao is long and stretched like a garlic stick; both have a taste reminiscent of a slightly salted donut and neither should cost more than 0.5 to 1 yuan. Typically Chinese will eat these with soymilk. Bing can be stuffed with shredded potato or spiced cabbage.

Another vast category of breakfast food is fried stuffed bread (bing). Unlike the simpler fried doughs, these are filled with chives (cong), eggs (jidan), or meat (niu rou) before they are cooked. Less unhealthy looking are the grilled versions of the same thing. None should cost more than 1-3 yuan.

If your preference is for something less artery-clogging first thing in the morning, options up your alley might include steamed bread (mantou) stuffed with veggies or any of the readily available spicy soups (hula tang). Also low fat is jian bing guozi—essentially a crepe filled with egg, chives, and onions.

Afternoon

Between morning and night a great many vendors either vanish or re-locate. Streets like Dongmu Toushi—at other times overflowing with food—become rather desolate save for men hawking pineapple on a stick (1-2 yuan).

There are notable exceptions. At lunchtime, along the backstreets, women pull out their large lunch carts full of meats, greens, rice, and noodles (kuai can). Most noticeable is along Luomashi Street. During midday, this main pedestrian boulevard, already crowded with shoppers, clothing sellers, and wedding planners, becomes full of food vendors as well.

Food unique to this time of day includes shredded pork sandwiches packed into steamed bread (fen zheng rou). Pancake sandwiches (tong luo shao) which can be filled with fruit jam, red beans, or the far-too-ubiquitous powdery-brown pork floss. My personal favorite are the Chinese Egg-McMuffins (like so much street food, their literal name, egg-meat, has no ring to it). These are nothing more than flour fried in something resembling a cupcake tray, filled with egg and meat. Delicious!

On many streets—especially in the Muslim Quarter—one can see fried starch tofu (chao liangfen). This and the non-fried variety are a gelatinous tofu made from water saturated with either flour, potato, or mung bean starch. This can be eaten cold, topped with sauce or it can be fried with spices. The process that creates these noodles produces excess material which is used for the common—and in my opinion rather off-putting—kao mian jin. Resembling pig-tails, these curly, spiced, barbequed doughs are, essentially, the detritus of cold noodle preparation.

Night

At night time, the streets flood with options. The most common sights are carts loaded down with a selection of vegetables, meats, eggs, mushrooms, and tofu. Choose what you want (typically .5 to 1 yuan per item) and the cook will fry it, boil it, or grill it depending on your preference. The vegetables can then be covered in a spicy chili sauce or a smoother sesame sauce. Similar to these are the fried sandwich (chao bing) carts that will cram all your selections into a fried round of bread.

Nearby are the carts serving fried noodles (chao mian). The typical cart will have a variety of noodle choices—several dry, steamed options, several moist-looking boiled varieties and probably rice to boot. To this can be added either egg (jidan), meat (rou), or, quite commonly, large in-shell shrimp and snails (tianluo). All for around 5 yuan.

Grilled meat skewers (kao rou) are often a common sight. Thin strips of finely-spiced meat are usually served up on a simple metal plate without any addition. The version sold by Uighur people from eastern China, however, will come with a special flat bread to eat in combination.

Among the cheapest options are the carts serving up dumplings (baozi) and wonton soup (huntun tang) both for about 5 yuan. To add flavor, dumplings can be dipped in a flavorful vinegar-chili sauce (tiao liao zhi).

Other choices might include duck meat sandwiches (ya rou) served in steamed bread or the regretfully all-too common stinky tofu (chou doufu) . . .

But, try as I may, this is only a partial list of the potential meals Xi’an offers up. The adventurous or ambitious ex-pat could spend a month of nights trying different dishes and still not taste them all. And herein lies the ultimate charm of Xi’an’s food scene, this superabundance of possibilities. It’s a food lover’s dream.

Photos: Street Food

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Reuben Silverman, Cub Reporter

About two months ago, I saw that the local ex-pat magazine China Grooves was hiring volunteer copy editors. I wrote them and letter and set up a meeting; despite the advert, copy editing services didn't seem to interest them, but they told me they could always use some writers. The following are the four little pieces I've written so far.

They're not Mencken or Thompson, but they're not utter shit either:

Beilin Museum

Located beside the southern wall’s Heiping Gate, the Beilin Museum houses a fine little collection of steles and religious artwork from a variety of different dynasties.

The steles—large, carved stone blocks—are spread through seven rooms. The first contains classic works of Chinese philosophy and ethics. The black slabs, one lined after another, puts one in mind of the Vietnam monument in Washington, DC.

