Vignettes of the World
Our experience with the food of Yangshuo was noteworthy. There were a few memorable meals across all budget categories. I will discuss the restaurants briefly below. The order is not a ranking. Xitang Riverside Restaurant Restaurant Location Comment Recommendation Xitang Riverside Restaurant (喜糖爱吃鱼江景餐厅西街江景店) 广西壮族自治区桂林市阳朔县抗战路富安码头喜糖民宿一楼(碧莲江景酒店隔壁) Xitang …
Having visited the Silver Cave, you will never be lack of money. So does the saying goes. The Silver Cave is not a silver mine, it is a stalactite cave. Located within a inner range of 12 mountains in Yangshuo, the Silver Cave offers some …
Yangshuo was unforgivingly cold on this day, and it was the very last full day of touring in Yangshuo for us. We would be pushing a full day program of activities. The day was cold and misty, but the scenery of Yanshuo took on an appearance that was poetic like a Chinese ink painting. Its karst peaks never fail to exhibit the beauty that is said to top the world.
Located at the end of the Ten Mile Gallery, the Moon Mountain is well known as one of the most picturesque sceneries in Yangshuo. It is said that, when you observe the see-through hole as you drive along the Ten Mile Gallery, the shape changes from new moon, half-moon and to full moon. We took a stop to take photographs there.
At a height of 380 meters, the Moon Mountain is climbable. You may ascend the mountain on a flight of 800 steps. The wonder with which the Moon Mountain acquired its name is the see-through archway near the top of the mountain. It measures 50 meters in width and height, but only a few meters in thickness.
It is worth a stop there to take pictures, but picture taking would take only about 15 minutes. We packed some good coffee to go. A large group of school children also stopped by in those early morning hours. They headed right off to a touristy restaurant for their breakfast. The vibe was jovial, but the cold lingered on.
There was a debate back and forth with our driver Xiaohuang about the visit to a Dong minority village. He rather insisted that we went, and I did not quite understand why. My trouble is that my family is not exactly fluent in Mandarin. They most likely would not be able to get the full story of the minority even if the guide spoke super slowly. Yet my aunt expressed keen interest, and so we did visit the Dong Minority village of Malinggu.
Photo: The hill that lies right across from the Malinggu Village is called Turtle Hill, symolizing longevity.
It turned out to be a good decision. Those of us that were interested in learning about this minority took a lot out of their sharing. Those that did not care much, decided to buy the expensive handcrafted silverware. We each took what we liked from this tour.
Xiaohuang told me about the turf wars among the different ethnicities in this part of China. Those that won would take the flatland in the low grounds. The losers were relegated to the top of the mountains. The Dong ethnic minority were the ones that lost all battles and ended up in the mountaintops.
As with life itself, what you lose in some major respects, something else will come as a blessing. The people of Dong have the highest average in longevity by ethnicity. In the Long Hair village of the Red Yao minority, the way the women maintained their hair was the primary branding in both products and tourism. Similarly, in the Dong minority village the secret to a long life is the highlight.
At the entrance of Malinggu Village, the villagers greeted us with a traditional guest welcoming ceremony. They toasted rice wine with us and said their greetings in the Dong language. In all of China, the population of the Dong ethnic minority number some 250,000 to 300,000. They were featured in the 1990s edition of the RMB 1 dollar note.
The Malinggu village is not the native habitat for the Dong minority village, as it is on the low ground area. The government allocated the land to the villagers to live and work. Their native habitat is up in the mountains.
The system goes like this. The villagers work in craftmaking and tourism in this area, designated as their “home away from home.” They are “paid” by credits. When someone buys a silverware, or pay for tourist activities, they earn the credits that will eventually allow them to bring their families to this village from their native habitat up on the mountains.
All the structures of Malinggu Village are made of wood. To prevent fire, the families living in their quarters here do not cook. They all eat at the canteen on site.
Besides being the site of tourism, this village area also provides the space for the villagers to engage in silverware and bamboo crafting, which are the traditional trades for the Dong ethnic minority. Most of the silverware craftsmen are men.
The administration of village affairs is handled by the women, even though the current village head is a man. They do not characterize themselves as a matriarchal society, so to speak, but like the Yao ethnic minority, the women of the village have an esteemed position as opposed to men. The children take the surname of the mothers (and this is a village of the surname Xu). When they refer to marriage, the Chinese phrase they use is “taking a husband” (in Chinese, a marriage is usually said as “taking a wife.”)
Silver is indispensable in the culture of the Dong minority. The Dong people wear silver, first and foremost, for health reasons. The lady that guided us told us that the color of the silver that they wear daily indicates the state of their health. When they have serious illnesses, the silverware will show a black hue. The older a woman is, the heavier the silver earrings that she wears. It is itself a sign of seniority and prestige in the village.
