Articles | Speaking of China

China’s Great Gastronomy Book Inspires Chef – Pub’d on China Daily

China Daily just published my column for the month titled China’s great gastronomy book inspires chef, which was actually inspired by my trip to Hangzhou in April for a video shoot. Here’s an excerpt from the piece:

In a banquet room with a view of the historic West Lake in Hangzhou, a chef revealed to me a source of inspiration as legendary as the scenery just beyond the windows: the celebrated poet and gourmet Yuan Mei who wrote Suiyuan Shidan (Recipes from the Garden of Contentment), the seminal manual of Chinese gastronomy published in 1792.

Suiyuan Shidan, which I had only discovered months before after reading the first English translation of the book, has long been hailed as the first great guide to Chinese cuisine. No other work before it had ever gathered together such a comprehensive selection of recipes and information on Chinese cookery, all filtered through the discerning eye and palate of Yuan Mei, a man born in Hangzhou whose exceptional standards for food and dining earned him distinction as one of the finest gastronomes in Chinese history.

This has made the work invaluable to many chefs, despite the fact that the vast majority of the recipes are more rough sketches or descriptions of dishes that novices might struggle to replicate. After all, Yuan Mei, a member of the literati class, had probably never entered the kitchen, instead dispatching his cooks to learn the recipes that he later recorded. So as experts in the art of preparing food, chefs can glean more insight from this esteemed culinary Bible, turning to its pages to refine their talents as well as their offerings on the table.

Chef Fang at the Hangzhou Restaurant, an eatery that has served up authentic Hangzhou-style food since 1921, stands as one such example.

You can read the full column here, where you can also hear me read a recording of it. And if you like it, share it!

P.S.: If you would like to learn more about the first English translation of this book, see my post ‘Recipes From the Garden of Contentment’ (随园食单): 1st English Translation of Seminal Guide to Chinese Gastronomy.

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How China’s ‘Butterfly Lovers’ Fluttered Into My Heart – and Mobile Phone

This year marks the 60^th anniversary of the beloved Chinese concerto Butterfly Lovers, a composition inspired by the Yue Opera Liang Zhu, often thought of as China’s Romeo and Juliet story, where the world also conspires to separate a couple, with tragic results.

Despite the bittersweet nature of the opera, the concerto Butterfly Lovers soars with such a grandiose, joyful melody that I embraced it after coming to live China – so much so that I later set it as the ringtone on my mobile phone.

The story, which has its roots in Zhejiang province, resonated even more with me when I resided in its capital city of Hangzhou and found myself falling in love with one of its citizens – Jun, the man who would become my future husband.

Guess how I knew he had a thing for me? One day I happened to stroll into his side of the office, and discovered that he happened to set the very same ringtone – Butterfly Lovers – on his own mobile phone. This subtle flirtation, along with so many other sweet gestures from Jun, helped him flutter straight into my own heart. We kept the ringtones unchanged on our mobile phones for a very, very long time too.

In a way, it’s funny that we both saw the Butterfly Lovers as a kind of reflection of a relationship, given the fact that things don’t entirely end well for the couple. Still, what inspired us with the undying devotion the two had for one another – so powerful that the two transformed into butterflies, which allowed them to spend the rest of their days together. There’s something beautiful about a love that transcends even a human existence.

And it’s even more beautiful when you can share that with the person you care most for in the world, in a gorgeous melody.

Have you ever heard the Butterfly Lovers before? Do you consider it a romantic composition?

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Food Is the Language of Love in My Mother-in-Law’s Kitchen

Tiny potatoes from my mother-in-law’s garden still litter the floor in the corner of our kitchen, ready to serve up their starchy delights in several more meals. Slices of crispy fried shaobing, my mother-in-law’s specialty flatbread, and heaping bags of the local smoked tofu from her village still cram the shelves of our freezer. We’ve barely dug into the jar of my mother-in-law’s mouthwatering homemade pickled kale, which perks up just about every stir-fried and stewed dish you could imagine, and we still have two more we haven’t even opened yet. And in the third drawer down next to the sink, bundles of rice noodles from my mother-in-law’s pantry have fed us for weeks already.

