beijing opera singing delivery guy in new york city

fireworks and housefires, 2010 chinese new year

Last week was the 2010 Chinese New Year or Spring Festival. The whole country basically shuts down for the celebration. Shops and restaurants were closed and most people travel to their hometowns to be with their relatives for the week so Beijing was near empty. Mary Kate and I spent the festival week in Beijing and her co-worker invited both of us over to her apartment for New Year's Eve night. Her parents made a huge meal for us and we when the clock ticked close to midnight everybody made jiaozi dumplings with pork and chives filling. Then we went outside to set off fireworks...

I have heard that fireworks are a big deal here but nothing prepared me for the war zone that Beijing turned into. People set off fireworks in the courtyards of their apartment complexes and the first night they are allowed to set them off all night which basically means you can't get any sleep. Mercifully, the rest of the week people are only allowed to set off fireworks during the day and up until midnight... but then they start again at 7 am. Above is a video of of some of the fireworks during the first night of the festival. In the video we are in the courtyard of an average apartment building complex, called 小区, (xiao qu), which is the type of place most Beijingers live. The fireworks celebrations were the same all over the city and I expect someone flying over Beijing in an airplane would have thought we were in the middle of World War III. The fireworks you can buy here are industrial strength (the kind they set off at Disney World or over the Brooklyn Bridge in New York) so these were not wimpy sparklers. People set them off so close to buildings that sometimes the buildings catch fire which actually happened to one of the buildings next to us. An outdoor air conditioner on the 10th floor of the building caught fire and it managed to burn a pretty big hole in the building before the police came and put it out.
It was an unforgettable night and a lot of dangerous fun.

-Nate

time to bust out the long underwear

 Wow, it might get as low as minus 16 degrees in Beijing! A blizzard moving from Siberia hit the capital over the weekend and they are experiencing the coldest temperatures in 40 years. Mary Kate told me government regulations dictate how much power office buildings can use for heating so the building she works in turns the heat off at night and uses it sparingly during the day. She must be freezing today. I hope Beijing warms up a little before I arrive this Sunday. I went to Eddie Bauer today to get some new long underwear but I don't think it will help too much while riding a bicycle around in minus 16 weather.  Here's a video from an Australian news station that shows how Beijing residents coping with the cold and more info about the crazy weather.

-Nate

chestnut chicken stew at danwei.org

Here is a video for Chestnut Chicken Stew from Danwei. The video is a part of a new series the website is doing called Danwei Canteen that highlights different homestyle chinese recipes. Danwei was founded by Jeremy Goldkorn, my onetime boss when I worked at the Standards Group advertising agency in Beijing. Jeremy is also the Editor-in-Chief of the website and is the interviewer in this video. Besides interesting videos, Danwei.org is the best place on the web to find daily news and gossip on advertising and media in China. It's the Gawker of China. 

The recipe in the video is for Chestnut Chicken Stew. The only time I eat chestnuts is in the winter when New York City street vendors sell little bags of hot roasted chestnuts to freezing passersby. I've never made this dish but the idea of sweet, nutty chestnuts stewed with chicken, ginger, garlic is something I have to try. The woman in the video is from Anhui province and she really knows her stuff. She even goes so far as to clean the chicken and remove the organs-- and leave some in. If you want to try making this dish but the idea of cleaning a chicken turns you off, you can use a pre-cleaned (and de-headed) chicken from any grocery store. That's what I'll be doing.

-Nate

Here's the ingredient list:

A whole chicken with skin, liver and heart
Peeled chestnuts: seven ounces (or 200 grams)
Salt: a spoonful
Five cloves of garlic 
Peanut oil: three spoonful (two for frying the spices; one for the chicken)
Soybean paste: a spoonful
Green Onion, pepper, ginger

nyc dumpling festival and eating contest highlights and recap

So, who knew the NYC Dumpling Fest was huge? I only heard about it last minute and we showed up to the Sara D. Roosevelt Park in Manhattan expecting 50-100 people and a dumpling cart or two. No. There had to be over a thousand people there even though it was raining and about ten stands selling dumplings from countries around the world (Mexican tomales, Italian gnocci, Chinese bao and potstickers, India dumplings, etc.). The festival was rockin-- Akon's album played over the speakers.

The lines for dumplings were insane. I stood in line for 45 minutes only to find out when I finally got to the front that I was not in the Chinese bao line like I wanted. I was in the whole wheat dumpling line. Who wants to wait in line for whole wheat dumplings? I don't anyway, but there was no way I was waiting in line again. It ended up being a good thing. They are actually really great. I think it's a new product-- Tang's frozen whole wheat potstickers available I know at least at Whole Foods. Try them and tell me what you think!

The largest whole wheat dumpling in the world weighing in at 786 lbs. was also on display at the festival.

Joe Menchetti (I've also seen it spelled Manchetti) won the dumpling eating contest for the fifth time in a row. I watched him stuff 53 dumpling in his mouth in 2 minutes. This was my first time to see an eating contest live and I found it kind of disgusting (see the short video we filmed below). I still can't get the image of the guy vomiting on stage out of my mind. The grand prize was $1000 for the men's and women's division. Here's a pic of the winner of the women's being interviewed. I can't remember how many she ate but I remember wondering how she could possibly fit them all in her stomach.

An interesting tidbit I picked up from the to star "athletes" who came in 1st and 2nd. Both of their scores were about 10 dumplings lower from years past. In their interviews, they attributed this to the fact that this was the first time that the dumpling were whole wheat and they were more difficult to eat. Good to know if you plan on stuffing your face.

-mary kate