Silver is also the centerpiece of the bride gift for the Dong minority women. The man that seeks marriage with a Dong minority woman would present a set of silverwares. This set consists of two silver combs, two bangles, and one silver cup.
The silver combs serve as the “marriage certificate” for the couple, as married Dong women wear a silver comb in their hair. The bangles are for the bride and her mother, each having one. The one cup rhymes with the words “for the rest of life,” in Chinese, thus conveying the wish to be bound in marriage for life.
As to the secrets for longevity, there is a demonstration area in the village for gua sha, acupuncture and other alternative health remedies in traditional Chinese medicine, but we declined those.
I bought a cute little something at the large silverware showroom at the village. I then showed Xiaohuang, “I bought something, you happy now?”
It is no news that tour guides will take a cut from the spending that their clients make at these showrooms. I thought Xiaohuang has kept the shopping to the very minimal already (we only did one session of shopping besides this one) and I appreciated that. But he tended to insist that we visit places that are very touristy. We wanted to see beautiful scenery.
“Ah Jie, you have to understand, they are very poor. This is the way to help them.”
I bet you that in all of his life there has never been anyone that could argue against that. Surely, the Dong people that work here lead basic lives. They are motivated mainly by the dream of being able to reunite with the older members of their families in the village located on the ground.
“Xiaohuang, I have visited the ethnic minority villages thirty years ago here in Guangxi. In those times, they asked for such basic things as clothes. I have seen their poorer days.”
Xiaohuang looked at me speechless. Few people that see China now understands the actual, astronomical dimensions of poverty alleviation that it has been able to accomplish. I have seen the villages up in the mountains thirty years ago. The Dong ethnic minority is given the opportunity to rise above poverty now, with the help of the local government. That is a laudable effort. But to call them poor, no, not relative to the position they were in before. Not relative to the poorest in the world now either.
I say this because the pricing of the silverware at this showroom is ridiculously high. The same pieces that we bought would cost a fraction at marketplaces like Taobao. They claim that these pieces are handmade and with quality assurance, yes, but chances are that they will list these same pieces for sale at other channels and at much lower prices as well.
I don’t question this way of handling the business. It’s just that charity isn’t the justification for us as buyers. If these silverwares are presented as a business, then we as buyers would only assess the pieces with the standards that we use for all other products, including aesthetics, craftsmanship, value, authenticity and price.
Suffice to say, that Xiaohuang was quite amazed that my cousin bought a set of silver tea ware for a whopping RMB 13,000.
Baidu baike on the Moon Mountain (Chin).
As night descended, we prepared ourselves for the highlight of our Yangshuo visit. In that evening, the temperature in Yangshuo dropped to 10 degrees Celsius. My family bundled up for the famous Impression • Sanjie Liu landscape theatre show. Impression • Sanjie Liu was directed …
When I was planning this family trip, I looked most forward to the hostel that we would be staying at in Yangshuo, for all the bedrooms in the hostel come with fantastic, wide open views of the Lijiang River. The beauty of Moyesanqiu Homestay is …
I set out for the Flying Eagle Restaurant in Sham Shui Po after a round of bargain hunting in this area. As an aged neighborhood in Kowloon, Sham Shui Po has a history little known to most Hong Kong people. It does not come under the spotlight often, as it is generally understood to be a place for people of lesser means. Yet it has a fascinating history precisely due to this reason.
The earliest human settlement in Sham Shui Po is dated to 2,000 years ago. The Lei Cheng Uk Han Tomb is the living testament to human habitation in this part of Hong Kong, and a civilization no less.
Fast forward to the 19th century, Sham Shui Po was sparsely populated with small villages when the British took over the administration of the New Territories in 1898. Sham Shui Po lied north of then-Boundary Street, therefore it was originally part of the New Territories when the British took over Kowloon in 1860. At the time, Sham Shui Po was a coastal area. The face of Sham Shui Po would change drastically in the 20th century.
Reclamation efforts have brought the Sham Shui Po district inland. Population grew in the early 20th century. A few prominent persons in Hong Kong took interest in the development of the area. Gentry merchants like Wong Yiu Tung, Li Ping, Ho Kai and Lau Chu Pak advocated for the construction of various critical facilities that typified the Chinese communities of Hong Kong. There were already temples and traditional Chinese marketplaces by the 1920s or so. With the establishment of the wet market, the Sham Shui Po Public Dispensary, and the ferry service running between Sham Shui Po and Central, the district soon saw significant population growth.
