Fujian, China - Part 1 - Shanghai to Quanzhou

We had such a good trip to Southeastern China last New Year's holiday that we decided to return this year to visit Quanzhou and Xiamen in Fujian Province. Read Part 1 of the story at meckleyearth

The highlight of our first day in Quanzhou was the mosque, built about 1000 AD in the Persian style, and modeled after a mosque in Damascus. It’s the first Mosque we’ve seen in China that was not Chinese architecture.


For all the photos of day one click here.

And here is video of our bicycle rickshaw ride.

Clothes make a person?!

While foreign banks are permitted to operate in China, a minimum of 100,000 RMB is required to open an account with any foreign bank in order to protect domestic banks from......

On the ground floor of our apartment building there are several foreign banks. In keeping with our laid back approach to personal finance management, we never bothered to pay them a visit, though I walk by them everyday.

One day, after coming home from a trip, I saw two employees from the Heng Seng Bank standing outside handing out folders that looked like info packets. I got curious. I tried to catch their eyes as I approached, but nothing happened.

After a shower and a change of clothes, I headed back out. The two were still standing outside. However, they spotted me this time and called out. I immediately concluded that I was snubbed the first time around. I walked on by without looking at them. One proceeded to run after me....

I was rather baffled by the whole thing. Presumably these guys are judging everyone that walks by and putting them into 2 categories: Those who may have 100K RMB to invest and those who don't.

Chinese are big suckers for brand name products, particularly clothing and accessories. There are recent books with in-depth studies on this phenomena. When I walked by them the first time, I had on a Columbia windbreaker, Esprit jeans, and Italian boots from LL Bean. The second time, I had on a Jones New York tweed jacket, Docker khakis, and Tommy Hilfiger loafers. The first outfit had bigger names and more expensive items. I thought that would put me in the "may have 100K RMB" category. But no.

So, some possible reasons for "the snub" [edited by John].
1) Has nothing to do with clothes. The second time I was leaving an "up-scale" apartment complex.
2) Windbreakers and boots are not worn by those who have 100K RMB to invest.
3) Tommy is cooler than Esprit.
4) They were randomly snubbing some people who "may make over 100K RMB" just to have some fun.

Guangdong and Macau - A quick report

Just got back from a quick trip to Guangdong & Macau. Guangdong is the province of China where they speak Cantonese, and the major city ,Guangzhou, used to be called Canton. Macau is the former Portuguese colony that returned to Chinese sovereignty in 1999.

This was our 2nd trip to Guangdong, last year we spent 4 days in Chaozhou area. Click here to read trip report.

This time we took advantage of some cheap flights on Spring Air, China's new no-frills discount airline, and visited (one day each) Zhuhai (the mainland city that borders Macau) Macau, and Guangzhou.



A great trip. The weather was so-so but the food was tasty, the beer cold, the coffee brewed, the tea hot, the people friendly, the hotels satisfactory, the churches renovated, and my companion superb.

Here are just a few photos. The full report will come later.

At 500 meters long, this building on the campus of the Zhuhai branch of Zhongshan University is the longest (or largest) classroom in Asia. All the classrooms are in this one building. The nearby library is also awesome.


And along the Zhuhai waterfront, there is an airplane in this strip mall parking lot.


As Macau was a Portuguese colony until 1999, many of the old Chinese ways are still preserved like burning these huge incense coils for ancestors.


And one gets a flavor of the Portuguese influence at the Ruinas de Sao Paulo.


In Guangzhou, we stayed at an old hotel on leafy, laid back, Shamian Island.


And enjoyed the lively downtown pedestrian mall at night.

Vegetarian in Shanghai

Being vegetarian in Shanghai is both easy and hard. It is easy because of the amazing varieties of fruits, vegetables, legumes, and grains along with many forms of soy and wheat. Walk in any good size supermarket and the produce section makes Whole Foods seem ordinary. In addition there are "wet markets" - a lot like "farmer's markets" in the US - on every block. Finally there are mega markets, much like Super Walmarts, that have "imported foods" sections and even "bulk" sections. For posterity, the current megamarts are:

-Carrefour (French)
-Metro (the German company Metro AG is the world's 3rd biggest commercial company)
-LianHua (Shanghaiese)

However, since I don't have an oven, my repertoire becomes limited. In addition to the usual Chinese stir fry and soy sauce bruise, I made spaghetti regularly. A coworker's recent trip to Thailand added red and green curries. When I find tortilla chips in the stores - usually imported from Mexico - I make salsa for microwave nachos. [John's comment: Sun-Ling is quite modest. Her "usual Chinese stir fry" is usually astoundingly delicious and while the variety doesn't change much day-to-day, the change from season to season is significant.]

Eating out is an entirely a different matter. There are half a dozen "pure" vegetarian (no eggs, no dairy) restaurants in Shanghai. We used to frequent them until we (mostly me) got tired of Chinese food and Chinese restaurants. The other problem (mostly John) is that they are so pure that they don't serve beer. Now we seem to eat out only at overpriced restaurants that serve Western food. For posterity I list them here.

-"Element Fresh" - Western breakfast
-"Zentral" - Cold sandwiches
-"Blue Moon Dinner" - great fries, tofu burger, and Soda Fountain Coke
-"Blue Frog" - veggie burger
-"Kraze Burger" - OK fries and tomato/mozzarella sandwich from this Korean chain
-"Gino's" - Great veggie pesto pizza with olives and pineapple - our fav
-"Travel Coffee" - Mushrooms and gluten with rice
-"Henry's Microbrewery and Grill" - Great beer! - ho hum food - good fries
-"The Commune" - Sandwiches & coffee on Taikang Rd
-"Demarco's" - Wood oven pizza
-"New Heights" - great view
-"M on the Bund" - not if I'm paying!

Also we eat at various ethnic restaurants; some foreign and some Chinese.
-Thai - Several - only OK.
-Vietnamese - So-so.
-Xinjiang - Several good Xinjiang style restaurants near our apartment - one with singing and dancing - Xinjiang dark beer is tasty
-Turkish - "Thousand and One Nights" - great spicy salads
-Japanese - "Ichiban" - Just around the corner and very vegetarian friendly
-Italian - "That's Amore" - authentic

And street food.......too many to name.

When we eat out with family and coworkers, it's usually at huge and loud Chinese restaurants. Chinese people enjoy a lively and bright environment for eating, as supposed to the subdued and dimmed places in the west. It goes without saying that we always eat family style although recently "personal" hot pot restaurants are in. This means that we sometimes must eat around the meat and not worry about what's in the liquid, that is if we choose to not go hungry or appear extremely unsociable.

Conclusion: Being vegetarian in Shanghai is both easy and hard, loud and quiet, family and personal, eat in and eat out, local and foreign, cheap and expensive, and usually pretty darn tasty. [can you tell that John wrote this last sentence? ;-)]

Chinese New Year - Fireworks

Here's some video of the Chinese New Year's Eve fireworks.

The first is the view from our back balcony into the apartment courtyard. The second is the view out to the street. Hope they convey some of the noise, excitement, visuals, and fun of Chinese New Year in Shanghai.

Chinese New Year - Postscript

I ran out of steam and never did a post for Feb 24, the last day of the Chinese New Year public holiday. Not much happened. We stayed at home. I finished up my Feb 23 blog post. We watched a movie.

I still have unprocessed video of the New Year's fireworks. Look for that in March.

I've also decided to take the Pig of the Day idea one step farther and have a photo for every day of the Year of the Pig. You can follow my efforts at this flickr set: Year of the Pig.