Learning Chinese - The future isn't certain but it's sure delicious

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ENTERTAINMENT / Hot Pot Column






The future isn't certain but it's sure delicious


By HU XUDONG (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-09-04 07:08





We live near a "no-future" alley, which runs through a vast expanse of
"no-future" flat houses and decaying buildings before joining a
"no-future" road where pedestrians and vehicles are jammed day in and day
out among stalls of construction materials.

About 20 meters before it converges with the road, the alley becomes a
valley, with people and cars vying for passage through all sorts of
rubbish and tremendous noise.

It is amazing that so many small "no-future" restaurants have mushroomed
in such a small place. Some of them even set their breakfast tables into
the road, causing furious protests from drivers.

As my wife and I have to go through this alley whenever we hunt for fresh
vegetables in the morning market, we have witnessed the ups and downs of
the restaurants along the way.

Well, there seems to be no "ups". Most of the restaurants are always
empty, except for the sorrowful owners who squat at the doorway, smoking
the cigarettes and lamenting their unwise decision to take such a doomed
place for business.

Among them, the one with the least future has been sold numerous times.
From spicy pancakes to Chengdu snacks, then steamed stuffed bun of
Hangzhou and fried fish of Chongqing, none of them had a prosperous
business.

Recently, we found the restaurant reopened again. This time, it is snacks
from Shaxian County of Fujian Province.

My wife and I sneered at it, thinking it was a fake, just like the
so-called Chengdu snacks in Beijing are actually run by people of the
same village in Wanzhou District of Chongqing.

But we soon found that the restaurant doesn't look "no-future" any more.
Among the dusty and hapless eateries, this one even shines with the
beauty of a country girl. It seems to be drawing an increasing number of
customers. In a few days, at lunch or dinnertime, people have to queue up
to get a seat. We've never seen this before.

My wife and I decided to give it a try before the restaurant closes down
like its predecessors. An honest-looking couple greet us with warm
smiles. Their accent seems to prove that they indeed came from Shaxian.
The menu proved our guess: noodles, steamed jiaozi dumpling and other
special dishes that Shaxian is famous for.

To give it a real test, we ordered bianrou (literally, flat meat), a
strange name that the Fujian people give to hundun dumpling.

When the dish came, we couldn't help praising it: crispy wrapping, tender
meat and a light fragrance of danggui (Chinese angelica, a medicinal
herb) in the soup.

We kindly reminded the proprietress of the area's no-future history. She
smiled: "Don't worry, we've been through much worse times. We people from
Shaxian can endure any hardships and we honor honesty.

"We have a local saying: 'Bianrou is our cement, noodle is our
reinforcing steel bar.' However bad a place may be, we will make our
Shaxian snack enjoyable for our customers!"

(China Daily 09/04/2007 page20)























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