Liuzhou Laowai

I’m not a big fan of bars. Especially in China.

I am a big fan of proper British pubs. There are none of those in China. Please don’t tell me that there is a British pub in Beijing or Shanghai. There isn’t. There are ersatz pseudo-pubs. A plague on them.

Nearly all bars in Liuzhou are in fact, discos. Mostly patronised by under 14s (of all ages) intent on displaying their vomiting skills.

So, it is with sadness that I report the death of one of the few bars in which it was possible to hold a conversation with someone.

Time Bar was one of Liuzhou’s oldest bars, but it is no more. In fact, the whole second floor premises on 立新路 lì xīn lù have been gutted. It is possible, I suppose, that they are rebuilding it from scratch, but that is unlikely. The area was bar central a few years ago, and a (very) few were worth visiting, but now there are very few left.

In fact, that Time Bar, was but a branch of the much older, original Time Bar which is still in place and functional on 北站路 běi zhàn lù. This was the first bar I visited in Liuzhou all of fifteen years ago. In fact, it was pretty much the only bar, then. Today it remains more convenient for my home, but less so for other people, being slightly adrift from the city centre.

In the words of the legendary obituarist poet, EJ Thribb (17½):

So.

Farewell then,

Time Bar

Time’s up.

Random Photograph No. 53 of photographs taken in Liuzhou which amuse, perplex or fascinate me.

哞

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 back among the greenery with chayote shoots.

I guess some people are familiar with chayote, the gourd also known among other names, as christophene, vegetable pear, mirliton, choko etc. In Chinese it is 佛手瓜 fó shǒu guā (literally, Buddha’s hand gourd).

Chayote

Perhaps less well known is that the leaves and young shoots of the chayote vine are also edible and a popular vegetable in China. Often described on menus as 龙须菜  lóng xü cài  (literally, dragon beard vegetable), they tend to be more prosaically described in the supermarkets as 佛手瓜苗 fó shǒu guā miáo, meaning chayote shoots.

Chayote shoots

Chayote shoots are usually simply stir fried as a green vegetable dish. The bunch above, bought yesterday in Nancheng supermarket was ¥2.70 which works out at ¥4 / 500g. Available in most supermarkets and markets.

A Liuzhou man, named only as Mr Hong, has been arrested on suspicion of illegal access to citizens’ personal information. The self-styled “Mad Detective” started his detection activities as a hobby, using his computer to track personal information and is reported to be obsessed by detective stories. After successfully tracking down a missing debtor and being financially rewarded for his efforts, he turned his hobby into a business, concentrating on marital infidelity and missing person cases.

He is said to have amassed a large collection of “illegal detection equipment” whatever that might be. His activities, which he openly advertised, finally attracted the attention of Liuzhou Public Security Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Unit and the Internet Monitoring Unit, ultimately leading to his arrest along with that of two of his staff.

Mr. Hong (left)

Rumours that he was working for Rupert Murdoch have not been substantiated.

 Source (Chinese)

"Bake" - Deli in Liuzhou Radisson Blu Hotel

Maldon Sea Salt - ¥25 from Tiramisu on 斜阳路 xié yáng lù / ¥120 from the Radisson

Some time before Liuzhou’s Radisson Blu hotel opened, it became known that the plans included a deli. I remember a conversation with some other laowai, who were being excited and looking forward to the opening. I remained sceptical.

It has now been open a few months and touts itself as the “only deli and bakery in the area” offering “western gourmet products” while evoking “the feel of a welcoming, warm bakery”.

In fact, it has all the atmosphere of an airport shop or a retail outlet in a large hotel.  And it has little that can’t be bought elsewhere in Liuzhou at a fraction of the price. In fact, on a recent visit, I only saw one product I couldn’t buy elsewhere in Liuzhou – and no products that I couldn’t buy considerably more cheaply.