Whenever I gaze upon this abundance of flavors and foods for our next lunch or dinner, it reminds me of my mother-in-law and her boundless love for us, most often translated through treasures from her kitchen.

Like most Chinese parents, she would never say “I love you”, a phrase constantly showered upon me during my childhood. But over the years, I’ve found it in flavors of her lovingly prepared dishes, as well as in the items from her kitchen, pantry and garden that she always urges us to take home, with a forcefulness no less potent than any verbal declaration of affection.

Food has become a delicious means to bind us closer together, across cultures and continents. One of my favorite things to talk to my mother-in-law about is her home recipes, which I’ve come to miss since moving to Beijing. Sometimes we’ll call her on the phone, where I’ll ask her how to prepare potato cakes, a tempting stir-fry that turns these root vegetables into buttery cake-like morsels tossed with hot peppers and garlic. Or inquire about how much of the pickled kale I should use to make her classic tofu with pickled vegetables, a mouthwatering take on bean curd that transports me right back to her kitchen in the village.

Whenever she lovingly repeats every step with care and concern, making sure I understand her techniques, and patiently answers my questions, I know what she’s really saying to me. And it warms my heart, even long after we’ve said goodbye.

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The Rural Zhejiang Bird-Watching Club: Finding Unlikely Avian Wonders in My Husband’s Village – Pub’d on WWAM BAM

The group blog WWAM BAM just published my latest post, The Rural Zhejiang Bird-Watching Club: Finding Unlikely Avian Wonders in My Husband’s Village. Here’s an excerpt:

Years ago, when my husband Jun and I spent some transitional months living in his family’s home in rural Zhejiang province, I once joked that we had inadvertently formed a bird-watching club in the process.

We hadn’t intended to turn a gaze to our avian friends in the vicinity during our transition. But every day when we ventured out for a late afternoon walk through the fields and woodlands in the village, sightings of birds became one of the most delightful surprises during that time, one that introduced me to biodiversity I had never noticed before in previous visits.

A walk beside the meandering stream that cut through the village yielded a most magnificent sighting – the dipper. My heart leapt with excitement the moment I fixed upon that bird, because I knew exactly how special it was. Dippers, which live among fast-moving streams, can “fly” underwater, but are also equally adept when winging through the air. In the US, I had only encountered this bird a few precious times during hikes in national parks out west, cherishing every glimpse like a rare stone on the trail. But here we were, only a 10-minute walk from the door of Jun’s family home, watching a dipper flit along the stream. I felt as if I had just won some kind of bird-watching lottery. Even better, we had the opportunity to see it bobbing up and down while perched on rocks, as if performing a brief but amusing dance for anyone who cared to look.

As I began to turn my eyes toward the avian life around us, I found myself continually rewarded with incredible views, including those of bird varieties I rarely had the opportunity to spot back in Ohio, USA, where I had grown up.

Head on over to WWAM BAM to read the full post. And if you like it, share it!

P.S.: The bird in the featured image is a dipper!

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Love at First Bite: Yangmei Is a Delicious Taste of Summer Fun – Pub’d on China Daily

China Daily just recently published my latest column, Love at first bite: Yangmei is a delicious taste of summer fun. Here’s an excerpt:

Never mind the harsh humidity, the relentless sunshine or anyone complaining of unbearably hot summers in China. Who has time to worry about that in June, a month that, for me, is inextricably entwined with the arrival of what I consider the country’s most enchanting fruit－yangmei, also known as the waxberry or Chinese bayberry.

This uniquely summer indulgence grows primarily in China, with much of the fruit produced in my husband Jun’s home province of Zhejiang. If you’ve never tried the juicy goodness of yangmei, imagine a mouthwatering, sweet-tart mix of pomegranate, strawberry and cranberry flavors, packed together into a cherry-sized sphere with a curiously bumpy surface and, when fully ripe, the deep burgundy color of a fine red wine. It’s a little piece of ecstasy that will dance across your taste buds and probably dribble onto the table or your summer clothes. But you won’t even care about the mess because it tastes so amazing.

