Liuzhou Laowai

Friday food is a weekly article about one of the more unusual food items to be found in Liuzhou that week. This week we are going herbal with Chinese Foldwing

Chinese foldwing

Chinese foldwing (Dicliptera Chinensis) is, as you’ve probably worked out, a Chinese herb. Known locally as 羊肝菜 (yáng gān cài),  literally ‘sheep liver vegetable’, it is also known as 猪肝菜 (zhū gān cài ) or ‘pig’s liver vegetable’  among several other names. Despite this liverish nomenclature, it is used in traditional Chinese medicine to ‘strengthen’ the  kidneys, as well as for colds and fevers and “men’s problems”, whatever they may be.

It is also used stir fried as a green vegetable or in soups.

Available  in markets and in Century Mart. Dirt cheap.

It got a bit wet last night.  I don’t mean it was just raining. This was real rain. No pussyfooting about deciding whether to rain or not. Not a bit damp. Not shall I take my umbrella? Your umbrella would have done no good.

This was a truly torrential tropical rainstorm battering the city from early evening till this morning. I literally saw birds fall from the sky under the onslaught as oceans descended on us and bounced back up again.

The temperature has dropped from 35ºC yesterday to a more comfortable 27ºC today and there is a fresher, ozone smell in the air. No doubt a delusion.

Not everyone is happy though. The city had to issue its first flood warning of the season. And I guess these people had better plans for their day.

Random Photograph No. 55 of photographs taken in Liuzhou which amuse, perplex or fascinate me.

Click on picture to enlarge.

For the last couple of days, Twitter has had a run of several tweets about a subsidence tragedy in Liuzhou. I searched for reliable confirmation, but came up with nothing, so I didn’t mention it. Today, the local press finally reported it.

It seems that parts of southern Liuzhou prefecture are falling down holes and the holes are getting bigger. Picking my way through the “facts”, it seems that 1,700 people have been evacuated and between 6 and 56 homes seriously damaged (depending on which report you read.)

That sinking feeling

At present 40,000 square meters of land is subsiding, but this is expected to expand over the next few days.

“According to Zhao Yunhui, deputy chief engineer of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region geographical environmental monitoring station, the subsidence was due to the sinking of soil.“

 Er? You mean the cause of the subsidence is subsidence? Whatever next?

 I’m going nowhere without a parachute.

 Updated Source

Friday food is a weekly article about one of the more unusual food items to be found in Liuzhou that week. This week we are going to the edge zone with hasma.

Here is a true oddity.

Dried hasma

Hasma is the oviducts and  surrounding  fatty tissue of a species of frog (Rana temporaria chensinensis David (Fam. Ranidae) – snow frog or forest frog) found in the forests of the far north of China in Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning provinces. Known in Chinese as 雪蛤 xuě há (literally ‘snow frog’) or 雪蛤膏 xuě há gāo (snow frog fat), it is mainly used as an ingredient in sweet dishes, cakes etc, especially in Hong Kong style Cantonese cuisine.

It is sometimes available dried in local markets and supermarkets, but more often crops up in restaurant dishes or as an ingredient in pre-packaged sweets such as these:

Taro and hasma sweets ¥13.50 per pack

As with so many Chinese foods, hasma is also used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. It is reputed to be good for the lungs and kidneys.

Random Photograph No. 54 photographs taken in Liuzhou which amuse, perplex or fascinate me.

Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweþ sed and bloweþ med

And springþ þe wde nu,
Sing cuccu!
Awe bleteþ after lomb,
Lhouþ after calue cu.
Bulluc sterteþ, bucke uerteþ,
Murie sing cuccu!
Cuccu, cuccu, wel singes þu cuccu;

Ne swik þu nauer nu.
Pes:

Sing cuccu nu. Sing cuccu.
Sing cuccu. Sing cuccu nu!

Summer is a' comin in

I wish to stress that I did not not willingly take this picture today! All my better instincts were opposed to the very idea. But, in the interests of historical accuracy, I persevered, much as it hurt me.

Liuzhou is displaying its new “bendy bus” which it intends to run on its BRT service, when they get round to building the new traffic lane system they proposed back in February.

The 18 metre long articulated bus is on display at the northern end of Jiefang South Road (the pedestrian street)  in the city centre, today and tomorrow. Also on display is a conventional 12 metre low floor bus which will also operate on the BRT routes.

Bendy Bus

Low floor conventional bus

Built by Zhejiang based Youngman, the bendy bus is a clone of those recently and controversially withdrawn from service in London amid concerns about their safety, among other matters.

Friday food is a weekly article about one of the more unusual food items to be found in Liuzhou that week. This week we are still among the greenery with a favourite – Tonkin Jasmine.

I’ve been looking forward to this one and spotted it in the supermarket this morning. One of my favourite vegetables.

Tonkin jasmine (Telosma cordata) goes under many names such as pakalana vine, Tonkinese creeper, Chinese violet, cowslip creeper, telosoma etc. In Chinese it is 夜香花; yè xiāng huā or 夜来香; yè lái xiāng.

It is a flowering plant native to Guangdong and Guangxi of China and also cultivated in Vietnam (on the Bay of Tonkin, hence the name.)

It has a delicate lemony scent and is used in both southern Chinese and Vietnamese cuisine. It is usually stir fried, often with eggs, with which it has a particular affinity, or is boiled in soups.

Me likes.

It’s May 1st – International Labour Day, no less. Up the workers and all that. And the world’s largest communist country* celebrates in true socialist style.

By giving the middle classes the day off while all the actual working class have to go to work as normal. The street sweepers are still sweeping streets, the construction workers are still constructing, bus drivers are still driving buses, restaurant staff are still dishing out their noodles, shop staff are still staffing very crowded shops and the peasants are still doing whatever it is that they do.

God bless socialism with Chinese characteristics! That is, no socialism at all.

*If you believe China is communist, you’ll believe anything.

The new underpass at the Guangya Road / Bayi Road crossroads on the north-west corner of Liuzhou Square is very nearly ready to be opened after about a year or so of construction. It should be a welcome relief to traffic in the area. However, I foresee at least one problem.

Turn left here for the no left turn!

The sign clearly indicates no left turn, but the road markings also clearly indicate which lane to be in to turn left where you aren’t allowed to turn left.

This is going to baffle the majority of Liuzhou’s “drivers” whose brains are still far too totally occupied working out how to propel a vehicle using three pedals, rather than worrying about the niceties of which way to point the vehicle!