Round Six: Pink Pomegranates

It's true that Chinese pomegranates can't compare to yours for striking redness. They don't even try. At first I thought all the pomegranates here were underripe, and I was waiting impatiently for them to get ripe. But no--they're really just that pinkish-greenish color. I saw people eating one, so I decided I should try one too. What would they look like inside, I wondered? Incidentally, I asked the people I saw eating it what it's called in Chinese. The answer sounded exactly like the Chinese word for 16, with is why I was able to remember it long enough to look it up. The actual characters are 石榴. The second one is probably specifically botanical, but the first one means stone.

Anyway, I obviously didn't make such a beautiful pattern opening mine up. I just kind of tore into it. But the contrast goes a lot farther than that. Not only are Chinese pomegranate seeds pink also, but they are much larger than I expected. Of course the stones are larger too. Still, I think mine was quicker to eat than your average red pomegranate. And, despite their unripe-looking color, they were very sweet and juicy, less acidic than the red ones. Interestingly, the juice is almost clear and doesn't stain at all: no sanguine fingers or spatters incarnadine.* It got me started wondering if people here have ever even seen a red pomegranate. Clearly they're not big importers of pomegranates since they grow their own.

* Actually, I looked up "incarnadine" and discovered that it has two meanings. One, the "blood-red" familiar from MacBeth, but the other "flesh-colored", which is decidedly appropriate here. So I pronounce we are safe describing pomegranates both east and west as incarnadine.

Round Six: Pomegranates!

Who knows where they come from? Who knows how long they'll last? The US pomegranate season is a delicate and fragile time. Some years, they don't show up at all. They are one of the few fruits that you can't get year round in the US. And I happen to like them very much. Here's a picture of the first pomegranate I ate in Chicago. You must agree that it is a fine specimen, unlikely to be matched by those found in Beijing.

Round Five: I spell it `yogurt'

Fruity. Processed. Predictable. I'm afraid that US yogurt, as much as I love it, can't compare to Chinese Yogurt. At least on the scale of interesting-ness. Maybe on the scale of tastiness, but who cares about that?

For indeed, the name of the game as far as yogurt goes must be the unpredictability of the flavors (I imagine Yogurt CEOs throwing bowls of test yogurt across the room shouting "Dammit! I want something new and exciting!"). Yogurt sort of like toothbrushes in that regard: the basics are pretty much perfected, which means that you need to lure new customers with flash.

Alas, the US yogurt market isn't ready for the innovation on the scale of China. No corn, no tomato. Pretty much all fruits, and berry fruits at that*, followed closely on the heels by citrus fruits, with the occasional vanilla outlier. What's worse, we're talking about pretty processed fruit (at least as far as what I buy in the morning for my breakfast); though I do like my Yoplait, I'm pretty sure that they aren't scouring the mountains for blueberrys, or sorting through to find only the juiciest of the blackberry harvest. Also, `strawberry kiwi'=strawberry, and `orange creme'=orange. The lone standout (not pictured) is Key Lime pie, which represents a new pinnacle of processed yogurt consumption. But only in the sense that those toothbrushes with slightly angled heads represent a new pinnacle of toothbrush evolution, which is to say not really.

So although you might have much to worry about, dear E, remember: you are in a land of exciting and exotic yogurt. Hold your head high!


*Allow me to take a moment to point out that Tomatoes (in the US) aren't properly considered fruits in this context. Tomatoes are fruits in a botanical context. But if we're in a botanical context, then are no vegetables. The distinction between fruits and vegetables is a culinary distinction, and in western cuisine, Tomatoes belong on the vegetable side.

Oh, and I was totally on the clock for that.

