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Changting Page 3

Hakka Cuisine & "Drinking Culture"
(Click Thumbnails for larger images)
Click for Changting Page 1 Intro to "Little Red Shanghai"
Click for Changting Page 2 (Hakka Museum, Old Town, Hakka Maids, etc)
Click for Changting Page 4 (Changting--Lil' Red Religious Center)
Click for Changting Page 5 (Hakka Hamlet of Tufang)
Click for Changting Photo Album by Photographer "Babushka" (Great Photos of Hakka Festivals!)

“China’s two most beautiful small cities are Fenghuang in Hunan, and Changting in Fujian.” Rewi Alley

I marvel at the variety of foods and fruits available today even in mountain towns. Only sixty years ago, thousands starved to death on the very streets of Shanghai and Canton, not to mention in the remote mountain villages. But in 1993, China received the World Food Prize! Robert McNamara, former World Bank President and U.S. Secretary of Defense, said China’s agricultural gains were “something of a miracle, a human development miracle, that has gone largely unnoticed in the West.”

It sure hasn’t gone unnoticed in Changting restaurants!

Changting Hakka Cuisine I was excited about sampling Changting nationally acclaimed dishes, but first we had to sort out the thorny issue of seating.

Napkins are folded in arrangements of various heights, and the rankest person present sits at the highest napkin. But my hosts considerately asked, “Where do guests of honor sit in America?”

“I’ve no idea,” I said. “I’ve never had one.” Then I added, poker-faced , “I prefer my back to the wall, facing the door. It’s safer.”
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After a discreet discussion one man ventured, “You’re joking, aren’t you?” In the end they did seat me with my back to the wall. But it wasn’t the first time I’ve had my back to the wall , in China or elsewhere.

Cold appetizers included paper thin roast beef with red peppers, disconsolate dried minnows, flat squares of dried tofu, salted peanuts, pickled cucumber slices, delicious xiao long bao (miniature, steamed Chinese buns stuffed with meat and veggies—小龙包), and strips of pickled green seaweed that resembled leaves from a stewed plastic Christmas tree. I lifted a stalk of celery above my head and announced, “Just what I’ve always wanted!”
“What?” my naive victims asked in unison.
“A higher celery.”
Dead silence. So I skipped the ‘working for peanuts ’ encore, but filed away both for future use on unwary foreign devils.

Red Army Cola and Carp An elegantly steamed grass carp was placed on the table so that its eyes stared straight at me, accusingly. This was an ominous move. Chinese do nothing, at the table or elsewhere, without a reason sanctified by 5,014 years of precedence. Sure enough, I was informed that as guest I was given the honor of eating the head. “18 different flavors in the head!” they said. “Gills, cheeks, lips, brains, eyes…But no one can eat until the guest of honor proposes a toast.” I averted my eyes from the dead fish’s glare, and carped, “I don’t drink!”
“Just one glass! You must, or we can’t eat!”
“What is this?” I asked.
“Red Army Cola!” (红军可乐, Hongjun Kele),” said the mayor. “In the 1920s, soldiers had nothing else—but it made them strong! ‘Red Army Cola’ fortified the 90,000 men and women who undertook the 10,000 km Long March from Changting to Shaanxi Province.”
“Yeah, but most of them perished anyway! Besides, I’m driving back to Xiamen, not marching.”
“But we can’t eat until the guest drinks,” he protested. “Local custom!”

Well, when in Rome. One small sip for man, one giant drink for mankind. Deng deng. I sniffed the yellowish liquid and closed my eyes. A hearty cheer arose as I downed the glass in one swallow, and ten pairs of chopsticks disemboweled the glum carp’s corpse.
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Fowl Play The fishy entrée was followed by Changting’s #1 specialty, the exquisite He Tian Chicken (河田鸡). “It’s one of China’s five most famous chickens!” I was told. “How does it taste?”

“Like snake,” I said. They looked surprised so I said, “Or frog, maybe?”

Truth be told, Hetian chicken is incredible—especially the Salt & Wine He Tian Chicken (盐酒鸡, Yanjiu Ji), served with a savory rice vaguely reminiscent of Nepalese Basmati rice. Since then I’ve ordered the dish in other restaurants around Fujian and been disappointed. I may revisit Changting just for another fowl meal.

Taboo Beef Many Hakka don’t eat beef because they think it is poor form to eat the beast that has toiled for years alongside other family members. I heartily agree, and hope the MBA Center doesn’t serve me on a plate at retirement. But my host wasn’t a farmer, so with cannibalistic relish we devoured Red Braised Beef (红烧牛肉) so tender it fell apart in my chopsticks. The cow was followed up by one of Chairman Mao’s favorite Changting dishes: pork ‘n pickles. Then we dipped delicate potato cakes into bowls of what tasted like Red Army Cola. These were followed by a dazzling selection of noodles, chicken soup, BBQ beef with cilantro, bitter melon and beef soup, red-braised pig’s feet, eel soup, goat with mushrooms, scallions and white rice, tiny slivers of bamboo shoots pickled with sinus searing red peppers, braised tofu with pork strips and green onions, slivers of carrot in a sweet brown sauce, eggplant, mushroom and fish soup, braised pork ribs, and an awesome pork ball soup with strips of transparent pasta made from sweet potato powder.

