Last week had to be one of the busiest I’ve had in a long long time. Aside from climatic extremes of heat and rain food has to rank a close second in my new life here. Chinese cuisine encompass such a wide palate from across its many regions that you’re always spoilt for choice.
Wednesday night celebrated the anniversary of the new company I have joined with all 500+ Chinese employees gathering together in a massive banqueting hall for an evening of mass catering and performance. I’ve never seen anything quite like it - after initial speeches and dinner various people got on the stage to sing their favourite songs which went on for about two hours!
Thursday ended with a delicious meal in a Mongolian restaurant with some interesting dishes including lotus roots and some curious looking vegetable buns (top right). What I haven’t quite fathomed yet is how China has such a high life expectancy (on average 73 compared to 78 in the UK) yet most of their food is quite oily and, if recent events are anything to go by, toxic! I’d be interested if anyone has any theories about this.
Friday brought with it another new experience with a trip to KTV (or Karaoke Television) which, as you can imagine, is a box room with a large screen which people can sing along to music videos (seemingly most from the 80’s) to their hearts content. Not exactly my cup of tea but fun nevertheless and I even learnt a new dice game which involved guessing the total number on a set of given dice that the other players have. For the sake of anyone’s embarrassment the photos are not included!
On Saturday I ended up having another massive dinner which included shark-fin soup and Beijing duck amongst other delicious dishes. I’ll try not to let food dominate to much more around here but it’s just so good!!
Photo © AP Photo/Vincent Yu
This week brought its fair share of climatic excitement when Typhoon Hagupit smashed into the southern coast of China, not far from Shenzhen. With wind speeds in excess of 200 km/h it was apparently the most powerful typhoon to hit Guangdong province in more than 10 years. Flights and ferry services were suspended and schools closed. While the city of Maoming bore the brunt of it’s strength things got pretty extreme where I was with lashing rain unlike I’ve ever seen before - it was so heavy at one point I couldn’t see out the office windows. I got caught in it on the way home Tuesday evening and even with an umbrella got totally soaked with the concrete environment turned into impermiable rivers! To me it may have been exciting but sadly claimed the lives of 5 people.
Yesterday for lunch I went to a restaurant called “6000 Flavours” which certainly lived up to it’s name judging by the voluminous menu. We had some special pork bone & sweetcorn soup along with fried eel and some curious vegetable balls containing a kind of mustard. The bones were cut in half and a straw provided so you could suck out the bone marrow which on the face of it is a bit disgusting but I gave it a go!
The fun bit came when we ordered fresh noodles - a waiter came over with a strip of some kind of dough and proceed to make them in front of us but swinging it vigorously around in circles. Even the locals enjoyed the performance & for once I wasn’t the the only person taking pictures of food! Once the noodles were of a suitable size they were cooked in the same soup pot.
Above is the fried eel. It isn’t something I’d normally want to eat but this was delicious. Not rubbery or slimy as I had expected. My resolution is to try something new each day 
So after 5 days in my new home, Shenzhen, the most resounding impression so far is that this place is hot - really hot. During the day it’s been around 32°C and at night 27°C, all intensified by 66% humidity in the concrete jungle of high rise apartments and offices. Air-conditioning is a must-have and makes working indoors much more pleasant but wandering around in the midday heat is physically draining and you’ll probably want to carry around a bottle of water at all times.
Most likely having something to do with the heat at around 1 to 1.30pm each day most people take a nap, in fact, in my new office a security guard comes round and turns the lights off then on at the allotted time. I found it rather amusing the first time to watch everyone get out a pillow and rest their heads on their desk!! I’ve not followed this trend yet but might give it a go next week 
The other thing which strikes me about Shenzhen is that this is predominantly a city where people come to work. The skyline is filled with high-rise apartment buildings as far as the eye can see which houses an approximate 16 million inhabitants who have come from all over this massive country to find their fortunes. In China you are literally 1 in over a billion, perhaps giving a new perspective on the power China’s collective mind. This is living on an industrial scale.
I’ve already had some amazing food since I arrived including fried frog which tasted like chicken, but not much meat! Last night after many hours of apartment hunting I had hot pot (above) with a colleague and his wife who have been very kind in helping me to find an apartment. This has got to be one of my favourite Chinese meals - simple yet very very delicious and nutritious.
The past week has been pretty non-stop but in one week there is a national holiday which will mean a week off work so I can’t complain! More soon.
Photo by Gilbert R
As the saying goes “a goodbye isn’t painful unless you’re never going to say hello again” and so it is with my imminent departure from the UK tomorrow. I’ll be back, I’m just not sure when! My flight to Hong Kong departs from London Heathrow tomorrow at midday and will touch down at 7am local time Wednesday morning after eleven-and-a-half hours of economy-class boredom. Then the real fun begins.
Photo by slack12
I wont actually have any time in Hong Kong this time as I’ll be hopping directly on a coach across the border into mainland China and my final destination of Shenzhen (about 1 hour away). During the next two weeks I’ll be staying in a hotel while I find myself somewhere more perminant to live (fingers crossed).
I’ll be blogging as much as I can, time permitting, here and keep an eye on my FriendFeed / Flickr photostream for the latest goings on there. See you on the other side!
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