Round Five: Yoghurt Review

They sure do like their yoghurt around here. I noticed that right away. It took me longer to notice that the flavors are just--well, just a tiny bit different. Superficially they look the same. But actually they're not. You'd think, for example, that the one on the top left would be your standard mixed-berry. But on closer inspection, it proves to be strawberry-mulberry! Emphasis on the mulberry. There are whole mulberries in there! (4 stars)

Then there's your corn yoghurt. Corn is a big hit around here. You can buy corn on the cob, already cooked, at any street-corner as well as shrink-wrapped in 7-11. You can buy popcorn in big bags from--somewhere. I haven't identified yet where, but have seen a lot of people with bags of popcorn. Corn on pizza is a standard. But corn in yoghurt, IMO, is going WAY too far. I bought the corn yoghurt just so I could take this picture. But then I had to eat it. I waited as long as I possibly could. When it was the last yoghurt left, I ate it. It was absolutely horrible. Not only did it have big corn kernels in it, but it was also corn-flavored. I couldn't finish it, even though I'd picked a moment when I was especially hungry and had nothing much in the house to eat. Ugh. (0 stars)

Let's see, as for the others, the bottom left is lychee plus grape. For a while I was excited thinking it might be lychee plus cranberry, a truly weird combination but not bad-sounding. The picture makes it look like a cranberry. But no, it turns out to be a different word for grape. Botanical vocabulary, incidentally, is oddly hard to learn. Dictionaries often aren't complete or up-to-date enough to have it. So how did I figure out that tizi was another (different than the one I had learned) word for grape? A blessing on Google Image Search. (3 stars)

Bottom middle: kiwi aloe. A weird-sounding combination, possibly inspired by the fact that both are greenish. Aloe is one of the weirder parts of the Asian fruit repertoire (not strictly a fruit--I think it's the leaves you eat), but I was long familiar with it due to my love-affair with aloe juice. Aloe is mild and rather like a white grape. The combination with kiwi was perfectly inoffensive. Though the kiwi seeds were slightly odd. (3 stars)

The last one, on the bottom right, caused me considerable excitement because (again misled by the picture) I thought it might be cherry plus tomato or tomatillo. Now that would have been something! I was a little afraid to eat it, even as I was fascinated. Tomatoes are also considered fruits in Asia, and make regular appearances in dessert buffets next to the oranges and pears, often sliced and heaped with sugar. But in yoghurt? Image search told me, however, that the midgety little green fruit in the picture was actually a coconut. Cherry-coconut--still odd. But coconut flavor here isn't what you'd think of--nothing like a Mounds or Almond Joy, not even heavy coconut milk taste. It's a pretty subtle flavor, and the coconut version of "big chunks of fruit" is big chunks of coconut meat, not shredded and dried, but cubed and lightly candied or jellied. (4 stars)

Other common flavors, less contrastive with familiar ones at home, are apricot-mango, blueberry, and chocolate. To the great joy of my stomach, which doesn't do well digesting skim milk, they seem to have not yet discovered non-fat yoghurt here. At least, the stuff I buy in the useful, large, triangular containers as pictured above comes with a nice layer of cream on top, just like the Brown Cow stuff I used to pay extra for in the States. Hurray!

Round Four: Printing and Copying Beijing-style

Since it was nearly three weeks before I could get a library card, and about the same amount of time before I finally decided what classes I would take, my printing and copying needs have been much lower than usual. However, I have now done both Beijing-style (or Beijing University-style), so there is some basis for comparison. On campus the copy situation is quite humorous. There are at least 10 (and probably more) hole-in-the-wall copy-shops. These places are absolutely TINY, but very versatile. This one I went to today, for example, not only does printing and copying but, according to this sign, also features color printing, internet printing, long distance telephone calls, faxing, telephone cards, cell-phone numbers, and name cards.

Once inside, the printing is totally self-serve, though if you don't know where to insert your thumb-drive they'll do that for you. The copying, on the other hand, is done for you by the pros. This young fellow did mine. You can't see it in the picture I sneakily snapped of him, but he has a special thick plastic ring on his right index finger allowing him to turn pages quickly. He'd turn the page, press the start button, and then position the thing--perfect timing, not wrong once, and very fast. Cost of photocopying about 25 pages--1.6 RMB, or about 20 cents. I paid about the same at the copy shop across the way for printing 10 pages, so if I printed Colin's "Minds and Metals" paper over here, it would have cost me only 40 cents.

I should add that the copy shop where I did the printing also had a binding service. But no bulky velo or spiral bindings for them. They actually used glue and what-not, and could print a special cover for you, and would trim the edges with a nifty trimmer, which is what is shown in this picture. (I used tradecraft to take it, hiding behind a tree.) Oh yeah, the "bindery" is that tiny desk outside the tiniest little hole-in-the-wall shop. But they have all the stuff they need, and the product is pretty even if the process isn't.