For the rest of the 20th century, Sham Shui Po’s urban character blossomed. Stalls lining the Ap Liu Street are known to be the prime spot for bargains. The stalls are bazaar-like setups that sell all kinds of daily goods and oddities. Tenement houses lined its streets, and the area became the residence for people with lesser means, including the refugees that came to Hong Kong due to wars and upheavals in China. Even today, Sham Shui Po has remained relatively poor as a neighborhood. And it has aged unmistakably.
It was with this interest in Sham Shui Po’s past that I sought out the historic dining establishments in the area. I have visited Lau Sum Kee noodles previously, a restaurant of 70 years serving traditional hand-pounded bamboo noodles. On this day, I went to the Flying Eagle Restaurant, which is famous for serving “soy sauce western” food since 1977.
I have briefly discussed the idea of “soy sauce western” in my entries on Tai Ping Koon and Boston Restaurant. It refers to a certain way that western cuisine is adapted to meet the preferences of the local populace in Hong Kong in affordable prices.
Yet the idea is not just that soy sauce is used in the food. It is a phenomenon in the long evolution of Hong Kong’s local cuisine. As a cheaper version of proper western cuisine, soy sauce western emerged to meet the demand for all things western as Hong Kong people became increasingly keen in sharing in the privilege of the west in the mid to late 20th century or so. It is about the yearning to participate in the high society of Hong Kong, which was, in the beginning decades of colonialism, off bounds to the Hong Kong Chinese.
The idea of soy sauce western is infused with cultural implications. At the most fundamental level, it changed the dining habits of the Hong Kong Chinese by introducing the custom to eat with a fork and a knife, even for rice. It is therefore a true expression of Hong Kong society’s world-famous character as it is the forerunner of “east meets west.”
When you go to a restaurant for soy sauce western, the idea comes to life in everything that it offers: from the typically dark dining space to the sweet bread rolls that go with either a “white soup” (cream of corn) or a “red soup” (Hong Kong style borsch). The main dishes usually feature your meat of choice, generously swaddled in a soy-based sauce, orange in color if it is onion, and very dark when it is black pepper. You would eat your meat with rice or spaghetti.
The Flying Eagle began its first chapter in Macau in 1971. It then moved to Hong Kong in 1977 and has been in Sham Shui Po since. It remains a business of the Wu family throughout the past decades. In its heyday, Flying Eagle positioned itself as a high-class restaurant for the merchants and factory owners to meet and discuss business.
In Chinese, we have the phrase “ten years like a day” to describe something that has remained true to its purpose throughout the long passage of time. The Flying Eagle is exactly that.
The aged brown walls, the light fixture of the 1980s, the memorabilia of a bygone era — all are the hallmarks that brings one back the early 1980s, at the cusp of a roaring decade that defined Hong Kong’s future in all matters of politics and economy.
The idea of soy sauce western emerged to represent a local, fusion version of western food. The interpretation of western dining as expressed in soy sauce western restaurants has now become dated. The Hong Kong people’s idea of proper fusion food has taken a worldly leap forward, as they have developed super sophisticated dining expectations in a much wealthier society.
Today, soy sauce western is a thing that evokes nostalgia, above all else. There are no longer so many soy sauce western restaurants in Hong Kong, and none can maintain the former privilege as the “only door to the western lifestyle” for the Hong Kong Chinese.
Its most famous dish is steak on a sizzling hot plate (HK$138), which is certainly a soy sauce western classic. Although that is served during lunch, I opted for the set lunch menu for HK$50. There were two choices, either pork chop or beef tongue, and I had beef tongue over white rice. I noticed that fellow diners ordered the pork chop, and they had the exact same sauce over their meat.
It is no exaggeration to say that I tasted old Hong Kong in the food. The bread roll was soft, warm, and perfect with butter and the borsch.
The beef tongue was very tender and well-seasoned. The thick sauce was the soul of the dish that delivered comfort, familiarity and a touch of heartfulness. Finally, certainly not least, the staff are of course of the older generation (as in, older than myself), who smile ear to ear at you when you talk to them.
Flying Eagle stands tall in the nostalgic dining category because it offers an experience that embodies all the classic elements of soy sauce western. There is still a long queue for dinner time at the Flying Eagle, as it is now a nostalgic icon.
The address of Flying Eagle is No. 256, Lai Chi Kok Road, Sham Shui Po (cross street Nam Cheong Street).
sham-shui-po.com on Sham Shui Po History.
