What follows is a randomly assorted collection of my observations and experiences in China over the past week or so. The most important topic of interest is my troubled search for THE ROSE MOONCAKE.
Now, in China over the Autumn festival, the Chinese like to eat something called a moon cake. This looks like the pork pies sold in England, but the filling inside is usually sweet. There's date filling, walnut filling, and many others that I have no idea about. The fun part is that since there is no English description on the packaging, buying a mooncake is like playing Russian Roulette. Usually it's a pleasant surprise but sometimes.... sometimes things turn nasty.
Take for example last week, (Oh by the way, since these mooncakes are heavily stuffed with filling there is actually only a thin layer of pastry so I am putting on hold my no-wheat rule for now. At least until I find THE ROSE MOONCAKE). Last week I made my way to the bakery next to the school I work at. I picked up the first mooncake that called my name, went to pay for it then walked out. I unwrapped it like a crazed fiend as I walked back to the school, then took a nice big bite. Mmmm, dates. Bite number two however was not so pleasant. The sweetness of the dates was harshly juxtaposed by the saltiness of the egg yolk that they had decided to insert into this said mooncake. I can't handle a lot of salt in my diet so it wasn't to my liking, but many Chinese people I have talked to (by many I mean two) have said that that is there favourite mooncake. Each to their own I say.
So back to the subject of THE ROSE MOONCAKE. If you walk through the streets of Jinan you see pink posters everywhere with a mooncake that has been split in half and inside you can see a pink filling. The entire poster is adorned with rose petals and you can even read the words 'ROSE MOONCAKE' in English (quite a rare phenomenon to see English writing here). So, since these posters are EVERYWHERE I thought it wouldn't be problem for me to locate a rose mooncake. How naive I was.
In every bakery I go to I get the same fervent head shaking and the same 'No Rose', reply. Why then, why are there FREAKING POSTERS EVERYWHERE THAT ENTICE THE EASILY ENTICED PASSER-BY????? I will find it one day.
Actually, I thought today I had found it. I went into a big supermarket and they had a selection of mooncakes. What was even better was that they had displayed the fillings of each type, so you didn't need to russian roulette it. I saw a filling that I thought was pink, that I hoped was rose, so I bought it. But, alas. It was not rose. Instead I'm pretty sure it was beetroot and that my eyes had been duped by the dim supermarket lighting, into thinking that the purple filling was pink.
In other news, yesterday I finished my first gruelling weekend shift at work. I worked from 8 in the morning to 8pm on Saturday and until 5.30pm on Sunday. I decided to treat myself to a take away, instead of cooking for myself. I went to a chain restaurant that I've been to a few times, but this time I tried something new. It looked like jellyfish, or some other transparent creature, but I figured it must just be pasta. Eating it though was a very similar experience to what I imagine eating snot would be like (I forgot the word for snot, I was going to go for nose discharge??).
Ah yes, and I finally got onto the uncensored web. There's a website called Astrill that gives you an ISP number from anywhere in the World (right now I'm using Los Angeles because they recommend using a server closest to where you are). This means I can now go on all the websites I thought I'd have to live without... youtube, facebook, my blog....
Now, in China over the Autumn festival, the Chinese like to eat something called a moon cake. This looks like the pork pies sold in England, but the filling inside is usually sweet. There's date filling, walnut filling, and many others that I have no idea about. The fun part is that since there is no English description on the packaging, buying a mooncake is like playing Russian Roulette. Usually it's a pleasant surprise but sometimes.... sometimes things turn nasty.
Take for example last week, (Oh by the way, since these mooncakes are heavily stuffed with filling there is actually only a thin layer of pastry so I am putting on hold my no-wheat rule for now. At least until I find THE ROSE MOONCAKE). Last week I made my way to the bakery next to the school I work at. I picked up the first mooncake that called my name, went to pay for it then walked out. I unwrapped it like a crazed fiend as I walked back to the school, then took a nice big bite. Mmmm, dates. Bite number two however was not so pleasant. The sweetness of the dates was harshly juxtaposed by the saltiness of the egg yolk that they had decided to insert into this said mooncake. I can't handle a lot of salt in my diet so it wasn't to my liking, but many Chinese people I have talked to (by many I mean two) have said that that is there favourite mooncake. Each to their own I say.
So back to the subject of THE ROSE MOONCAKE. If you walk through the streets of Jinan you see pink posters everywhere with a mooncake that has been split in half and inside you can see a pink filling. The entire poster is adorned with rose petals and you can even read the words 'ROSE MOONCAKE' in English (quite a rare phenomenon to see English writing here). So, since these posters are EVERYWHERE I thought it wouldn't be problem for me to locate a rose mooncake. How naive I was.
In every bakery I go to I get the same fervent head shaking and the same 'No Rose', reply. Why then, why are there FREAKING POSTERS EVERYWHERE THAT ENTICE THE EASILY ENTICED PASSER-BY????? I will find it one day.
Actually, I thought today I had found it. I went into a big supermarket and they had a selection of mooncakes. What was even better was that they had displayed the fillings of each type, so you didn't need to russian roulette it. I saw a filling that I thought was pink, that I hoped was rose, so I bought it. But, alas. It was not rose. Instead I'm pretty sure it was beetroot and that my eyes had been duped by the dim supermarket lighting, into thinking that the purple filling was pink.
In other news, yesterday I finished my first gruelling weekend shift at work. I worked from 8 in the morning to 8pm on Saturday and until 5.30pm on Sunday. I decided to treat myself to a take away, instead of cooking for myself. I went to a chain restaurant that I've been to a few times, but this time I tried something new. It looked like jellyfish, or some other transparent creature, but I figured it must just be pasta. Eating it though was a very similar experience to what I imagine eating snot would be like (I forgot the word for snot, I was going to go for nose discharge??).
Ah yes, and I finally got onto the uncensored web. There's a website called Astrill that gives you an ISP number from anywhere in the World (right now I'm using Los Angeles because they recommend using a server closest to where you are). This means I can now go on all the websites I thought I'd have to live without... youtube, facebook, my blog....
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