青梅酒
Greengage. That’s what that other Fengshou/丰收 fruit wine was. My first impression is just as positive. It’s 15% alcohol by volume, very slightly stronger than the haw wine, although I’m not sure how much of an effect that has on the flavour or drinkability, if any. Good, crisp, clear flavour, and clean, too. No nasty chemicals- at least, not in the flavour. But there’s a delay- not an aftertaste, because it goes as you swallow, but a delay- most of the flavour holds back a few seconds, and you don’t get the full flavour until just as you swallow. Now how to describe it… It has a certain pungency and a hint of medicine, but not in any kind of uncomfortable sense. Indeed, the delayed full flavour adds to the enjoyment of the wine. And yes, you really do need to swallow to get that fullness. Swirling it in your mouth only gets that clear, crispness of the first part of the flavour.
I think my feelings on wine have already been expressed clearly enough and often enough, but just to make sure: Wine is only fermented grape juice, nothing more, nothing less. Nothing sophisticated, and certainly nothing to get your knickers in a bunch over. Fermented grape juice. Beer and whiskey, those are complex, sophisticated drinks. And now that that recap is out of the way: Fengshou’s wines, in my experience, are drinkable at best- and then only if you’re drinking the dry ones- but still have that skankiness that only Chinese wines seem to manage. I am, however, very impressed with their haw and greengage wines. No skankiness and good, well-balanced flavours. This greengage wine is almost comparable with your average Kiwi ale in terms of the complexity of flavour. Coming from me, that’s very high praise, indeed. But yes, from that crispness as it enters your mouth to those hints of acid, fruit wood smoke (like what they burn to roast Peking duck)?, and something ever so slightly medicinal as you swallow, it’s really quite an enjoyable drink.
cheats, but good cooks, still
Posted by wangbo in Uncategorized on January 9, 2008
Well, something I have come to consider desperately lacking in the English-language China blogosphere is foodie blogs. It’s not that such blogs don’t exist, it’s that they should, and I have only recently begun discovering them. There should be far more.
Anyway, wandering through one of these recently discovered foodie blogs I come across still more proof that Sichuan cuisine is only second rate:
Fans of Sichuan cuisine know that even spice fiends need something to ward off all the heat in your mouth between bites.
No. Sichuanren need huajiao to numb their mouths so they can eat spicy food without feeling the spice. Xiangcai (湘菜/Hunan cuisine) is still vastly superior, and that is both because fans of Xiangcai don’t need to stoop to numbing their palates to enjoy good food and because xiangcai manages a far greater and more subtle range of flavours. And, I can’t see how replacing “Sichuan peppercorns” (isn’t that 花椒, i.e. cheating spice prickly ash?) with red pepper flakes or hot chilli sauce could possibly help, since the whole point of 花椒 is to numb the palate, and not to add to the spiciness of the dish. But still, I’m a big fan of Sichuan cuisine, and I may well try this cucumber salad at home one day. I mean, reading that recipe just makes me feel hungry…
山楂酒
Alright, don’t ask why, but… I’m drinking haw wine.
See, there’s a little convenience store just up the road and they’ve had two kinds of fruit wine on their shelves for a while now, both made by 丰收, although I can’t remember what the other fruit wine was, but anyway, living in China has given me a little bit of a thing for haws, and so today I decided I’d try this haw wine.
Anyway, the label says it’s 14% ethanol by volume, roughly the same as regular wine. It also says, and I quote:
Harvest Haw Ratafee [presumably this means the wine the bottle contains] presents a jacinth color, clear and limpid, rich haw fruit aromas and preserved spirit flavor, mellow and plump in palate, sour taste balanced well with sweetness, expressive and marvellous aftertaste.
Clearly they’ve been taking lessons from some Western pretentious git oenophile. I won’t take credit for the American spellings- that is precisely the spelling used on the bottle, I am only quoting. Nor will I vouch for the “jacinth color”, for the simple reason that I have no idea what colour “jacinth” is. And I have no idea what “preserved spirit flavor” is supposed to mean. I will, however, vouch for the “rich haw fruit aromas” and the balancing of the sour taste with sweetness. Actually, just ignore all the bullshit on the label and drink the stuff: It’s actually pretty good. I would go so far as to add a warning: It’s deceptively drinkable. It tastes and feels too much like a good fruit juice and not enough like a wine at all. I will also say that unlike far too much Chinese booze, it tastes and feels clean. None of that formaldehyde flavour you get in Yanjing beer or the skankiness you feel in Dynasty wine.
Actually, I’m really starting to like that little convenience store, and, if the good luck I’ve experienced so far continues, I might just start trusting their small selection of vodka… I’ve held off so far, and only bought Western spirits from the nearest Carrefour (although a colleague raves about a place that is slightly closer and that has far less of the rubbish one has to wade through at the big chains- must go check it out, now that I am more or less on holiday).
Anyway, I recommend Fengshou/丰收’s Haw Wine (山楂酒). Good stuff. Just be warned: It’s a little too drinkable.
很企鹅很暴力
Seeing the title in ESWN‘s Recommended Photos/Videos/Writings Greater China (in Chinese), I wondered if this was some bizarre play on the latest round of fuss and bother on the Chinese internet, so I followed it, and… maybe it’s too early in the morning and I should finish my breakfast and properly caffeinate before getting online, but I think it’s hillarious. But don’t worry, you don’t need to read even one character of Chinese to appreciate this (although it would add to the fun if you can), just follow the link. And so, I present to you:
And thank you, Mr Soong, for sharing this with us.
too early
It should be illegal to blog this early, especially when you’ve been awake most of the night staring at the ceiling wishing you were asleep, but what the hell.
