Shanghai'd

Eating dog.


Our Ayi invited us to spend the Chinese New Year with her family, so on our way to Huang Shan we first stopped off in her small village, Xuancheng, in eastern Anhui province - an easy 7 hr hard sleeper train ride from Shanghai. It's a rare opportunity for foreigners to get a glimpse into the "real" life of China's peasants, who still make up the vast majority of China's overall population. To be invited for Chinese New Year is a special honor, so we of course jumped at the chance.

Shanghai, with all it's Starbucks and KFCs is by no means an accurate representation of China as a whole. I knew this before our trip to Xuancheng, but the point was further reinforced during our stay. Xiao Xu's home (when she is not working in Shanghai) is a 2-story cement building with a shotgun layout. The front has a dining area, with the kitchen in the back. Upstairs are two bedrooms. There is electricity, but no running water. The toilet is the ubiquitous hole in the floor in a room attached to the back of the house. Behind the house were some styrofoam and other trash-fed "free range" chickens and a small vegetable garden. Modest, but comfortable.

Chinese New Year dinner, being such a special occasion, demanded a special culinary treat, and we were not disappointed - at least not in our quest for the authentic China. This was not my first time to chi gou rou, but all I could manage to think about during the meal was the skeleton-like rattling sound the bones had made when Xiao Xu stir-fried them up in her wok a few minutes earlier. I'm ashamed to say this is one of the few times I couldn't clean my plate.