Yangmei, which has been used in traditional Chinese remedies for more than 2,000 years, also has high medicinal value. The first time a Chinese friend brought a bag of the fruit to my apartment, she told me, “Yangmei saves your life,” a popular saying I would come to hear echoed by many others, including my father-in-law. Studies have shown that yangmei provides a rich source of antioxidants such as vitamin C, and may be useful for tackling inflammation, diarrhea, intestinal ailments, cancer and even diabetes. It’s no wonder people have dubbed it a superfruit.

No matter your reasons for eating yangmei, chances are you might end up just like me－in love at first bite. Consuming the fruit is now a yearly ritual for me and my husband, and every mouthful brings with it sweet memories of summer days.

You can read the full column here. And if you like it, share it!

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The Joys of a Bilingual Relationship – Pub’d on WWAM BAM

It’s been busy in the past week — and as I’m getting caught up on things, I thought I’d point you to a piece I recently penned for the group blog WWAM BAM called The Joys of a Bilingual Relationship. Here’s an excerpt:

You could argue that English and Chinese – translations that is – brought me and my husband Jun together.

We met as colleagues in an internet company in China, where he translated company introductions from Chinese to English and I polished the language. And while our initial interactions happened over work-related tasks, soon we found ourselves collaborating on translations just for fun, such as a set of quizzes I developed in English and Chinese.

Not long after that, our partnership turned romantic – and that love, in both languages, has continued to this day.

Before I met Jun, all of my other relationships with Chinese men had remained grounded in English or Chinese, but not both. With Jun, however, I loved having the freedom to express myself in two languages, as well as the comfort of knowing that, when I needed to speak from the heart in my native tongue, he would understand.

Being able to share our lives, thoughts and ideas in two different languages has only strengthened our relationship. Many years ago, I wrote that “the couple that wordplays together, stays together,” something I still stand by to this day.

Read the full piece at WWAM BAM — and if you like it, share it!

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Celebrating 10 Years of Blogging With 10 Photos

Ten years of blogging. I can’t believe that, as of this Saturday, I will have been at this for a decade, ever since May 18, 2009.

To mark this special 10-year “blog-iversary” I’m running 10 photos of me and my husband from the past decade, along with a popular post from the end of each of these past 10 years.

Thank you so much to all the readers out there, no matter how long you’ve followed Speaking of China. You’ve continually inspired me and also helped make this a better blog. I’m also deeply grateful to have made so many wonderful friends in the process too. Know that I’m raising my glass to everyone in appreciation!

2009

When Jun and I went to China for the summer of 2009, we indulged in a month-long trip across the country to take in all of the sights we never visited years before — from Xi’an and Chengdu to Changsha and Kaifeng.

Post: On the Rarity of Foreign Women and Chinese Boyfriends/Chinese Husbands

2010

Jun and I welcomed the year of the tiger in 2010 as the emcees of a Chinese New Year celebration. What a night!

Post: China Blogs by Western Women who Love Chinese Men

2011

Here we are in 2011 celebrating Jun’s birthday over Thai curries.

Post: Dating Advice for Chinese Men from J.T. Tran, the Asian Playboy

2012

To commemorate our wedding anniversary in 2012, we enjoyed a relaxing evening of classical music performed by the Cleveland Orchestra. But before heading out, we posed before the flower garden to remember the evening.

Post: 2012 Blogs By Western Women Who Love Chinese Men

2013

For Chinese New Year in 2013, Jun and I whipped up a traditional Chinese feast for the family — from roast goose and ribs to ginger-garlic green beans and stir-fried matchstick potatoes. We’re smiling, but there’s exhaustion behind those eyes because we spent the entire morning in the kitchen! Still, it was worth the effort.

