Of noodles, online shopping and movie stardom
Hi, this is Owen speaking and this is my podcast for Monday 5th January, 2015. I hope you all had a merry Christmas. And of course I wish you all the best for 2015. Christmas isn't a holiday in China but thankfully I got the day off. It's a little hard to get into the festive mood here. There are no Christmas lights, no Christmas trees and no pre-Christmas parties. My girlfriend and I did decorate our apartment a little, so at least it felt Christmassy in our home. Today, I'll be talking about the restaurants in Beijing, a day the Chinese call Singles' Day and an unusual encounter I had at a bar.
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One of the most important things in Chinese culture is food. They are very proud of their cuisine and rightly so because Chinese food in China is very, very good. Chinese people often ask foreigners: “Do you like Chinese food?” Now, even if you don't like it, my advice is to reply: “Yes, very much.” They might get offended otherwise. Also, once you have acknowledged [1] that Chinese food is extremely good, you earn the right to criticise everything else about China. Here in China many things revolve around eating. There is no real pub culture. When people go out with friends or colleagues it's always to restaurants. And Beijing is full of restaurants. Every regional Chinese cuisine is represented in Beijing. On every street you will find little family-run restaurants. Some just serving a few dishes, others with huge menus. So it's quite normal for people to eat in restaurants three times a day. Most restaurants are cheap and there are plenty of them. Almost everyone can afford to eat in restaurants. The cheap prices and the huge number of restaurants make eating out very convenient. When I was living in Beijing, I would often enjoy three cooked meals a day in three different restaurants. A quick breakfast on my way to work. Usually a bowl of rice porridge and maybe some steamed [2] dumplings. For lunch maybe rice with stir-fried vegetables and meat or big bread dumplings with different fillings or a bowl of fresh noodles in a soup. Oh, the noodles! Let me tell you about the noodles. They do say noodles are a Chinese invention after all. The best noodles are the hand-pulled noodles, which they make on the spot [3]. It is quite a spectacle to watch them make the noodles! They take a lump of dough which they pull between their hands to make one thick noodle. They then take the loose ends in one hand and pull it apart again. This doubles the length of the noodle. They repeat this over and over until they have one very long and very thin noodle. They perform this in front of you and it's quite a show. It also makes the noodles taste delicious. Now what about dinner? Dinner was always with friends, the more the better. The more people at a table the more dishes you can order. Restaurants in Beijing are very loud and jolly [4] and very messy. There aren't as many rules as in Europe. I was a little shocked at first, but I soon got used to it and in the end I loved it. When you've decided what you want to order you just shout “Fuwuyuan!” and the waiter or waitress will come running over to take your order. Once you have placed your order, the food starts arriving one dish at a time. Generally, people order a big variety of dishes. A couple of cold dishes, some vegetable and mushroom dishes, a tofu dish, a few meat dishes and a big bowl of soup. When they bring the food they place it all in the middle of the table and everybody shares everything. It's a great way to enjoy food and spend time with friends. My best memories of Beijing are the times I spent in restaurants, enjoying the fabulous food with big groups of friends. In the summer they love to have barbecues. I'll never forget the summer evenings, sitting outside, enjoying a barbecued leg of lamb. You sit at a big table outside with the barbecue set in the middle of it. They place a leg of lamb over it and everyone at the table has to keep turning it and cutting off the cooked pieces of meat. That with a cold beer on a hot summer night is Beijing.
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11th November is called Singles' Day in China. Originally it was chosen as a sort of anti-Valentine's Day. However, more recently it has become an important day for shopping. And when I say shopping I mean online shopping. The most popular website for online shopping in China is called Taobao. There are thousands and thousands of retailers on Taobao, from individuals selling one product to big companies selling many different products. For Singles' Day the majority of retailers on Taobao offer big discounts, sometimes up to 50%, so starting at midnight on 11th November the Chinese buy and buy and buy. This year, apparently more than 9 billion US dollars were spent on Taobao in just 24 hours! Then again it's quite an amazing website. You can find absolutely everything on it, from food, to clothes, to electronics. I have a friend who bought a live jellyfish on Taobao. Before Singles' Day I was looking at loudspeakers [5] on Taobao. The ones I would like for my living room are a bit pricey, so I was considering buying them on Singles' Day. However, there is one big problem with Taobao. This is China after all and the problem is that you can never be quite sure who to trust. The Chinese are famous for faking and copying things. They are masters at faking and copying everything. Most designer clothes and handbags are fake. Shoes, whisky, you can even buy fake eggs in China. So sometimes, on Taobao, when the price is too good to be true, you know it can't be real. But you also want to believe that you've found a really good deal. My Singles' Day ended with a different purchase. Instead of the loudspeakers I bought some coffee. And as far as I can tell it's real coffee. Thankfully!
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The other day I was sitting at a bar and a local middle-aged woman walked up to me and said: “You, you're the person I'm looking for!” She introduced herself as Lisa and told me that she was a casting agent. A casting agent is someone who looks for suitable people to act in movies. Now, I wasn't too surprised because I'd heard from other people that many Chinese films are produced in Yunnan and they often need foreigners to play minor parts or to be extras. So Lisa, who was delighted to have spotted [6] me, started telling me about a film set during the Second World War that they were making somewhere in Yunnan. For this movie they desperately needed a foreigner with a beard to play a British war correspondent. It seems to me that most movies in China, which are funded [7] by the state, are about the Japanese invasion during the Second World War. Anyway, Lisa quickly took some pictures of me on her phone and sent them to the producer. The producer immediately called her and asked: “How tall is he?” I told them that I'm almost 1 metre 80, to which he replied: “That's a little short but it should be ok.” The casting agent and I then briefly spoke about the filming schedule and pay. The filming was taking place on the Burmese border, which meant that they'd have to fly me there and back. I didn't really care about the pay. I just wanted to star in a movie. At some point, surprisingly late in our conversation, Lisa asked me: “Can you act?” And I confidently replied: “Absolutely!” The negotiations were going well, the casting agent even measured me so they could prepare my costume. But then disaster struck! An American walked into the bar. A very tall American with a beard. I could see the casting agent's eyes light up. Before I could say anything she'd turned her back on me. I wanted to say: “Hey, he's American, I'm British! You're looking for a British war correspondent, right? And besides, my beard is much fuller and more beautiful and authentic.” But it was too late. My height was the problem. They like tall foreigners.
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Well, that's it from me. Just a quick reminder that the podclub app is now available. You can listen to all the podcast on the app or on our website www.podclub.ch. My father, Gerry, will be back in two weeks. And I'll be back with my next podcast on 30th January. I'll be talking about the Spring Festival and my plans for the holiday. Until then I wish you all a great month. Bye!
Glossaire: Owen in China [1] acknowledged: admitted to be true
[2] steamed: cooked over boiling water
[3] on the spot: there and then
[4] jolly: full of life
[5] loudspeakers: where the sound comes out if you listen to the radio, for example
[6] spotted: seen, noticed
[7] funded: paid for
