Monday, July 30, 2007

Asian Street Foods

Breakfast and Desert in China, Dinner in Korea

When thinking about the available street foods I've found that I favor a Chinese street food menu in the morning and a Korean street food menu in the afternoon or evening.

Genneryally, Korea has the best street foods, at least as far as my palate is concerned. As much as I've tried, I never really took to much to Chinese street food, though each country has something I really like or I really don't like.

One of the best things in China is something I don't really know the name for. They take a rolled out piece of dough that they cook on a hot surface. When both sides cook they split it open from one side to get at the inside. They crack an egg, scramble it and poor it into the inside center of this partially cooked dough. Then they sort of close over the hole.

Then they put some sort of sauce on the dough, painted on with a cooking brush. You can have it hot or not. An important thing to learn in any cultue is how to say "not hot." In Chinese it is bu la. Then they put some Asian lettuce and usually a piece of processes meat in the shape of a sausage. The whole thing is rolled up and is eaten like some sort of a breakfast burrito.

Baozi is very common, especially at breakfast. It is a steamed bun, that has been filled with a vegetable-meat mixture. It can be tasty, but is sometimes a little heave for breakfast, as far as I'm concerned. You can alos gett these little steamed buns that might have a little bit of nut or red bean in the middle, but are largely just steamed dough. They are ultra cheap and a quick easy source of energy when you're in a hurry in the morning.

China also has these sour apples, something very like crab apples, that they put on a stick like a ka-bob, and cover in some sweet topping. They are rather popular with the young people. As an adult it feels strange eating candied apples.

You can frequently get an ear of corn that as been boiled. They put it on a stick. It is great if you are walking around a park or perhaps around West Lake. You get rather tired and the corn is an excellent surce of energy.

On the "not so tantilizing" list would be something called Stinky Toufu 豆腐 chòudòufu. This is strong smelling, preserved bean curd. Some people who eat it swear that its taste is wonderful and some have called it their favorite thing to eat. To be quite honest, I have never tasted it. I am generally not a big fan of tofu to begin with. Stinky Tofu is something that can be smelled about 30 feet away. I'm told the tast is akin to anchovies. Stinky Tofu "tastes good they way other repulsive things taste good, like Sardines, Anchovies, Liver Sausage, etc." Or so I am told by a friend of mine.

So if you can get within 30 feet, then you are alright, I guess. :)

In Korea things are a bit different. The most popular street food, is probably Dukboki, which is these big, thick rice noodles in a very hot pepper based sause, and some mild tasting fish. It is one of my favorites, to be certain. It is popular among young people in Korea.

Another one is Kimbap. Many people looking at it would call it Sushi or something, except that it has not fish. It is made with pickled vegetables and rolled in rice, wrapped in seaweed paper. I really find it quite a refreshing little snack, even a meal sometimes. The best version of this is Tuna Kimbap, where tuna is placed into the middle of the roll with the vegetables. It is really good. For me a not so savory version is one made with kimchi, where the kimchi replaces the tuna.

Kimchi, not really a street food, for me goes in the "not so tantilizing" category. Many people like it, and many will even go so far as to say that eating it will ensure good health and is a cure for many ailments. It is certainly a cure for bad breath. If you have bad breath before you eat it, not one will have any idea what your breath was like, after you've eaten some. There are many kinds of Kimchi, I'm told over 300. The most popular is made from cabbage. It is basically spiced, firmented cabbage.

A real popular one, much liked by all foreigners, is Yakimandu. sometimes meet, wrapped ina small piece of rolled out dough, they are then fried. YOften as street food they are fried. A bit of vegetable andou will often see this in soup as well. Chinese have something similar, though you will seldomely see it fried. It is call 饺子Jiaozi. These are considered dumplings. They take pieces of rolled out dough wrapped around diced vegetables, spices and sometimes with pork. The ends are pinched together into a dumpling. The jiaozi usually sell by the half jin or by the jin. A 'jin' is roughly a half kilogram.

Dumplings are not really a 'street food' in China though they can sometimes be bought there. You will also sometimes see them in soup, as you will see mandu soup in both Korea and Japan.

Usually you dip the jiazi in a mixture of vinegar and some pepper paste. Some people will use soy sauce with a little ground red pepper in it. This is also common with Korean mandu. I am sure this is also the norm in Japan, though I don't know by experience, only conjecture.

