Gassy Monk

I had an opportunity to visit one of my former students in her home town of Gao Chun, a district of Nanjing. May was the outgoing English Club head, and she invited me to visit her & her family along with another student from my school, Tina, who is the current English Club head. Both are very skilled in English and just great kids.

Gao Chun doesn’t have much, but what it does have is old Chinese architecture & character. There is one main attraction for tourists, the Old Street (Lao Jie), which is home to some of the newest & oldest structures in town, and you’ll only find Chinese tourists in Gao Chun, which was a big draw for me. Like many Chinese cities, this one is becoming more & more modern every year. Fortunately, to date the influence of change has taken a relatively insignificant toll on the natural beauty Gao Chun has to offer.

The weekend was wet & cold enough to keep most people indoors and we had most of the sites to ourselves – a rare occurrence in a country with so many people. There were 2 scenic & memorable areas; one was a park & the other a Daoist temple complex with some ancient Chinese stone tablets & a 7-story pagoda.

I walked away from this experience with my first real taste of Chinese family hospitality. The fact that May & her family would go to such lengths to host a foreigner for the weekend is telling of their generosity & is exemplary of the Chinese culture. I realized that even asking for a bath was putting them out – they’d have to get more hot water just for me – and that this luxury I have in my dorm room is not shared by many families. I had heard of this, of course, but it wasn’t a reality in my mind until this weekend. May’s family is pretty well off and they didn’t have a water heater.

Other than that, hanging out with 2 college age Chinese girls on a weekend was pretty relaxing. They were drawn to the Internet & chatting when we weren’t singing songs, in Chinese, of course, or looking at pictures & talking about differences in Chinese & American culture.

Gaochun Dry Tofu (高淳 豆腐干子)

May’s family gave this to me before Tina & I left. Gaochun tofu is the best I’ve had here in China, so far. Other kinds are available in soups, as a standalone dish, or in other courses, but the stuff from Gaochun had the perfect texture & flavor to go with some spicy peppers. Not much more to say here; it made for a tasty lunch in between classes.

# posted by Scott @ 6:43 AM