The Maritime Museum is perhaps the only private museum in Hong Kong, established and maintained with the support by various prominent persons and companies, such as the Wah Kwong shipping company and Swire. Its location at Central Pier No. 8 is a perfect alignment with …
Lijiang River (not to be confused with the Lijiang of Yunnan) is the subsidiary of the Pearl River system in the west. It is the upper reaches to the Guijiang River. From its origin in Xingan County’s high mountain of Mao’er Shan in the northeast, …
In Chinese, lingzhi, the Ganoderma Lucidum is a type of mushroom that is grown on rotten wood. Also known as reishi in Japan, it is a medicinal herb widely used in the traditional medicine of Asia. In China, it is much sought-after and it is very expensive.
On our way to Yangshuo, our driver Xiaohuang stopped by a lingzhi garden that also serves cuisine with this herb. I was pleasantly surprised: the food was special and the learning was very interesting.
According to traditional Chinese medicine, lingzhi has the chief effects of strengthening the body, especially in raising the metabolic rate, lifting the energy level and reducing fatigue. Containing polysaccharides and triterpene, lingzhi is meant to activate the immune system in the body, as well as providing a rich source of antioxidants.
As a medicinal herb featured in Li Shizhen’s Compendium of Materia Medica, lingzhi has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for 2,000 years.
At the farm, the staff introduced to us to how lingzhi is grown. Lingzhi was very expensive in the older times because they were found in the wild. As such, it was featured in imperial cuisine as a privilege of China’s emperors and nobility in the ancient time.
Photos above: the growth of lingzhi
It was only in the past 4 to 5 decades that lingzhi is cultivated and grown in farms. According to what I saw at the farm, it did not occur to me that it was a particularly “difficult” crop to grow — though certainly this farm has developed some very specialized techniques for growing lingzhi.
Wild lingzhi grows upon rotten wood. The mushroom is especially rare because of the conditions required to spur its growth. At the lingzhi garden, I learned how farmers recreated these natural conditions. In this garden, the growers used two types of wood, the chinquapin or the maple. They are cut into 50 cm logs first. The logs are then sealed in bags and steamed for 24 hours. This step aims to remove the conditions that enable the growth of other kinds of mushrooms.
Then the logs are dressed in new bags with the seeds of the lingzhi planted. The temperature and other critical conditions for lingzhi to grow was heavily monitored in the garden. At the time of our visit, it was the very tail end of the season already. Most of the lingzhi was harvested already. There was just one, just one, piece there for demonstration purposes. We did manage to see lingzhi in a recreated natural environment, amongst the lain around wood logs in the garden.
The staff told us that the most important yield of a lingzhi mushroom are actually its seeds. They are powdery and that is the most valuable product out of a harvest. Only mature lingzhi disseminates seeds, as seen in the powdery layer on the surface of its cap. In fact, right when the lingzhi spews seed, that is the most appropriate time to harvest the crop to ensure the reaping of the greatest medicinal qualities.
We had a wonderful time chatting with the staff there about lingzhi. They led us to other parts of the garden, and the air was filled with the fragrance of blooming osmanthus. When Xiaohuang told us we were having another hotpot lunch, I was not overly excited, but the whole experience turned out to be so surprisingly educational and pleasant.
Lunch was a meal themed in lingzhi. We were first served lingzhi tea. I thought it had an interesting woody, earthy flavor. The main course was chicken hotpot cooked in a lingzhi infused broth. It was very flavorful as well. We ordered the garden vegetables to go into our hotpot, and even the garden vegetables were unique. We had never had such vegetables before as Cantonese.
I had never had lingzhi in my life. I was always under the impression that it is a highly priced dry herb that I could not afford. Yet I would not say that the meal we had would give us all the purported effects of Lingzhi. We were certainly not served with the powdery seeds, which brings forth the greatest potency of lingzhi’s medicinal qualities. But this meal is a proper “medicinal cuisine (yaoshan),” which is very popular in Beijing.
The name of the lingzhi farm is Hongfeng Yuanlin (宏峰园林Hongfeng Garden). The address is Guangcheng Xian, Yangshuo County, Guilin Municipality, Zhuang Minority Autonomous Region, Guangxin Province (广西壮族自治区桂林市阳朔县广成线) accessible by private car only. It is quite a worthy stop on the way to Yangshuo from Guilin City. The restaurant is part of the enterprise to promote lingzhi as a health supplement.
Cosmopolitian, Which lingzhi seeds are the best? (Chin).
The Wikipedia on Ganoderma Lucidum.
Biomedschool.com, What is lingzhi? (Chin).
Guilin prides in itself as “the scenery that tops the world,” as the Chinese saying goes. The city offers a few options for tourists that want to enjoy an up-close encounter with Guilin’s unique natural scenery. Situated between the Lijiang River on the east and …