Two items in the NZ Herald have grabbed my interest this morning. The first is Mike Moore arguing that democracies always outperform authoritarian societies. He starts off making some pretty big claims for the superiority of democracy, but the trouble is he provides absolutely no evidence to back his claims up. And reading that first part of the article I just wanted to scream “Well what about India? And what about China?” And he doesn’t help his case by using several countries generally considered democracies (India and Mexico being two stand-outs) as examples of why democracy is needed to eliminate poverty. And then there’s this:
When China established de facto securitisation of property and liberalised agriculture, productivity jumped some 42 per cent between 1978 and 1984. Its more open economy has helped to lift hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty.
Securitisation of property? Since when?
In the end, what Moore ends up showing is that a minimum of regulation and a maximum of institutional guarantees that one’s economic freedom will not be interefered with are what’s needed for economic growth and elimination of poverty. Unfortunately, there is no inherent connection between a system of governance and an economy. On the democracy side, we can name the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as having achieved economic development under a democratic system. On the authoritarian side, we can name South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, remembering that South Korea and Taiwan only became democracies after a certain amount of development had been achieved, Hong Kong has only just begun allowing very limited democracy, and Singapore and Malaysia have democratic systems on paper, but very authoritarian governments in practice.
Second is the Georgian election. I think what this shows is the very, very, very big disadvantage of all those colour revolutions: They’ve set a precedent. We’ve seen it time and again: An election is won, the loser cries “Fraud!” and the loser’s supporters hit the streets hoping for a repeat of the last time. Nevermind whether the election was actually rigged or not, the important thing is that “I could not possibly have lost!” Now in some cases, as in the original colour revolutions and perhaps now in Kenya (although I’d like to stress that perhaps– I’m not entirely convinced Kibaki stole it) the revoloutionaries are in the right. In some cases, as in the last Mexican election, it’s not entirely clear and perhaps the best solution would’ve been for the loser to step back and start building up for the next round- claim the moral high ground and build on that rather than behaving like a spoilt brat, in other words. And in other cases, as would seem to be the case now in Georgia, the international observers declare the election valid, and there would seem to be no valid case for revolution at all. But as I said, the precedent has been set, and so the loser will still try anyway. It worked once before, so why can’t it work again?
Told you it should be illegal to blog this early in the morning.
the end is nigh
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on January 6, 2008
There is light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully it’s not a train about to run me down.
Or, for the sake of not being unnecessarily melodramatic: I’ve caught up on the paperwork. Everything that can be done, is done. So, one more exam tomorrow morning, then lunch, then I’ll start marking, and get at least two classes out of the way, then finish marking, do all my calculations, fill in the forms, and hand in the grades on Tuesday. Hopefully I’ll be free and on holiday on Wednesday. Looking forward to it.
puzzling
This is one of those articles that has me asking more questions than the article answers, one of those articles that China’s English language State media is so good at producing.
“7 fisherman missing in ship collision near Taiwan” says the headline. But wait…. the fishing boat was carrying 71 people, two from Taiwan and the rest Mainlanders. 71 people on a fishing boat? 69 of them Mainlanders? Near Taiwan’s Keelung Islet? And they were all fishermen? Really?
I hate exams
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on January 5, 2008
I really hate giving exams. Especially writing. It results in so much mind-numbing paperwork. First everything needs to be marked, then I have to spend forever calculating grades and filling in the official forms. Gah.
One more to go. Year 2 Writing at 9:55 on Monday morning. I’m trying to get all the other marking out of the way before that, so that I can focus on getting that exam marked and my Year 2 Writing grades finalised as quickly as possible. That means, however, that I spent an hour and a half in the office this morning, and would’ve gone back this afternoon if I didn’t have other things that need doing as soon as possible and friends weren’t on their way over- one of whom has only just escaped the wilds of America to return to civilisation. This, of course, means that I’ll be spending more time in the office tomorrow clearing up the rest of the outstanding paperwork in preparation for next week.
I am sooooooo looking forward to this semester being over. There’s a lot of stuff I want to get back into over the holiday that I just haven’t had the time or energy for this semester.
digraphia
This post on Hindi-Urdu digraphia over at Language Log has me wondering: Are we going to see a similar Traditional-Simplified “digraphia” with similar symbolism developing between Taiwan and the Mainland? Is something along those lines already happening with Romanisation systems- and perhaps other phoneticisations like BoPoMoFo?
exams
Posted by wangbo in life in Beijing on January 3, 2008
I hate giving exams. I have one more then I’m done for the semester, but that also means I have a huge stack of papers to mark.
But it’s not the marking that I hate most. No, that’s only second worst. What I hate the most is that exams bring out the stupidest behaviour in otherwise intelligent students. The worst so far was a student who said, “Teacher, I forgot my glasses”. I said, alright, go up closer to the blackboard and look (the topic for their essay was on the blackboard). And then, standing only one metre from the blackboard, Boy Genius had to borrow his classmate’s glasses to read what was written there.
I mean….
BLOODY HELL!!!!!
If you’re so blind that you can’t read what is written in large, clear letters on the blackboard from only one metre away, how the could you possibly be running around without your glasses?!
Anyway, one more exam on Monday, then I’ll get the marking and calculation of final grades done as quickly as possible, then I’ll be free till the end of February.
Looking forward to it…