Understanding a Culture through Food - Red Hot Pot

carrie105 — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 01:59:33 GMT

Chengdu is best known for being the home of the pandas. It’s also known as being home to some of the spiciest food in China. Wanting to sample the local cuisine I arrived at a hot-pot restaurant.
As soon as I walked through the door everyone looked at me – they’re not used to seeing foreigners in these local restaurants. I take my seat and try to make sense of the Mandarin menu. I’ve read a lot about Sichuan hot-pot so I have some idea of what to order. A spicy broth for the table and a selection of dumplings, meat and vegetables to cook in it, some fresh noodles to mop it up at the end and the obligatory bottle of Tsing Tao to wash it all down.
I am still attracting curious glances as the waiter brings over the pot of broth, sets it on the burner in the middle of the table and cranks up the heat. Within a few minutes steam is rising up off the broth and I can smell the chilli. With my untrained chopstick fingers I clumsily pick up a dumpling to place in the hot-pot. But then I freeze.
Something has slowly risen to the surface of the broth and is bobbing about amongst the chilli. A whole wrinkly chicken foot complete with claws. Everyone is still looking at me. Now this is a dilemma. Do I ignore it and carry on so as not to embarrass myself or do I remove the foot before cooking my meal? Much to the amusement of the rest of the restaurant, I plump for option A. I poke around with my chopsticks in the broth with as much grace as a penguin on stilts trying to remove the offending appendage. Finally a waiter jumps in and removes the claw for me. Everyone else is chuckling at me. Now it’s time to start cooking.
My selected method is to put one morsel at a time into the pot and let it cook. It is all a bit fondue. This method doesn’t work. I chuck the whole lot in. Now we’re cooking.
It’s the moment the whole restaurant has been waiting for. It is time for the first bite. I select a dumpling and place it in my mouth. Delicious. Spicy, meaty and piping hot.. and.. my mouth is burning.. on fire and burning.. the restaurant holds its breath. I empty half a bottle of Tsing Tao into my mouth and smile triumphantly.
Hot Pot is amazing, it is almost mouth blisteringly hot, but it’s delicious – in fact the unbearable heat is all part of the fun. It takes a good few more bottles of beer to get through my meal but by the end my asbestos tongue has earnt me the respect of the locals.

As I pay the bill, my mouth blistering, I can only think – ‘See you tomorrow evening!’

My Scholarship entry - Seeing the world through other eyes

carrie105 — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 02:28:25 GMT

‘I wanted to go to Afghanistan, to be on the front line, I’m nothing but a tour guide here.’

Hearing an American accent surprised me despite the US army outfit, after spending some time in South Korea I hadn’t encountered many fellow foreigners. Looking around the bleakly beautiful landscape of the Demilitarised Zone, the border that separates North and South Korea, I wasn’t quite sure how anyone wouldn’t consider this the frontline. The barbed wire fences and armed guard towers were enough to convince me.

I am greeted by the locals - a group of US army men whose humour and nonchalance couldn’t be any more at odds with the realities of their home. The sole sound the thump, thump, thump of a football being bounced off the wall. ‘Sign these forms, then if you die it isn’t out fault’, I am told. The soldiers have great banter between them. It must make their time here, not easy, but easier. A home with friends, just a very different kind of home.

I enter a huge and imposing cavernous building, filled with –nothing. Rooms built with the hopeful purpose of reuniting families from North and South, unused and lonely.

They are taking us to meet the neighbours, the North Korean army on the other side. They stand motionless across the borderline like silent statues. It’s a whole other World. Do they consider themselves tourist attractions like their US counterparts? Are they sick of ‘posing’ for photos? Looking at them it’s hard to imagine they feel anything.

The neighbours share blue wooden huts, used for peace talks. I’m taken inside and allowed to cross the official border into North Korea. There is a North Korean guard inside. He doesn’t smile.

As I exit I see that the North have their own equally imposing, cavernous building. I wonder if it is as empty. I begin to wonder a lot of things about North Korea and its people. And, despite the warnings of danger from the army on our side, I find myself hoping to visit one day, to see this place again through their eyes.

The Front Line

Understanding a Culture through Food - Red Hot Pot

My Scholarship entry - Seeing the world through other eyes