Post: Why Aren’t We Talking More About The Rarity of AMWF?

2014

There’s nothing like finally spending Chinese New Year at the family home in China for the first time in years. In 2014, Jun and I reunited with his family and the country we love.

Post: 6 Stunning Celebrity Couples of Asian Men & Non-Asian Women

2015

On my birthday in 2015, Jun and I visited the West Lake, snapping this photo by our beloved corner of the lake near Qu Yuan Feng He (曲院风荷).

Post: 4 Habits I’ve Learned from my Chinese Husband

2016

Jun and I felt fortunate to have the opportunity to visit Washington DC with family in the summer of 2016, where we had the chance to look upon all the iconic landmarks.

Post: 5 Unhappy Things I’ve Struggled with as an Expat Married to a Foreigner

2017

Jun and I took this shot just after moving from Hangzhou to Beijing.

Post: 2017 Blogs by Western Women Who Love Chinese Men

2018

As spring arrived in the park near our home in Beijing, Jun and I took the time to take a walk and appreciate the flowers.

Post: Olympic Speedskater Shaolin Sandor Liu Has a Cool China Connection Beyond His Chinese Father

Thank you so much for reading!

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Every Grain of Rice Reflects Virtue of Hard Labor Along Life’s Path – Pub’d on China Daily

Earlier this week, China Daily published my latest column, Every grain of rice reflects virtue of hard labor along life’s path. Here’s an excerpt:

One evening in May, while spending a summer break at my in-laws’ home in their village in Zhejiang province, I returned from a walk to discover a dusty brown water ox tied to a tree just outside the gate of the house.

It stood perfectly parallel to the road, much like a parked vehicle, apart from grazing on the grass at its hooves, and eyeing me with a stony gaze that suggested I best keep my distance.

The ox signaled to me, long before I entered the house, that we would be having dinner that evening with a distant relative long appointed as my husband’s godfather, a man I simply referred to as “uncle”.

A tiger in the Chinese zodiac, this uncle had often joked of how much he embodied the sign, calling himself “fierce”.

You could believe it, given his thunderous voice, which even the ox minded, his ability to move beehives and the fact that he made a living slaughtering livestock. Some dubbed him the finest butcher in town.

Upon settling onto my stool at the table, I soon learned why the uncle had brought along his bovine companion. He had spent the afternoon leading the ox, pulling a plow, through my in-laws’ square plot of land in the terraced fields, to prepare for growing rice.

This uncle never shied away from grueling tasks, such as working the rice fields, and his face bore witness to this “fierce” side of him, weathered and tanned from years of labor outdoors in all sorts of conditions.

Watching him and the ox trundle through the sunny fields, as I did later on, proved fascinating.

Enjoy the full piece here — and if you like it, share it!

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Photo Essay: Hangzhou Video Shoot – From West Lake to Wondrous Food

I just returned from my trip to Hangzhou to shoot video footage for China Daily Website as well as the Asian Cuisine Festival set to take place in the city from May 15 to 22. While we followed a very demanding schedule that meant being out of our hotel around 12 hours a day for shoots, the experience was unforgettable and worth the effort.

As I’m still catching up on pretty much everything (please bear with me!), in lieu of a written post I thought I’d share some behind-the-scenes shots from the experience, giving you a look at where we went as well as what things looked like before the cameras.

On our first day, we arrived in the afternoon at Hangzhou and the headed to the West Lake, where the production team scoped out the area for shooting.

The following day, we went to Hangzhou’s legendary restaurant Lou Wai Lou on Baidi. Part of the shoot took us to the top floor, where I sat at an al fresco table with views of the West Lake. It probably ranks as the most breathtaking seating I’ve ever experienced in a restaurant — if only I could have enjoyed it with my husband!

And of course, as you can probably tell, most of the dishes aren’t even food that I could eat, as a vegan. We had to get really creative in the shooting process, so it appeared as if I was sampling everything. Am really grateful the production team was so accommodating on this.

