Friendship Qualification: Chef
I think I may have accidentally stumbled on the secret to
happiness in China. Apparently, all you
need is a good kitchen and a dining room that seats a maximum of 8 people. Most of my friends have very small kitchens,
so, those who love to cook, a trained French chef for example, don’t really
have anywhere to do that which makes them happiest. By volunteering my place for a few friends
and the opportunity to cook, not only do I get a great meal and any leftovers,
but we also bargain so that they have to do all of the dishes as well. I think that I have never had a kitchen with
so many utensils, pots, pans, etc. I’m
really not sure what to do with them all, but I don’t think that I really need
to find out. I have quite a few friends
who now owe me dinner (bet money if you want to, I’d rather bet food…depends on
where your priorities lay), so, I should have at least 1 fantastic, home cooked
meal twice a week or so. I highly
recommend it.
American Thomas cooked a meal a couple of days ago that was
fantastic. We had pork loin, garlic
mashed potatoes and asparagus and breadfruit.
Before we could cook though, we had to go shopping in Carrefour. I realized at this point that I didn’t have
anything in my kitchen for cooking, so, we needed to go get some pots, and
plates, etc. we spent about an hour
getting everything in Carrefour, then needed to walk the 4 blocks home. What is normally done, in this situation, is
that you talk to customer service, and they will send someone with you to help
you get everything home, then they bring the carts back. We walked up to the counter, and the girl
laughed at us then ignored us. We took
this to mean that we were free to take the carts home, with her blessing. So, we started walking home. Half a block from Carrefour, a Chinese lady
ran up and started yelling. She didn’t
speak any English, so we went with that, saying, in English, we don’t speak
Chinese, we don’t understand you. She
chased us for a couple of blocks while yelling into her phone.
Half a block from my apartment, some other employees from
Carrefour showed up. They surrounded our
carts, and I think we would have been in a bit of trouble if Thomas hadn’t
decided at this point to get loud. Very,
very, very, very loud. Thomas started
yelling as loud as he good. There is
never anywhere you can be without a pile of people around. Within a couple of minutes, we were
surrounded by a crowd of at least 100 curious people, and those who just wanted
to watch the spectacle. Thomas was still
yelling fluently, and I had a hard time supporting him as I was trying to keep
from laughing. (NOTE: never, ever, ever speak anything but English
in these situations, they will happen to you, regardless of how law abiding you
may be.)
Finally, a guy ran up and said that he spoke English. This guy started mediating, and he said that
the manager offered to let us go if we gave him a 300 RMB deposit for the
carts. I said that that was absolutely
fine as long as he gave me a receipt. He
said that he didn’t have any receipts, so I asked him how he was going to
guarantee that I get my money back. He
wandered away to talk on the radio for a while.
Finally, we agreed to walk to the corner so that we could point out to
everyone where we lived. While we walked
up, the translator apologized to us, mentioning that he knows that we could
have done this easily in America, and that China is different. The funny thing about that, is that I’m
almost positive that the entire crazy episode would have gotten us arrested at
home for a variety of reasons.
Finally, we had two employees and the translator help us get
the shopping carts up to my apartment, unloaded, then they walked them
back. I still think that it was a highly
successful shopping trip, much easier than it could have been. I don’t think that I need to repeat the
experience though.
I’ve actually had a fantastic week! Started out with a great home cooked meal,
then I had a pseudo breakthrough at school.
I can talk, very, very, very slowly to people now, and get my point
across to a very simple degree. I love
it when things click, even if it takes a while for that first click. I think in another couple of months I should
be doing very well. My understanding has
come way up, and I’m getting a real feel for things, which is quite nice.
Tonight was a little more than strange. My French chef friend and I went to look at
watches. French Thomas showed me what to
look for, and how to spot poor replicas.
We spent about 4 hours going through watches, perhaps 1 in 20 passed
inspection. Out of the 100 or so watches
we looked at we narrowed it down to 5.
It was amazing to me that the rolex’s are very, very poor in relation to
other high end watches. Thomas explained
that to me as well, it’s the truth in real shops as well. Rolex is considered to be a crappy version of
a high end watch, and people who don’t know much about watches regard Rolex as
the epitome of greatness.
I’m not sure that I agree with that, I am sure that I loved
the other watches that we looked at. I’m
currently sporting a Ulysse Nardin and bought a Panaria as well as a Rolex
which I’ve already sold at a profit.
These “fakes”, or “Chinese Versions” are identical to the originals,
down to weight, movement, glass, everything.