The second features family memorials, records of foreign relations, ennoblements, land-grants, and writings recounting the good deeds of various religious leaders. The third displays poetry, especially impressive calligraphy, and various inspirational accounts of filial piety.

The forth room is the most interesting, offering up a grab bag of steles. Some are portraiture and landscape, others are memorials—one, for example, commemorating a peasant rebellion leader financed paid for by his peasants followers. Another from several centuries later is a warning from the Qing to similarly rebellious peasants.

The western wing of the museum is given over to sculptures and carvings discovered in and around burial sites. These include the elaborately designed tomb of Li Shou, a cousin of the then-emperor; massive tomb guardians in the shape of lions, goats, rhinos, and mythical creatures; and “pictoral stones” showing both fantastical imagery—dragons, ghosts, and anthropomorphized animals—as well as more mundane scenes such as hunting and harvesting.

There are also a fair number of Buddhist sculptures. When the religion arrived in China, such artwork was used to educate the illiterate about the faith’s teachings. The museum’s collection ranges from small household relics to large heavenly guardian statues.

The value of the museum’s pieces lies not only in the things themselves, but in the contemplation of how much care and effort—a lifetime of knowledge and craftsmanship—went into their creation. Viewing works so full of passionate labor, one comes a bit closer to understanding lives long past lived.

Yangrou Paomo

Chances are good that, if you’re a foreigner living in Xi’an, a local has probably taken you out for yangrou paomo. If not, it’s only a matter of time. The restaurants are everywhere; lining the streets of the Muslim Quarter, glimpsed down alleyways, even operating out of swank, high-end venues. Inside many city buses, posters advertising the wonders of Xi’an culture show the terracotta army, the Big Goose Pagoda, the Tang Dynasty show and a bowl of yangrou paomo.

This is the local dish and it’s marvelously simple: Bread, noodles, mutton, spices and broth. For the north Chinese with their traditions of horse riding and long distance hunts, the dish was both simple and filling. A Muslim influenced Silk Road dish, it is said to have originated in the 11^th century, at the court of the Western Zhou emperors.

In the heavily touristed areas of the city—like Muslim Quarter—you’ll see yangrou paomo sitting in pre-made bowls (9 ¥), just waiting to have broth ladled into it. While this can be tasty, it’s not the customary way to eat it.

In the better restaurants (20 ¥), you’ll first be asked how many pieces of bread (bing) you want. One will be fine if you have a modest appetite, two will certainly fill you. Once your choice has been made, you’ll be handed the bread and an empty bowl.

What follows is a process of breaking the rounds of bread in half and ripping those halves into small pieces. Whereas a machine compresses the bread, ripping by hand keeps it soft and allows it to retain absorbency. The smaller the pieces are, the better they suck up the broth—and, as a friend insisted to me, if I didn’t tear the pieces up small, the cooks would take me for a country-bumpkin and withhold the choice meat slices.

While thorough ripping can take time, Chinese insist that the whole business can have a relaxing, almost zen-like quality. You become part of the cooking process.

Ripping done, the bowls are whisked away and returned several minutes later full of broth, vermicelli noodles, and slices of mutton. Served along with the meal is a spicy chili paste and sweet pickled garlic which can either be eaten on its own or mixed into the bowl.

This is kou tang (mouth soup); it is what you can expect to be served if you don’t specify otherwise. If this doesn’t quite appeal, several other options are available: Dan zou (walking alone) is a version where the broth, meat and noodles are served up with the bread, as yet still whole, on the side, ready to be dipped in. Gan pao (dry soaked) is the standard yangrou pao mo drained of its broth, but still soggy. And, most wonderfully named, is shui wei cheng (water besieged city) which is just your typical paomo bowl brimming with broth.

The best way to eat yangrou pao mo is to work around the outside toward the center. Since the bread is thoroughly soaked in broth, it is quite hot. Avoiding the center of the bowl bypasses the hottest portion and leaves the roof of your mouth intact, allowing you to enjoy Xi’an’s signature dish with the utmost satisfaction.

Banpo Museum

Banpo Museum is itself something of a relic. Old photos near the entrance, show the site in the early 50s, at the time of excavation. A few archeologists stand amid locals. Around them stretch empty fields. Now the place is surrounded by roads and buildings and getting there requires a long bus ride to the eastern suburbs, beyond the Chan River.

The museum displays the remnants of a 6000 year old village. Covered by a large warehouse building are the remains of numerous huts, identifiable by numerous stake holes in the ground. Wooden frames, subsequently filled in with mud and straw, were set in the holes.