Another food that exists in both China and Korea in one form or another are kabobs. China, especially in the north and the west, is famous for its mutton kabobs. They are heavily spiced and quite tasty. They are usually sold by ethnic Muslims, but certainly not always. You can know them by the white hats they wear.

Korea also has kabobs, though you will see a larger variety of meats to include chicken, beef, pork and mutton. There is a place in Shanghai where you can get a number of insects including scorpions and beetles.

On the less exotic side, in Korea you can get a hot dog or sausage on a bun when out on the street, which is quite nice. Be careful, sometimes what looks like ketchup they put on there, is really some kind of hot sauce. You may see some shredded cabbage under the dog. Last new year I was in downtown Seoul and was able to get a chili-cheese hot dog. I was in a little bit of heaven for the one minute that it lasted.

There are more street foods, to be sure. I will amend this in the future. What is your favorite street food in Asia?

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Itaewon Nights

Saturday I was invited out to dinner and drinks at a place called Gecko's Terrace in Itaewon, a popular part of Incheon/Seoul. We caught the bus to the subway at Juan and then took the subway to a Soul Station. We could have taken another train, but in the interest of time, took a taxi the last leg of the way.

Taxi's are a pet-peeve of mine. I will have to address this sometime.

Anyway, I gathered by the name that it was going to be a western style restaurant. It did not disappoint. Of about 100 people in the place there were probably 15 or 20 Koreans. The rest were foreigners (primarily Americans, Canadians and Europeans).

The place had the feel of a sports bar-neighborhood grill and the food was not "too" expensive. The fish and chips were well done. The place was loud with people to be sure, but it was a great environment. It is easily the most foreigners (non-Chinese or non-Korean) I've seen in 3 years. It was rather surreal.

In spitting distance are any number of other bars and restaurants. After there, the group I was with went over to Hellos which had a small dance floor. A Screwdriver was around 5000 ($5.43). Men have to pay a cover as well.

Not much of a dancer, they had an open balcony which was a nice place to sit on a summer Saturday night.

The subway stop is Yongsan (also home of the Yongsan Electronics Market), I think. But if you get in the area of Itaewon you should be able to locate this place worth visiting with friends.

For a good night out this area is not too expensive; transportation doesn't have to be either. Some subways shutdown after midnight, I think. This means taking a taxi. A taxi from Itaewon will run you around ₩40,000 ($43). Of course, you can split the cost of the taxi with a friend. If you have three friends, the taxi is seeming more reasonable. The cost of the taxi compares unfavorably to the subway which is ₩3000 ($3.25) for the round trip. The ₩40,000 will pay for two nice dinners and two mixed drinks.

Bottom line, think about how much money you want to spend, and have a good time. Itaewon certainly has no shortage of good times.



Thursday, July 26, 2007

Ice Cream by Any Other Name . . .

If you've ever bought an ice cream bar in China, then you know that it is something distinctly different from the same experience in North America, or elsewhere in the English ice cream eating world. Ice cream in China seems to be much more akin to Ice Milk. And asking for an ice cream (冰淇淋 bīngqílín) is even more different than you'd encounter in North America.

Despite these very clear differences, it seems like there are a number of similarities where words that are shared from one language to another.

For language learners this is a tricky thing. It is not something you can just count on freely and hope it exists. Just trying out the English word when you don't know the native word will get you nothing but puzzled looks and only further confuse your listener. This is mainly because when one word is borrowed into another language it kind-of adopts the sounds of that new language rather than retain its purely native pronunciation. Knowing just what native sound it has adopted isn't something you can just guess at. Believe me, I've tried.

There seem to be far fewer instances of shared vocabulary between Chinese and English than there are between Korean and English, and between Korean and Chinese. Yet they do exist and it seems to me that the best way to use this truth it to see it as a way to faster vocabulary acquisition. You might have your preferences (words that sound like your native tongue, or words that are completely different) when it comes to language learning, but the fact is that many words have already migrated from one language to another, like it or not.

What am I talking about, you ask? Take a very universal word like Ice Cream. In Korean this is 아이스크림 a-i-su-ku-rim, which if read out directly sounds very much like the English. Battery in Korean is 배터리 bae-to-ri. There quite a number of loans from English to Korean, but I can't just walk down the street and try to add Korean pronunciations to all the English words I know and be understood by anyone.