The only downside? Everything you print copy or bind comes out on A4 paper. Sure it's more text per page, but it's a different size from everything I have at home!

Round Four: Printing

Those not of the academic lifestyle might not realize how much printing and copying your typical academic does. Some of this is exaggerated in my case: I run through multiple drafts of everything (though as a snarky email from my DGS reminded me recently, I'm still a crappy proofreader), and so I tend to do a lot of printing I didn't even realize how much, though, until we moved from Princeton, land of plentiful and free printers--oh, the nights jogging a few doors down through blizzards to get to the cluster computers--to a place without.

Suddenly cursing my generosity in giving away my old printer ("I haven't used this in 3 years!" says I, "Why don't you take it, Nick?"), E and I were forced to find a Chicago printing option. Now, I can print in at school, and that's fine if I plan ahead. But some days--say, this past saturday--I just want a copy of something I'm working on to have a virtuous weekend. That's where Kinkos comes in.

E had used Kinkos often before we left to bind her intimidatingly large sourcebooks, but my experience was more limited. Aside from printing out a conference poster at the one in Eugene, I had never really had much use for them. Which is not to say that they didn't have some sort of weird mythos attached to them. In some point around the mid-90s, the highschool version of me became convinced that Kinkos was where cool people hung out.
Like a lot of things (Starbucks), not actually having one in Frederick helped make it seem a lot cooler than it actually was. I honestly can't remember why I thought Kinkos was so full of indie cred---some sort of nth-generation Gen-X stereotype passed through a Telephone-style series of links before it got to me, I think. But yeah, Kinkos was where people hung out, everyone either xeroxing their indie-rock riot-grrrrl 'zines or working to save up enough money to xerox their own zines, or star in "Reality Bites II: European Road Trip" or whatever. So yeah, this Kinkos at least... ummm... has some guys with piercings and stuff? Or at least the guy in the picture; while he wasn't the one who helped me, he was happy to glare sullenly while I snapped pictures in a very un-sneaky way.


Anyhow, that's all by way of apology for a post entirely about Kinkos. The redeeming feature of the Kinkos in my part of town is that they're happy to print stuff for me for the cheap behind-the-counter price instead of the criminal DIY-for-49-cents-a-page price. E claims that this is a general feature of Kinkos. However, I tried to ask for it once at a Kinkos down in the loop, and they gave me a look like I'd offered to poop on their chests, so I think they're actually just nicer folks up here on the north side. Anyhow, the total price for "Of Minds and Metals", draft 11, is pretty low: a 25-page paper double-sided came out to $2.16. Beat that, China!

Round Three: Wufan!

I have no doubt that Beijing has lunch-places with as much character as Fontana's. However, I have only been here a short time and it is also harder to get a sense of such things in a foreign language. I decided to settle on a place that at least gave a sense of its history and origins. The place is called Gou Bu Li 狗不理, on Suzhou Street.*

According to the little signs on their tables, the name goes back to 1858. There was a peasant family in Hebei's Wuqing county. When they were around forty years old, they had a son, and because they were seeking a peaceful life, they called him "Little Dog" (Gouzi 狗子) in the hopes that he could have a good life like a dog does. (I guess Chinese doesn't have the saying, "a dog's life." A parenthetical note adds that according to the customs of the place the name implies simplicity and good family relations.) When Gouzi was 14, he went to Tianjin to (I think this is what it means) become an apprentice. He got a job working in a dumpling restaurant, and proved to be very good at it, finding better and better ways to make dumplings. In the end, he got his own shop, and customers came from miles around to eat his dumplings. In fact, he became so busy that he no longer had any time to chat with his customers. Thus, people who came to eat his dumplings would say, "Little dog sells dumplings pays no attention to people." Later it was shortened to, "Dog pays no attention" (Gou Bu Li).

The story goes on to tell that Gouzi was taken by Yuan Shikai and brought to the Empress Dowager's palace, where she sampled his dumplings and praised them. With this, his reputation was made.

Now, Gou Bu Li--most unlike Fontana's--is certainly a chain. After all, it is called "Gou Bu Li of Tianjin." And no doubt its origin story has a hefty dose of self-mythologizing. Still, I thought the story was worth mentioning. Now for the food.

