Friday 05 October

The restaurant

The refrigerated food display cabinet

This evening I caught up with Xu Liang and his friend Ada (who were at the KTV night) and they offered to take me to a local restaurant (across the road from the college) which is one of their favourites.

It’s typical of many of the small local restaurants found everywhere here. There are only a few tables, seating around 24-30 people and no menus.

The refrigerated food display cabinet

Shrink-wrapped crockery

Instead of menus they have large refrigerated display cabinets in which their ingredients are on show. This is similar to the very first restaurant that I ate in with Ben and the driver on the way to Quzhou from Hangzhou airport.

Xu Liang and Ada chose a selection of vegetables, some fish and pork and we waited for the food to arrive. Meanwhile we received our cutlery (chopsticks) and crockery shrink-wrapped in plastic.

Apparently this is fairly common as a sign that they have been properly cleaned before being provided to customers. There are many more down-market restaurants where this is not done and the hygiene standards can be suspect.

Xu Liang and Ada under a
street lamp

The meal was very good, although for me the pork (although tasty) was too fatty and we spent some time spitting out fish bones. The total cost of the meal was not high, but it is for students surviving on an allowance and part-time work. In larger restaurants you can pay from 200-300RMB ($30-$45) per head.

After dinner we decided to go far a walk along the city side of the river as it was a very pleasant balmy evening with reasonable humidity.

Some of the city features, such as bridges, landmarks and buildings and are colourfully lit at night so it was quite beautiful. Although interesting for me, it’s pretty dull for young people who see the city as pretty lifeless.

Main bridge over Quaintang River

Crossing the major roads in the dim street lighting however was a risky process given the fact that pedestrians have no right of way anywhere.

Riverside civic sculpture

Part of the reason to walk down this side was the possibility of encountering people either practicing tai chi or dancing. We weren’t disappointed.

After a while we heard music and shortly encountered almost 200 people dancing to music from a huge sound system near one of the ancient city gates. The music itself sounded like pop versions of classical music with a very strong beat – haven’t heard anything like this before. Apparently this type of street dancing is very popular.

Dancing by the riverside

The dancers were mostly women (there was one guy in a white tai chi outfit) and everyone danced in a grid pattern, keeping within their space. It’s probably not unlike line dancing in Australia and the USA which I’ve never tried – but the music was quite different. As usual, when I hear dance music it’s hard to not get involved.

The boys would never be seen dead doing this! After a little persuasion the boys introduced me to the master who insisted on teaching me a few steps.

By now it was a bit late and I was tired from the previous day so after learning a few steps we left, but I intend to return for another lesson. Below are a couple of short videos.