But make no mistake, as beautiful as the setting looked, we had work to accomplish. And that kept me quite occupied!

But still had enough time to grab this selfie with one of the team members!

Still, we did manage to enjoy a delightful lunch at Lou Wai Lou — and our director gave the food a hearty thumbs-up.

In the afternoon, we went to Zhiweiguan, another time-honored restaurant in Hangzhou, to do a shoot. It was delightful to meet several of their chefs, including these very talented young women.

Zhiweiguan really impressed me with their snacks and desserts, including the dish at the very bottom of the photo — longjing wencha — where dough is fashioned to look like the leaves of Dragonwell tea, steamed, and then served in a clear broth with shrimp. If you didn’t pay close attention, you might think they were just cups of green tea!

On Thursday, we visited a food street and found ourselves in a restaurant overlooking a stream leading into the Grand Canal, which links Hangzhou and Beijing. It meant more food, and of course more shooting too.

Here’s another angle during a shot in the restaurant.

In the afternoon, we shot scenes by the West Lake in my favorite corner — Qu Yuan Feng He (曲院风荷) — as well as one critical shot on Su Causeway, with a view of Lou Wai Lou on Bai Causeway.

We returned that evening to the food street to revel in the evening atmosphere, perfect for the video, and dined at one of the restaurants on the strip. Yes, even during the meal we were working!

On Friday, we did shooting at Hangzhou Restaurant, which took us to its sixth floor, where we could dine beside stunning views of the West Lake while shooting video footage. Oh, how I wish I could have been there with my husband too!

On the sixth floor of Hangzhou Restaurant, the windows are like screens — and pulled back they reveal a glorious scene of the West Lake. (Sorry, it was a bit rainy and cloudy, but during clear weather it would certainly look enchanting.)

In the afternoon, we arrived at our last location — Charen Cun, nestled in the most prized tea fields in the city, where Lion’s Peak Dragonwell tea grows. This restaurant had the most dazzling traditional decor, hands down!

Immediately, the restaurant served up a hot cup of fine Dragonwell tea. As this is the one and only tea I drink to start my day, it was a welcome sight on the table.

Upstairs, I changed into my qipao to interview the restaurant owner about Dragonwell tea as well as the story behind his restaurant, Charen Cun. It was my favorite interview of all because of how much I adore Dragonwell tea.

Then the owner took me into the tea fields to show me how to pick Dragonwell tea. What a delight and honor! I wished I could have stayed much longer…too bad the weather turned cold, otherwise I could have kept my qipao on! 😉

That evening, we dined with the owner and it proved the finest meal of our trip, with a delicious sampling of dishes that emphasized freshness and rural, home-style flavor. Some even reminded me of my mother-in-law’s cooking.

Again, how I wish I could have shared this dinner with my husband, who would have really appreciated the food and company. The owner was very warm and hospitable, inviting us all to return again in the future.

But even the finest meals come to an end. I had a plane to catch later that evening, so we all headed home to the hotel, where I packed my things and then got a taxi to the airport.

I smiled upon finding my seat on the plane, knowing I would be reunited soon with my husband, with tales of my fascinating experiences in Hangzhou, the city that first brought us together so many years ago.

Overall, I gained some valuable experience and at the same time discovered another side to Hangzhou and its culinary heritage. I’m looking forward to seeing how the videos turn out — and once they go live, I’ll definitely share them with all of you!

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Heading to Hangzhou to Shoot Videos for China Daily Website

I’ve lived in Hangzhou for years, and it’s the home region of my husband. So what a thrill to have the opportunity to return there to shoot videos about one of the greatest attractions of the city — its distinctive cuisine.

We’ll be in Hangzhou through the rest of the week, and possibly into the weekend.

And we aim to sample more than just the flavors at the table, with plans to visit the West Lake as well.

Because of the intense schedule for this trip, I’m taking a break from blogging this week. I’ll be back next week — and will let you know when the videos finally get published on China Daily.

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