This
past December was the second time I had flown into China. Like the first, a
young Chinese woman with long black hair, a smooth, pale complexion, and high
round cheeks waited for me, dimples showing as she smiled, bearing a sign in
her hands for “Gorski,” and speaking good English. It is good to be welcomed.
I
arrived in to the shiny, functional, attractive even, airport in Beijing. The school’s driver drove us away. The
new airport roads eventually spilled out into the streets, with their mix of
new and old, ancient and futuristic. Large Chinese lettering proclaimed this a
foreign land and demarcated businesses, many of them restaurants of one form or
another from little hole in the walls with a couple low tables and plastic stools
to large formal dining rooms with carved wooden chairs and many, many mid-range
places where the Chinese eat often, not to mention the portable carts and
stalls of street food. Of course you have to have money to eat. In all the
bustle of a quick departure and arrival I’d neglected to exchange dollars for
yuan. Hui, my greeter, lent me fifty bucks and I was set. Though you can’t
always get what you want (to eat) in a foreign land, sometimes you get what you
need (and it is often good).
It
was different some 20 years ago when I first flew into Asia, landing in Hong
Kong before its return to China, before the new airport. Then you landed, it
seemed, between buildings like through a tunnel, the glowing neon Chinese
characters jutting out from the buildings, hanging out over the streets of the
densest concentration of humans on the planet. I only transited then between
planes. I had my own young, pretty, fair complexioned Chinese women who also
spoke good English. We traveled then on the cheap, searching out a way into a
foreign land with plenty of time and vague destinations. Except when the
destination was a home that wasn’t her home anymore. But still we were
welcomed—with warm greetings, with food.
On
my first day in Beijing, after a couple easy hours of visa acquisition work, I
was taken to a long, lovely lunch. I walked on the sunny streets with the
American principal of the school, the director, a diminutive but influential
man, Mr. Xiang, as well as Hui, and Vanessa the visa go-between person, to a restaurant
a couple of blocks away. And this was a restaurant of the finer variety. We had
Peking duck, among other dishes that spun around the lazy susan on the round
table. The duck was crispy and succulent. You place small pieces of the duck in
a thin round wrapper with some hoisin sauce and thin strips of green onions.
The combination is divine and one of the signature dishes of Beijing.
The
hospitality continued in Yantai, my new home, a city on the ocean with big long
beaches and a wide seaside road and promenade. That hospitality included food.
After a half-day introduction to my school, it was off to another restaurant
with my fellow teacher and Chinese co-worker who picked me up from the airport
in Yantai (and fed me the night before). A splendid array of meat, seafood, and
vegetables (known and unknown) was displayed in a room next to the kitchen and
you picked what you wanted. At my school, alcohol is allowed on the company
paycheck and I ordered my first Tsing Tao of my stay in China. The meal was
served in a lovely sort of indoor garden.
Having
determined the restaurant was a good one, the next week we went back. This time
the evening included the Chinese staff and Mr. Xiang who was in town with his
lovely assistant, bringing old textbooks from Beijing. This evening we had a
private room with it’s own bar, dedicated wait staff, and bathroom. The round
table sat 15 of us. Seating is arranged. The principal and her husband were the
hosts. I sat to the left of the principal, the honored guest. It was my duty to
pick the drink of the night from the beer, wine, and brandy stacked up on the
bar. From what I choose, we would make toasts. I chose the French wine. A
bottle was placed on the table for me and for one of the young Chinese teachers
to consume together, and other drinking partners received their bottles. Food
began to arrive in stunning varieties of flavor and appearance.
Seafood
and meat, vegetables and broths made their appearances. A delicious pork dish
with a sweet brown sauce was delicious; their were scallops with egg and
scallions in a fragrant, clear broth, and a surprisingly subtle stringed celery
salad made from celery that was said to be watered with milk, topped by airy,
dried tiny shrimp. And the toasts continued and the drinking continued. I
offered one to the success of the school. Mr. Xiang’s aide, who sat by my side
and translated, was finally connived into drinking some wine. It was not a good
thing. She began speaking to me in Chinese and shortly exited the room.
A
week after that it was Christmas and New Year’s, happily celebrated by the
Chinese. We went to another restaurant. When I started taking notes, I was
offered a tour of the kitchen, which I passed on then, but might still take up,
since the restaurant owner is a high school friend of the principal.
I
have gotten to see a few Chinese kitchens. At the restaurant in Qufu, hometown
of Confucius, where the waitress just took us back to the small kitchen of woks
and steamers and butcher blocks to pick out some food. At the home apartment
home of a Chinese women/traveler/ex-restaurant owner who had a three-layer
electric steamer, a couple of big ol’ woks with a grill hood that pumped
straight out the window, and a big round butcher block cutting board with a
cleaver and a big jug of peanut oil nearby. Then there are the multiple little
hole-in-the wall places where you just peer back and get a view of the woks and
bowls of spices; and the food carts with a couple of items ready to serve at 5
in the morning before the train leaves. On the train, the helpful young Chinese
with their bit of English, always ready to make sure you know where to go and
have something to eat in case the meals that are wheeled down the narrow aisle
don’t do it.
The
Chinese kitchens got me thinking about my time in the big, wok-filled kitchen
at Jimmy Lee’s in the mid-90s when the place was rocking. I always liked making
the gigantic pre-dinner portions of fried rice. We got out this huge wok, a
couple feet across and I just got to go crazy with the biggest metal spatulas
we had, tossing yesterday’s rice and the other ingredients around by the shovel
full. There weren’t that many ingredients, so Jimmy let me make it on my own,
though I suppose he tasted it every once in awhile. After it was done, seasoned
right and the right shade of brown, it went into big stainless steel hotel pans
for dinner service.
Hospitality—the
Chinese teachers at my school say, “It is our duty.” The Chinese seem ready and
willing for the new world. Or is me? Open to the world and lucky to be born
where I was. New schools, teaching English, are popping up all over. The
students want to learn. New buildings upon buildings soar up with accompanying
cranes (I can see eight of them from my apartment) that spread across the skyline,
sometimes leaving unoccupied, partially completed apartment towers rising from
wide empty streets. Trees are planted, flat screen TVs are mounted, the ocean
waves roll in, English is taught, and food is served.