Archeologists suspect that the Yangshao culture which inhabited the site was matriarchal (e.g. run by women). Female burial sites contain far more objects than male ones, leading researchers to believe that women’s position in the society was elevated.

In addition to these burial sites, archeologists have unearthed a great deal of pottery used to bury dead children. A number of storage pits have been excavated too, along with a portion of the deep moat which once surrounded the village.

Other buildings contain artifacts from the site and less obviously relevant displays such as animal fossils.

The nicest part of the museum, however, is the least historical part. Outside the main building is a large garden area full of peony flowers and reconstructions of the Neolithic huts. The whole place is in a state of quaint disrepair, but the upshot is that you find yourself able to sit in relative peace and quiet.

Chinese Calligraphy

How does one express his inner nature? How can we best judge a person’s soul? For the imperial Chinese, writing offered the window. Zhang Xu and Huai Shu, two Tang dynasty calligraphers, for example, would get liquored up and launch into shouting tirades as they performed their art. Zhang, it is said, would often use his hair in place of a paint brush. Not surprisingly, the two avoided standard writing styles in favor of freer forms.

Nowadays, when we think of Chinese script, we tend to separate it into Traditional and Standard. When confronted with the thought of learning the former, those of us unable to learn even the latter shudder. Yet both are merely a fraction of the range of characters once in common circulation among literate Chinese. What we think of as “written Chinese” is just kaishu style, the simplest of five possible scripts.

The oldest style of Chinese writing is zhuanshu, or Seal Script. Originating several thousand years ago, it conveys a sense of visual antiquity. The characters are long, narrow, insect-like, almost otherworldly. The impression is far more literal than other, more abstract scripts. It was the official writing style of the Qin dynasty.

Lishu script, or Clerical Script, followed. Much faster to write than Seal Script—and, therefore, more suited to use in bookkeeping—it retains some of the same elongated qualities as its predecessor.

The other three major scripts emerged concurrently during the Han. Two of these, caoshu (Running Script) and xingshu (Walking Script), are cursive versions of the clerical script. As the names suggest, caoshu is the more flowing and difficult of the two while xingshu moves between the two extremes of precision and wild abandon. Kai (Standard Script) is a further, squarer, less-stretched version of the clerical script.

Within a single style there are a range of techniques. Connoisseurs of calligraphy can rhapsodize about how the smallest action can alter the sense of a character. Whether one uses the edge of the brush or the tip, how long the brush is used before refreshing the ink, how much pressure is applied; the choice of both style and mode of expressing it speaks volumes about the calligrapher.

Yet, beyond reflecting the personality of the individual calligrapher, calligraphy is also a conversation between the present and the past. Great artists carefully study the examples of past masters. (Consider Wang Xizhi, the forth century scholar and “Sage of Calligraphy.” Not only was he a beautiful calligrapher in his own right, refining styles in a manner still emulated to this day, but he also labored to collect the work of many others, past and present. His most famous work is his preface to Literary Gathering at the Orchid Pavilion, a collection of poetry by artists he’d brought together.)

To appreciate and to produce calligraphy is thus both an individual and a collective act of the most surpassing subtlety and beauty.

Photo: Banpo Museum and Environs

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Photos: Beilin Museum

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Short Takes

Life, no matter where it is lived, resolves itself into routine or, otherwise, never really becomes “life.” Three months in, the contours of my routine have become fairly clear. The life of an ex-pat in Xi’an revolves around a few bars and clubs, perhaps language classes, a girlfriend or boyfriend if you have one, work and shambling about. It’s almost painfully normal. The appeal then, is not the day-to-day minutiae, but rather the thrum compressed human energy that surrounds it.

As my life has no ready-made narratives these past few months, please accept the following short takes:

Outdoor Life

I grew up in a place where, if you asked someone what she did in her free time, she’d probably say walk on the beach, see the sun set, or work in the garden. In contrast to that, the routines of city life could not but be more glaringly different. Yet, even with such caveats, free time in China can sound rather depressing. Ask a man how he fills his time and he will say videogames, movies, and nights out with his friends. As a woman and she will say shopping and hanging out with friends.

Again and again Chinese tell me that their country is restrictive, not politically (they don’t care much), but socially. They speak of the pressure from family and friends to conform. Chinese daily life—at least in the cities—is based on family, friends, and work. Often these are one and the same. Chinese people seldom seem to be alone in their free time. If a Chinese person is alone, he is often running an errand or waiting to meet someone. Few activities seem to occur outside these bounds. It’s easy to see how this weight can bear down on them—there is little respite from friends and family—from people who know you and have expectations of you. The escape to videogames seems a very logical result.