I’m more than happy to explain the whole process to anyone who wants an
education, and, my friend is happy to help anyone else as well.
While wandering through in search of watches, we also found
a ton of very, very good tailors. If you
bring a couple of pictures of what you want, we can pick the fabric, get
everything custom measured to fit you, and whether you want a designer dress,
or you want a custom Qi Pao, or an Armani suit, it can be made for you. It was fascinating. We also found fake golf clubs for 1300 RMB
for an entire set of whatever you want… Mizuno, Callaway, Ping, Taylor Made...
you name it.
After wandering around looking at random tailors, watches,
and everything else, Thomas gave me a list of ingredients to pick up for the
evening meal that he was going to cook. I
finally arrived back in the Nanshan district from the Luohu district where we
were shopping at 10 pm. (the farthest
part of Luohu, right on the border with Hong Kong. It’s also where the train station is to go to
Guangzhou and other cities in China). We
went to Carrefour to pick up the ingredients and got there just as it was
closing. We actually managed to find
everything except for the shrimp, and were the last people through the check
out counter. Our friend, Phoebe, stopped
them from going home so that we could check out. French Thomas seemed to think it was imperative
that we have some sort of seafood, squid or shrimp for his meal, so, at 11 pm,
we went in search. We tried the Grand
View Hotel and found a tank full of shrimp, we tried to convince them to let us
fish their tank and pay them for the shrimp.
We thought about stealing them, and leaving money and decided that
nothing good would come from that train of thought. So, we walked to the 5 star Kempinsky hotel
down the street. We asked for a plate of
shrimp, uncooked from the kitchen, and they wouldn’t do it. We argued for a while before we gave up. Finally, we were walking past a coffee shop,
and noticed that they had shrimp on the menu, so we went in to try to convince
them to sell us their shrimp.
White Elephant Coffee bargained back and forth, and we
finally convinced them to sell us a bag of their frozen shrimp. Instead of just guessing what the bag was
worth, they determined that they should take them out one at a time, and count
them to come up with a price. It was a
bit time consuming. We finally got home
at midnight, and F. Thomas started to cook.
(It’s a bit confusing with two Thomas’s in the house, both of whom love
to cook. I tend to alternate calling
them different things, so, I’m going to go with F for French and A for
American. It’s apparently less racist
than going with White and Black, which is how the Chinese differentiate between
them.) Finally, at 1 am, F. Thomas
started to cook, having thawed out the meat, and obtained other ingredients
from our friend Charlie’s apartment.
It’s 4 am, the food is finally done. Time to eat, I’ll write a bit later.
We finally finished dinner at 5 am. I walked Phoebe down to take a taxi home, came
up and went to bed, while the others sat and talked. I don’t think that the French ever just “have
dinner” together, it’s an all day event.
Apparently, everyone went home at about 8 am, about an hour before I got
up for the day. I told French Thomas
that next time we start at 4 or 5, because I just can’t do that anymore. The food was absolutely fantastic
though. He cooked the lamb in a type of
cheese sauce, and the spaghetti was cooked in a homemade carbonara sauce with
shrimp. The food was absolutely
delicious, and as a thank you for allowing him to use the kitchen and cook for
us, as well as obtaining the ingredients, he made extra spaghetti and made a
tomato sauce out of the cherry tomatoes that one of my guests had thoughtfully
brought with her (Phoebe).
It’s 2:15 pm on Sunday, and Phoebe is in the kitchen cooking
it up for lunch for the two of us. We are
waiting for the a yi to finish cleaning the apartment so we can go down to
check out the custom tailors who make Qi Pao in Luohu district. She’s going to go through the fabrics and
find something suitable to wear in the swampy, hot environment that Shenzhen is
quickly becoming. Right now, it’s about
110% humidity and only about 31ºC, in the summer, it hits 40-45ºC and 120-150%
humidity. I’m not sure what that will be
like, but as of right now, as soon as I go outside, I begin to sweat, and that
continues until I find an air conditioner.
It’s a bit interesting with my apartment since it’s sealed. With the a.c. on and the doors closed, it’s
dry and quite nice. As soon as I walk
outside, my glasses fog up, and the ground is a bit slick. It’s best to take your time going anywhere
right now so you don’t slip and die on the floors and stones and tiles that
make up most of the walkways that we use.
I still walk around 2-5 km every day, as do most Chinese people.
I think that the excessive walking accounts for the fact
that most people will rush an escalator and avoid the stairs at all costs, even
if it takes an extra 10 minutes.
I think I’d better get this off, and try to write some of my
latest observations down later this week.
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