Monday 01 October

Suburbia meets countryside

The fishing place

Today was a most interesting day. It was a rare public holiday  for the Mid-August  Festival and I  was invited by Ren Zhou Kun (my tai chi teacher) and her husband David (his English name) to join their family to go fishing.

I wasn’t quite sure what this meant, or where we’d be going, but was very interested in going.

Ren Zhou Kun, daughter-in-law
and granddaughter, Melody

David, his brother and son Barry

Being a Chinese festival, the group included their son, daughter-in-law, grand-daughter, the parents of the daughter-in-law, number two brother and his wife.

We set of in two cars though the outer suburbs of Quzhou and about 30 minutes later arrived at a small weir with a kiosk-type building and a number of people already fishing.

I had been prepared for a much rougher location, and it was all very civilised. the owners also provided bamboo chairs to sit on.

It reminded me a little of the kiosk aea at Kinderdyke in Holland except much smaller.

Detail of float and bait

Anyway David set up the rods, lines and floats, baited the hooks and we started.

Yours truly with 1st fish

The baits were like small food pellets with tiny elastic bands around them so the hook just went underneath the elastic band – simple but effective. Probably not possible in Australian ocean fishing though with strong currents.

It wasn’t that easy though,  the fish weren’t biting much and it was hard to detect a nibble. In a short time however David caught one, but it was a while before anyone else did. Eventually I caught 2, approximately 1.5 kg each and we had 4 by the end of the morning.

By now it was time for lunch, so we packed up and set off for the low hills to the south of Quzhou, a place called Shishi (石室).

The hillside restaurant at
Shishi (石室)

 After fighting our way along narrow, heavily trafficked roads (everyone was out for the day) we arrived at a relatively new restaurant on a hill in what will become a fairly densly populated area soon if the roadside billboards are an indication.

The family beginning lunch

We took our places at the table and shortly afterwards, the food started arriving. This looked like it was going to be quite a banquet, so even just tasting each dish would be overeating – I wasn’t wrong. here follows the approximate menu: Spicy fish; pork, diced bamboo shoots and soya beans; braised tofu with mushrooms; bamboo shoots with another vegetable (the dish tasted very much like artichokes); spicy mixed preserved vegetables; goose stew (chopped up goose with lots of bones); freshly roasted peanuts; tomatoes and chokos (I think); green gelatine pieces coloured & flavoured with a local plant and sprinkled with sugar. The stand-out dish for me was what they called Shanghai hamburgers – steamed buns surrounding a dish of hot braised pork. The idea is to grab a bun, break it open and put pieces of the pork in. It tasted great, but a bit too fatty for me though.

All in all, a great day, and I was very grateful for the hospitality shown to me by everyone, especially Ren Zhou Kun and David.

Spicy fish

Pork, diced bamboo shoots, soya beans

Braised tofu with mushrooms

Bamboo shoots

Spicy mixed preserved vegetables

Bok Choy and garlic

Shanghai hamburgers

Green gelatine sprinkled with sugar

Tomatoes and chokos

Sunday 30 September

Street scene with the full moon shining
 through the trees

Friday was the last day of teaching for a week, while the college, students and most of China have a week's holiday for the Mid-Autumn Moon festival.

Since ancient times, there have been many legends about the moon in China. For the Chinese, the moon is symbolized as being holy, pure, and noble. Over tens of thousands of poems describing the moon have been recorded.

Mooncakes
Photo: Miss Tam Chiak

The moon's round shape also corresponds to the cyclic concepts of Taoism, like the eight diagrams. That's why Chinese people are fixated on the moon and view round shapes as representing perfection.

Fancy some bean soup or
spicy deep fried crabs?

The college and surrounds are now like a ghost town, but the town is jumping. This is one of the two biggest Chinese festivals, the other being the spring New Year festival. These are times that Chinese families get together - and among other things, eat.

The all singing, all dancing kebab stall

I think that there here are a couple of very strong similarities between the traditional Chinese and Italian cultures – the importance of family and food.

It appears to me that the Chinese penchant for the huge variety of noodles and dumplings is rivalled only by that of Italians  pastas and sauces.

On the way, we passed a small street fair and a number of specialist food stalls, including one with two guys selling kebabs while dancing to unbelievably loud dance music.

Dumpling restaurant

Xue busily texting during dinner

For example , tonight I went into town with Xue Gong Ling , a student from Wenzhou I met while practicing tai chi in the park.

He is staying in college during the break because of the distance from his home town, and he invited me to dinner at his favourite dumpling restaurant.

We went into a part of Quzhou that I hadn’t been to before, near the main mall and went in to the restaurant. It was very simple and quite plain with a very limited menu – a few choices of dumplings and soups. He ordered some pork and some shrimp dumplings, and a light soup with very thin flat noodles and bok choy which was simple but good.

Dumplings and the dipping vinegar

Xue had a sort of fruit jelly dish. The dumplings were something else. They have to be eaten carefully, as they contain a scalding broth along with the filling.

Bite taken out of dumpling to release
steam

The idea is to bite off a small piece and let the steam escape and then eat it carefully without spilling it on yourself. I’m not sure how they make them with the liquid inside, but they do it somehow. This is very similar to what is commonly known as "Shanghai Dumplings".

Anyway it was a great night out, and another insight into Chinese culture in the area.