Yet the fact remains that Chinese do hang out together and, unlike in the states where activity is largely confined indoors, life in China is conducted outside. There are food stalls and clothing stalls everywhere. Numerous shops lack doors and simply open on to the street. To be out is to be surrounded by activity. I can only imagine the shock new arrivals to American cities must feel when confronted by the relative lifelessness.

The Neighborhood

My apartment block is located down a back street, only a block and half from the city center and yet, despite the small distance, you’d never know.

Our house has a gate-keeper, a shiny bald, wrinkled old man who lives in the tiny gate-room with his wife. His day often consists of watching television and separating out the apartment’s trash into to two burlap sacks. Often a girl—a granddaughter perhaps—hangs out with them.

Directly outside the gate is some sort of scrap metal collection site. During the day, men go at large pieces of aluminum or motor-part-looking contraptions with hammers, breaking them down into component parts. They operate out of a little garage and, at night, a big truck is parked in front and loaded fifteen feet high with scrap metal.

On either side of the garage are hair saloons and more further along the alley. Whereas many back alley salons are merely brothels, these are the real deal and are constantly in operation—as in Istanbul, barber shops and salons stay open until ten o’clock or later. In one direction along the alley way are more apartment blocks. In the other, in addition to the salons, are a number of little restaurants, unmarked and outwardly caked in dirt, but overflowing with customers during the lunch hour.

At all times of day, the street is busy. Children run to and fro, small dogs—the occasional collie is the only large dog I’ve yet seen—patter about in little knitted vests and men fix bikes and motorized rickshaws or play badminton with their wives.

In the morning the main road is full of vegetable vendors. Small hot peppers, bok choy, various other leafy greens, bean spouts and tomatoes are common—as are the dark-orange verging-on-red carrots that are ubiquitous in China. During the market times, the street is a chaos of vendors, buyers, bicyclists, motorcyclists, rickshaws, car drivers honkingly oblivious to the narrowed streets, and random passersby.

Head the other direction, past those other apartment blocks, and you emerge on a main street lined with shops. Here are the majority of restaurants I go to as well as a dog-groomer, a sign-carving company, more salons, the entrance to a parking garage, several repair shops and multiple videogame parlors.

In the daytime, this street and, frankly, every other in the area, is rather depressingly scruffy. But this all changes at night. In the dark, the dirt becomes invisible and what stands out are the neon lights and the activity. Most nights, I get noodles on the street and sit watching the passersby, listening to shouts from nearby mahjong tables, and lose try to let the moment last forever.

Practicalities

Then there is the issue of bathrooms. Bathrooms in China are almost all squats. The only exceptions are places which cater to western tourists. Stalls do no have toilet paper or—unlike Turkey—a bucket and tap. Stalls usually have doors, but seldom have locks. Moreover, they aren’t cleaned regularly, the surrounding floors are covered in uriny-water—the floors outside are too. Often the foot flushing mechanism breaks or goes unutilized for multiple uses; the result is a large pile of shit waiting to greet you upon entering the stall.

If any of this sounds disconcerting—and I’d imagine it does—I’d say you’re thinking about it wrong. This is simply the way it is. If any of the foregoing details sound disgusting, consider that (contrasted with the US) China at least has public bathrooms all over the place. Very seldom do you have to pay for them. The only expense that falls on you is the cost of a pack of Kleenex.

And bathrooms are representative of a more general fact about China: It is what it is and complaining get you nowhere. Time and again people whinge about the following problems:

• Spitting. People spit everywhere. On the street, in the midst of vegetable markets, on buses, upon emerging from bathroom stalls, in restaurants and on the carpet of Starbuckses. Likewise, men are constantly pushing closed one nostril and rocketing out jets of snot from the other. These hygiene issues extend to person grooming including nail clipping in the middle of restaurants, cafes, offices and teachers’ rooms. When you consider that a good part of The Stranger’s “Last Days” column is given over to gripes about such things, you realize how uptight Seattle truly is . . .
• Driving. Chinese are amazing drivers—though few agree with my assessment. They weave in and out of traffic, pass pedestrians and bicyclists with only inches to spare and drive on sidewalks if necessary. Someone one in America attempting such stunts would be dead within days, yet most Chinese are verifiably not dead. Pedestrians don’t help matters by walking out into traffic given the slightest opening. Unlike the US where we let lights do our thinking for us, the simple act of crossing the street in Chinese forces us to be fully aware of the surroundings.
• Slow Service. In Turkey, I rather enjoyed the slow pace of service I received because it often seemed as though the staff were enjoying itself. At government offices, the officials would drinking tea, chat and, intermittently, attend to your paperwork. The might, if the mood struck them, start up a conversation with you. Chinese office slowness seems less lighthearted, but it is equally lugubrious. (And this is strange because it seems to aggravate Chinese as well. Whenever I find myself in a line with a Chinese, he or she constantly pouts and harrumphs about the pace of the clerk.)
• Haggling. The price in China—in much of the world for that matter—is not the price. I vividly remember, back in Seattle, going over the cost of products I ordered for cafes and restaurants and wincing at how small our profit margin was, but in the US the idea is price competition. The price is the price and if people don’t like it, they will go elsewhere. In China, price is merely a starting point and every major purchase becomes a game of chicken. My suspicion is that, this business model helps explain why developing countries can have twenty of the exact same store lining a street. Once the choice of store becomes a matter of best deal and other considerations (such as family connections), it becomes more convenient for all the stores to group together. Were thirty plumbing supply stores spread throughout the city, people would just go to the closest one and settle for its prices. If all the plumbing stores are beside one another, the customer can make his way up and down the row, negotiating the best deal.

I don’t want to imply that I never complain about these things. Rather, I mean to say that the complaints are pointless and, if these sort of things are insurmountable difficulties, China is not the place for you. One has to ask himself what truly matters, what he can live with and without.

Entertainment

Xi’an has a good number of bars and clubs. Most teachers frequent one called the Park Qin in the basement of a hostel. The place is darkly lit—some might say cave-like. Next door is another, slightly seedier, hostel-cum-bar called the Shuyuanmen. Finally, right beside the central Bell Tower, is yet another dingy-but-popular hostel/bar. This last one gets the budget travelers and, less explicably, all of the city’s teenage lesbian population. A good night there involves an hour of pool, cheap drinks and a constant stream of girls dressed like K.D Lang passing by.

While Park Qin gouges you with its high-priced, watered down drinks, the rip off is at least muted amid the grotto-dark colors. Along neighboring Bar Street, the tourist squeeze is more blatant. And, of course, all this is relative. A beer ranges in price from ($1.50 to $4.50 at the most expensive place). A cocktail is typically ($2-$5). No worse than a dive bar in the states—except that teachers only pull in about $200 a week.

You feel the pinch more at the clubs. There are several and they are decidedly mixed affairs. Take 1 + 1, for example. The place has at least three sections; a crowed dance floor surrounded by tables and recessed rooms full of couches where you can be waited on in style. Down on the dance floor, a press of men dance, dry ice is pumped out in clouds, more exhibitionist sorts dance up on elevated blocks, and pity be to any girl who enters the dance floor not expecting to be pressed up on immediately by a half dozen Chinese guys. Especially on this floor, you see groups of men, tables covered with beer bottles and, scattered here and there, drunken People Liberation Army (PLA) officers.

More sane is the upper dance floor which, for whatever reason, is calmer. The dance floor is smaller and girls are able to dance as they please without fear of groping. This is where the foreigners seem to congregate—Saudis, Pakistanis, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Dutch on vacation, students from assorted African countries.

(And if neither of these are not your cup of tea either, there’s a lounge area where you can sit and revel privately in your wealth. Again, I suspect this is for the truly well-heeled, those still suffering from a degree of status anxiety would be out on sight, displaying their money.)

Now, all of these places have a dark side—anywhere in the business of getting people drunk does. The Bell Tower hostel will have bottle-breaking fights between furious lesbian lovers and I have witnessed two occasions of a Chinese guy feigning to choke his girl friend at 1 + 1. Outside these places one can expect to see angry arguments, many of which are uncomfortable to watch as an American. China is one of those countries where women (not all, but these is great truth to the following generalization) expect their boyfriends to show an aggressive, frightening level of jealously and where, to do otherwise, would be considered a sign of gross indifference. The result is these mutual, public screaming fits.

And yet, for all this violence and seediness, all these places in combination have a narcotic effect. To move from one beat-pulsated bar to another is to feel as if the everyday world has been stripped away to reveal something more subterranean and magical. To know, sitting around on a given night, that people are out somewhere dancing and living it up, that there is this well of vital energy out there which you can step into if the urge strikes, is a powerful knowledge indeed.

This is the danger of travel in miniature: Knowing there is so much more out there than you can take in with your senses at one time; knowing that so much is happening at once, and knowing that you must choose between it all.

How does one keep himself down on the farm after he’s seen Xi’an?

Photos: Xi'an, Second Month

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