I was trying to get a pretty comparable meal, so I got vegetarian dumplings. They came with a sort of mung bean soup and pickled brown bits. And I also got a spicy cucumber salad. The total came out to 18 RMB, or about $2.25 (my second most expensive meal here so far, that I actually paid for myself). And it was MUCH more than I could eat. I left one dumpling and half the soup--though I much regretted it--and still went away absolutely stuffed!

* As far as I can see, NO streets here are named after people. I think it's just too political. Even after people are long-dead, their reputations can go up and down and become the subject of discomfort. Streets as far as I can tell all seemed to be named after 1) other places or 2) miscellaneous abstract happy sounding names.

Round Three: Lunch!

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. "Surely, there are plenty of places that review food. I don't tune in to Chicago vs. Beijing to get some watered-down Michelin guide!" But today's comparison is something a little more special. You see, anyone can go to Ye Olde Tourist Guide to Chicago/Beijing and find out where to go to have a fancy, chic lunch on a high-falutin' budget. But what about ordinary folks? What do the visiting students and junior professors have for lunch? Clearly a burning question.


With a mind towards that, dear readers, I set out for lunch today. And not just any lunch, no. I'm sure you're familiar with my main options: Subway, Wendy's, etc. And I'm sure you're familiar with at least the type of food you'd get at the UIC cafeteria. So instead, I set out to that tastiest of nearby lunch destinations, Fontano's.

Fontano's and UIC have been linked from the start.* When UIC was being built on a corner of Little Italy in the early 60s, Aniello Fontano, a nearby laborer, and Gilda, his wife and the shortest, cutest old woman I've ever seen**, decided quite reasonably that the nearby students would need food. Starting as an italian grocery and then expanding to make tasty subs, Fontanos grew to a neighborhood institution. Today, Polk Street is proudly known as "Honorary Gilda and Aniello Fontano Way", honoring their contributions to the neighborhood.***


Jeesh. I should totally work for the Chamber of Commerce, shouldn't I? Fontanos is seriously awesome, though. It's one of these old neighborhood places that can afford to be inexpensive because of high volume. Their homemade hot pepper relish is delicious, and everything is cheap. And oily. I think it's a function of always getting the veggie sub, which is mainly cheese, some lettuce, some pepper relish, and then some mix of olives and artichoke hearts in oil. It's deliciously, artery-clogging, take-a-stack-of-napkins-with-you good. You can tell that the people behind the counter are all related (including the aforementioned Gilda, who's about quite often)---they bicker and joke and shout just like real families do! Once when I was at the counter, the daughter offered me some pickles covered in some sort of delicious dill sauce. She had just made them, and they were crisp and cold and good. I asked for the recipe, and she responded with something like "Hell no! They're good, and so we're going to sell them! Now the recipe is a secret!". Then she gave me a free tub of them to have with my lunch. That sort of place.

And the price? For $5.53, I got a 6-inch veggie sub, a can of 7UP, and a bag of off-brand pretzels. Not the healthiest lunch in the world, sure, but trust me---I can do a lot worse around here, and it would cost more to boot.



*Note that all of this is dimly remembered from a newspaper article hanging on their wall that I skimmed one day, so it may not be entirely accurate. But surely mostly accurate.
**Though she probably wasn't old then.
***I don't know if you noticed while you were here, dear E, but they do a lot of honorary naming of streets. Upon reflection, it makes sense. All of the streets, as we discovered, are already named after various people. You can't rightly rename a street. If nothing else, it destroys confidence in the whole system---the honoree wouldn't be sure that their street wouldn't just vanish too someday when they were gone and forgotten. But that only leaves unnamed streets in increasingly undesirable spots, and no one wants their name attached to the road that, I don't know, normally carries truckloads of crap to the waste disposal factory. Solution: honorary naming!

Round Two: Beijing wins by a longshot.

If Chicago actually had recycling, instead of the elaborate farce that is the current system, then I could separate my trash and it wouldn't look like this. If Chicago didn't have recycling, then maybe there would be roving recycling collectors on bikes, and I would still have a reason to separate my trash. But no, I'm just screwed. Sigh. The picture really says it all.