Chinese and English contain less of these shared words, most of them loaned from English into Chinese. It is hard to tell, however, whether these are direct loans from English, or whether they came to Chinese from English, by way of Korean or Japanese. Card is an example of a word that exists in all three places. Credit Card in Chinese is 信用卡 xìnyòngka. Xìnyòng is Credit, and the last part seems to be card, with the final sound dropped off. In Korean it is 신용카드 shin-yong-ka-du. a striking similarity in Chinese-in fact this American cannot hear the difference when they are spoken in either language.

Library in Korean is 도서관 to-so-guan. Library in Chinese is 图书馆 túshūguǎn. Sadly the same is not true for English. Sugar in Korean is 설탕 sol-tang. In Chinese the sweet stuff is 糖 táng.

Because of the Chinese tonal systems, it is next to impossible for 'English adopted Chinese' words to be understood by native Chinese speakers. There are even fewer loans from Chinese into English. If I walk into a restaurant in America and ask for Tofu (豆腐 dòufu) using the Chinese pronunciation, I won't be understood. I also cant use 'tofu' with the soft 't' that we use, when in China.

In fact, as a general rule, anytime you opt to mix two languages when trying to speak to someone who only speaks one, you've only hurt your chances of being understood. So what good is all of this if I cannot double up on vocabulary, sort of save some HD space for other words? It seems that memorizing the words might be a little easier if you know it sounds like the word in another language that you are already familiar with. This does not mean that you still don't need to "relearn" this word that is strikingly similar to the one you already know. Too bad!

There may be more to come on this.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Illiterate in China



One of the first things a person understands immediately when moving to China is the uncomfortable world of a person who is illiterate.

All the signs are in Chinese or in Pinyin-either way you cannot read them. Supermarkets are greatly appreciated because they have everything you need in one place. It is not a time saver in the traditional sense, but you sure can waste a lot of time trying to bargain shop in the small shops if you don't know what anyone is selling just by reading their sign.

Well,I find that the same thing is true in Korea. You are an instant illiterate. Even once you learn to read the Korean words (not that difficult at all) you still don't know what any of it means. The added bonus in Korea is sometimes they mix in Chinese characters into the titles of things. I find that I am back at square one. I can barely ask how much something costs. Whether they stock that item or if it comes in black are completely out of the question.

I find myself asking in vain whether a shop keeper can speak Chinese. You won't be surprised to find that they do not. You will also find that only serves to confuse them more. Sadly, they also do not speak English except for an occasional number or word.

It is time to crack open the books again. It did not seem as hard to communicate with people in China as it has seemed in Korea. It is hard to tell just looking back. I am going to have to find a Korean friend whose English is terrible.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Getting Western TV in Asia

One of the most challenging things about living abroad is that there is so much cultural immersion that you find you need some good old fashioned Hollywood entertainment to maintain your sanity. there is nothing like a considering the moral implications of wiping out the Cylon race, or pondering what super power I want to have that can make weary travelers feel at home again.
This is more true the farther your are from 'westernized' localities.
I was at a school in China where every single teacher was, on some level, downloading their favorite TV programs for viewing. This was not so true about movies, mainly because the files are too large for efficient downloading. It is easier to just go down and buy the DVD.

There was a story at the end of last year about how the big four networks and their corporate owners were finally realizing the shifting entertainment landscape. They began offering their content on line in streaming format. The problem is that they all restricted this steaming to IP addresses within the United States.
All the while RIAA or MPA or some such organization has been busily suing websites which aide peer-to-peer sharing of content. Some good sites that have placed their locations outside their legal reach are Isohunt, Torrenty-Spy, EZTV, among many others.

In China it is still not a challenge to get a hold of many current or recent movies on DVD. They usually run around 7 RMB. A licensed DVD in China runs in excess of 50 rmb, some as much as 70 RMB. To understand the relative cost here think about it as 1-to-1; that is $50-$70 per DVD. This is priced just too high for the vast majority of the Chinese population. At a time when there is very little beyond Hollywood that the rest of the world like about the United States, we should take advantage of this. If movies are anything, they are a form of soft diplomacy.
There is no one over here that is going to buy original DVDs. The movie companies and the RIAA are not losing a cent when it comes to download content or 'pirated' DVDs. If anything, they are building a future customer base. As the cost of living increases in this part of the world, more and more people will one day be able to afford these things at cost.