Almost everything, from the jam through the capers, olives, mustard and gherkins are available in Liuzhou city centre at half the price or less. But chief amongst the price gouging is the Maldon sea salt, which they are selling at an obscene ¥120 a pack. The same pack can be bought in Liuzhou for ¥25. (In Maldon it is £1.65 / 250g.  ¥16. Not £12.)  Glad to see they have a sense of humour.

But it does lead me to ask, “Who do they think they aiming themselves at?”

Who books into a five star hotel and wakes up in the morning desperate to buy a box of salt? At any price?

Certainly the locals ain’t about to be buying it (when regular table salt is ¥1.30  per 500g). Even when I first bought it for ¥25, the guy in the shop felt moved enough to tell me, “It’s only salt, you know?”

And most resident expats know where to buy most of this stuff at more sensible prices. If they don’t, they can look here.

They have to be delusional.  Don’t they?

Friday food is a weekly article about one of the more unusual food items to be found in Liuzhou that week. This week, mangosteens.

Mangosteens

These knobbly looking fruits are in all the markets and supermarkets right now.  The mangosteen is the fruit of a tropical tree (Garcinia mangostana for the technically minded) which is native to Indonesia. In Chinese, they are 山竹 (shān zhú).

The skin is soft when harvested but soon dries to hard, dark purple shell. Cutting through the shell reveals the edible fruit which is formed in four to eight triangular sections surrounding the plant’s seed. The flesh of the fruit is white, juicy and soft. I like ‘em.

If you were going to start any sort of personal transport business, I would guess it would make sense to determine when most of your customers want transporting. This is why the local buses tend to run in the day time rather than only offering a night service.

The peak times for moving are well known. They are called “rush hours” for good reason. People are in a hurry – either to get to work, or even more so, to get home or get to that all important banquet. And an equivalent of “rush hour” is available in Chinese (高峰时 gāo fēng shí), so the concept is not unknown.

Clearly, these are the times when personal transport services are most in demand – especially the evening rush hour. So, what do Liuzhou taxi drivers do to take advantage of this?

They stop picking up passengers and disappear.

I appreciate that taxis are expensive assets and must be exploited to the maximum. So the cars tend to run 24 hours a day, being driven by drivers working in shifts. And clearly if you work a shift system there has to be a handover time.

So, Liuzhou’s taxi wallahs have decided that

a) They should all change shift at the same time.

b) They will do this bang in the middle of the rush hour!

It is almost impossible to get a taxi between around 5:30 and 7 pm. If you are lucky enough to see one, it will refuse your fare unless you happen to be going to wherever their handover is scheduled to take place – and they seem to schedule these in the more obscure corners of the city where no one else wants to go.

Are they completely insane?

Not at all put of by their failure to have the place declared a “Civilised City” despite covering the city with propaganda telling people to be er.. civilised, the locals authorities have clearly had a meeting and are now trying to get us to be a healthy city.

The way to do this is to stick up lots of friendly signs saying “Be Healthy”.

These have appeared overnight adorning walls of apartment blocks etc.

"Hygiene is the foundation of health; the environment is the source of happiness."

"If you and I are more aware; Liuzhou will be more clean"

"Become a national healthy city; build a happy and glorious home"

I am sure there are others in a similar vein, but you get the drift. Meaningless slogans as usual. Not one piece of practical advice. But they’ve done their bit and now they can have a celebratory banquet, get pissed and mow a few people down on the way home.

While I’m all for promoting health and protecting the environment, I think perhaps stopping people from smoking in hospitals and schools, for example, might be a better beginning. Also, stopping people trying to poison us with drinking water or with chopsticks etc.

Do something real about people spitting instead of just sticking up don’t spit signs, then ignoring them yourselves!

And if they want the place to look cleaner (after all appearances are more important than fact around here), then educate people properly. Tell them that it is not acceptable to keep your house immaculately tidy and clean, then step outside your apartment and drop your shit everywhere else – especially outside my door! Filthy scum!* And teach them what trash cans are for. Just this morning I saw someone – a well dressed, middle aged woman  - drop a load of litter on the pavement literally one metre from a trash can.

