I made a return trip to the food festival with some of my grad students and had another great time. Since it was on a weeknight the crowd was much thinner, giving us a much better chance to comfortably sample the goods. Egged on by my students, I also got a little more experimental; they got me to eat donkey as well as silkworms (after eating the latter, a random Korean guy informed me that I was now a real man).
Anyways, I’ve added a few new pics to the photo site. You’ll see some of the famed meat-on-a-stick vendors; these guys are absolutely everywhere in China. My favourite sticks are the lamb/mutton (羊肉串), especially if they are slightly spiced.
A number of the meat-on-a-stick vendors are from Xinjiang (waaay out west, basically beside Afghanistan). Their looks easily distinguish them from the Han Chinese (the main ethnic group in China); in fact, if you met one you would probably assume they were from Afghanistan/Pakistan/Central Asia/Middle East. They are Muslim, and their language sounds much more ‘Arabic’ than ‘Asian’, just as incomprehensible to most Chinese as to myself (but don’t quote me on the Arabic part, I’m not exactly a linguistics scholar). They have come to the Eastern coastal regions in search of work, and you see them in countless cities, usually as street vendors (even in smaller places like Zibo and its surrounding county towns) When you think that they are also Chinese citizens you are reminded that, yeah, this country is a BIG place.
Didn’t do much but hide in my house all day as the temperature seems to have dropped about 20 degrees (yesterday I was in a t-shirt, today I can see my breath). Here comes winter!