Wealthy Japanese (and Chinese as well) sometimes disparage sweet potatoes as a ‘peasant staple,’ but these tasty tubers are incredibly versatile. And nothing beats the aroma or taste of yams that street side vendors bake in steel drums and hawk for a few mao apiece. Try one!

Many of Changting’s vegetables were ‘green,’ like the natural veggies in Changtai. They well complemented the wild mountain duck and black fungus. But my eyes were bigger than my stomach and I was relieved when the waitress played the finale—a bowl of sliced apples, bananas and pineapple, artfully arranged to resemble a fish. There is no end to Chinese’ culinary ingenuity. Or any other ingenuity, for that matter.
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Singing like a Canary for Supper During dinner my hosts interrogated me with Chinese standbys like, “Do Americans play Mahjong?”
“No, they play Monopoly, chess, and Scrabble,” I said.
“Is English hard for American children to learn?”
“Only in Tennessee,” I said.
“Is it hot or cold in America?”
“It depends if you’re eating Italian food or Mexican.”
Then my host hit me with, “Do Americans still study Chairman Mao?”

That was a toughy. Like Americans, Chinese are loathe to joke about religion or politics, and this was a bit of both. “Not as much nowadays,” I confessed.
My questioner opined, “That’s because Chairman Mao didn’t spend as much time abroad as Deng Xiao Ping. Do you admire Deng Xiao Ping?”
“Yes, of course! Deng was a great man. His reforms saved China.”

And in all seriousness, I do believe Deng Xiao Ping was a great man. But his passing helped impress upon me just how difficult it must be to govern such a vast nation. The day after Deng died I asked an illiterate peasant what she thought of the great man. I’ll never forget her answer. “Oh, wasn’t he the short man?”

Dry Glass and Dice After we’d finished off the fishy fruit our waitress produced a small porcelain bowl, four dice, and a pitcher of Red Army Cola. My heart sank all the way to my stomach, which was so stuffed it looked as if I were six months with child.

While Chinese food goes straight to my heart, I could survive without the inevitable dozens of toasts. “Ganbei!” “Dry glass!” Liquor capacity seems synonymous with manhood and even success. An MBA student said his CEO explained his chronic drunkenness with, “Any business problem can be solved with enough liquor at dinner.”

My host said, “Local custom requires banquets end with a drinking game—the guest against every member at the table. The guest can choose high or low, and if he wins, the other must drink. If he throws a “13” he drinks. If the dice fall out of the bowl, he drinks.”
“But I don’t drink!” I protested.
“It would insult us, highly, if you refused.”
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Red Army Cola has little alcohol, but even cough syrup gives me a hangover. In the end I gave in and rolled the bones —and won a dozen throws in a row! I sat straight and proud as my nine opponents applauded my ‘skill.’ And then I threw a “13” three times out of seven, and lost ten times in a row. Pride goes before a fall.

Fortunately, Chinese nowadays accept that not all barbarians are drunkards, and during ensuing days I was not pressed to drink another drop. Hiccup.

Buddhists and Taoists at the Same Table It’s ironic that Little Red Shanghai is also a Little Red Religious Center. Changting hosts at least a dozen religions—everything from Buddhism, Confucianism, Catholicism, Taoism, and Protestantism to Mazu worship, animism, Hakka Mother worship, and the State Sports Lottery. One Changting mountain has a Buddhist temple on the bottom and Taoists on the top. Babushka exclaimed, “Rare indeed when both Buddhists and Taoists eat from the same plate!”.....

Click for Changting Page 4 (Changting--Lil' Red Religious Center)

P.S. Don’t miss these great Changting Sites!

Source of the Ting River

Ancient Well (老古井Laogu Jing)
Changting’s oldest well, considered a miracle because it never dries up, whatever the conditions. On top of that, while Mao ZeDong lived in Changting, every morning he used the well to wash his face, brush his teeth, and clean his clothes (not necessarily in that order). And to make the well healthier, he brought in a well specialist, which I thought was a well-meaning gesture.
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Tingzhou Hakka Research Institute (中国汀洲客家研究中心 Zhongguo Tingzhou Kejia Yanjiu Zhongxin)

Tingzhou Ancient City Wall (汀洲古城墙Tingzhou Gucheng Qiang)
Tang Dynasty, at least 1200 years old.

Dragon Hill against White Clouds (龙山白云—Longshan Baiyun) – the Jin Sha Temple.

Zhongshan Park and the Qiu Bai Pavilion (秋白亭 Qiubai Ting).
Every two-ox town in China has a Zhongshan Park (named after Sun Yat-sen, but called Lenin Park during the Soviet Chinese days). The Qiu Bai Pavilion is named after Qiu Bai, the young revolutionary martyr. To the rear of the Hakka Museum you can see where he was imprisoned, and where he was shot.

Hakka Girls. They’re everywhere. Please just take photos, not the girls.

Chaodou Rock’s Shuiyun Temple. The Buddha is said to have his back to tourists because he’s piqued that so few people repent and begin life anew.

Xiamen University’s Former Campus (厦门大学校本部旧址)

A Xiamen University professor told me China had 5000 years of history but that was 18 years ago, so now its 5018 years of history.

And 3 months.
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