 But that would require real planning and effort.

 * This refers to my immediate neighbours, not the entire Chinese population.

It is impossible to walk around Liuzhou without someone trying to pass off some waste paper on you. I usually decline these offers on the grounds that I am not a waste recycling middleman, despite appearances. I am, of course, talking about the leaflets advertising anything from breast enhancement to new dentures, via the inevitable cell phone and restaurant leaflets.

So,  I couldn’t have been paying attention this morning while wandering in the Wuxing area. I was ambushed by a young girl and, before I knew what was I happening, I found myself clutching a small leaflet. I paid it no attention, but for some even odder reason, instead of being dumped in the nearest trash can, it ended up in my camera bag.

I forgot about it till later, when I was looking for something else. So, I had a look.

As you can see it appears to be advertising some sort of food venue known in English as “Summer Coffer”. Or perhaps not. The Chinese is more accurately rendered as “Summer Coffee”. Rule one in advertising – know the name of your company!

The picture shows a beef rib and rice dish with what looks suspiciously like the disgusting pepper sauce many Chinese are convinced every foreigner drowns their meat in.

Flicking over the leaflet, my worst fears are confirmed. Yes, it’s another joint trying to sell “western food” while having no idea what western food is.

We start in the top left corner with what is clearly labelled in Chinese as “Fruit Salad”. The image less clearly shows what appears to be a mixed vegetable salad, complete with green leaves, cucumber and carrots, covered in squiggles of what I am willing to bet is sweet mayonnaise.

 To the right of that we have a tuna salad. Here they use phonetic “translation” for tuna (吞拿 tūn ná), despite Chinese having at least one native word for the fish.

Which they suddenly remember for the next dish, 金枪鱼蔬菜沙拉 (jīn qiāng yú shū cài shā lā), “Tuna Salad with Vegetables”. Are they trying to tell me that the first tuna salad was vegetable free? Or are they trying to fool everyone by describing the same dish two different ways to give a sense that the menu is more extensive than it actually is?

Next we have “Egg Sandwich” as a caption on something which is clearly not an egg sandwich or even a near relation. I have no idea what it is.

The ham sandwich seems OK, but I can imagine what kind of ham it is. Spam. Then we go back to tūn ná for a tuna sandwich.

Last sandwich is an “Egg and Bacon Sandwich”. The bread looks like that cake-like substance they seem to think is bread in China.

Then to wash it all down, a cup of iced tea.

Intrigued by the whole concept, and as I was again in the area later in the day, I swung by for a look. It’s on Gong Yuan Lu at number 15, near the park gates end. I didn’t venture in, but if anyone feels brave rash enough to try, please let me know. If you survive.

And Chinese people tell me all the time that they don’t like western food. Because they think this is what we all eat. Grrr.

When they aren’t busy trying to kill us by turning our drinking water into cadmium soup, adulterating our yoghurt with melamine, recycling rancid cooking oil or just mowing us down on the streets by driving on the sidewalks, the locals have taken to producing poisonous disposable chopsticks.

Inspections of three disposable bamboo chopstick “factories” in Rongan, Liuzhou Prefecture revealed that, apart from the unhygienic manufacturing conditions they were using illegal chemicals such as industrial paraffin wax and sulphur to process the bamboo.

Bamboo ready to made into chopsticks

Bamboo chopsticks being "cleaned" by soaking in water.

Bamboo chopsticks being "cleaned" using soapstones.

Industrial paraffin wax and sulphur as discovered by inspectors in Rongan workshop.

Disposable chopsticks have long been criticised on environmental grounds, but this is the first time I’ve come across poisonous chopsticks.

The chopsticks were confiscated and the producers “punished” in some undisclosed manner.

Portable metal chopstick sets in carry cases are available from most supermarkets.

Portable Chopstick Set

Source (Chinese)