To the Hollywood entertainment companies (movie and TV) I say, turn them off now and you only serve to cut into future profits, and give them one more reason to dislike the United States.
Solution: get with the times. Put content on line yourselves. Put the TV program on line with the commercials intact. There are enough companies that do business internationally that you should be able to find a creative way get them to pay for the cost of putting the content online and leave plenty of room for a healthy profit. Streaming is nice if you have massive bandwidth, but who does. Better systems are those that pre-download content which can later be viewed.

What was the most popular TV show in China this last year. It was Prison Break. There are probably tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people in China who have seen each and every episode.

See the MPA vs. China

I had a student email me to ask whether I had noticed that the 'dropped key looked dissimilar to the one that came from so-and-so.' This is a level of watching TV that would thrill most programmers at FOX. If they cannot get CCTV to buy the program outright, than put the program out there for download with advertisements recorded into it. Make it attractive by opening up bandwidth to greater than can be offered by typical peer-to-peer sites.
DVDs seem much harder to come by in Korea. This is probably because many more people have access to high bandwidth and can simply download the programs/movies they like. Look at the market and develop a plan to suit that market. If legal, inexpensive DVDs could be had, then that is the way to go. This involves a level of involvement that puts your content out of your control. Take your programs and put them up with the commercials already plugged into them. Include subtitles in the various native languages. Those that take the content with the intention of putting it into compilation DVDs will unlikely go through the trouble of cutting out the commercials from each program. Sooner or later someone will come up with software that does this automatically but shifting commercial lengths will make this process unreliable. If you like, make it so that it can only be downloaded from IP addresses from certain countries (outside the United States, England) where there is a large market for live TV broadcasts.
This should be a no brainer. This is a way for Hollywood to take advantage of the system as it exists. This is a way for them to get past Chinese bureaucracy (see MPA vs. China above) and to turn a buck.

What is popular in China/Korea? The same things that are popular in the States minus science fiction programs like Battlestar Galactica. The popular list includes Everybody Loves Raymond, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Prison Break, Heroes, 24, Friends, American Idol, Frazier, West Wing and many others old and new. In countries where they are working overtime to learn English for its international value, TV and movies are a very popular way for students of all ages to enhance their learning. If some distributor sells one million copies of a season of Prison Break for 14 RMB (two disks), and the studio makes back nothing (but loses nothing) then who cares. But if the studio markets the product themselves, good quality with correct subtitles and extras (an interview of the stars relevant to the market your are selling the product), puts them on three disks and sells them for 24 RMB, then they stand to make at least some of that money themselves. This also puts them on stronger legal standing when it comes to government crackdowns on illegal piracy. Do this in India, China, Korea and Japan and you make a profit where before there was none.

Microsoft learned long ago the value of giving away something for "free" when it gave Internet Explorer to the world. The movie companies could learn well from them. It only take a little creativity.

For all the things HW does well, listening is not one of them. I am sure this is falling on deaf ears. Or maybe it isn't?

Slow Boat to Korea

I'm off to the Land of the Morning Calm now. Incheon, Korea is really a nice place. It is not busy and provides easy access to Seoul. I came in through the port at Incheon from Tianjin. I opted for the boat ride rather than air travel, and I am not at all disappointed. The ship, while not new, was nice. It was great to be out on the water. The sunset happened to be spectacular. I wonder if there is something to ocean sunsets.

The only hard thing about the ship is getting your luggage on and off. If you are carrying more than two bags it won't be easy.

The customs entrance went like clock work. It was 15 minutes from ship to taxi. The only bad part was some young guys sharing my cabin left the door unlocked and allowed someone to walk away with one of my bags containing my newly purchased video card for my computer.

Needless to say one of my very first purchases in Korea was a new video card. I had saved all my pennies (or 'fen' as it where) to buy the 512mb card. Now I have to operate on this lowly 256mb card. The guy swears you cannot tell the difference. But I know when I play spades on the computer I can see a slight hint of more lively color with the other card.

Being as this is my first entry on my second day in Korea it seems fitting. I always wished I could have done this earlier (when I was in China the last 3 years). Now I will only have China in the past tense to which I can compare my present.

Korean Flash Cards