niteshade925

[niteshade925]

2025 China (1): Breakfast and Home Cooking; outline of the plan for this series at the end

Finally the series begins! Let's start with some food pics

Since some of the restaurants I went to were the same ones as last year, I'm going to skip over those, but the one thing I cannot skip is a good old Tianjin breakfast of youtiao/油条 (in Tianjin they are called guozi/馃子), jianbingguozi/煎饼果子, and doufunao/豆腐脑 (the savoury version):

To clear up some confusion over the naming, all desserts made of dough used to be called guozi/馃子 (饣being the Simplified food radical, 飠is the Traditional version of the same radical), but now the character 馃 is gradually replaced with 果 in common usage, so when you see 果 being used to refer to anything made of dough, it's probably actually 馃. Also nowadays the word guozi/馃子 generally refers exclusively to youtiao. This also applies to jianbingguozi/煎饼果子, which should be written as 煎饼馃子, because the classic version of jianbingguozi has a guozi or youtiao folded inside the jianbing. This version here in the picture has guobier/果篦儿 inside, which is also fried dough but in thin crispy sheets, so the 果 here is also the same as 馃. Guobier is called baocui/薄脆 outside of Tianjin.

And then the not-authentic version of the Tianjin guobacai/锅巴菜 (in Tianjin dialect this is pronounced gabacai/嘎巴菜). It's not authentic because I don't like cilantro lol. In essence though this is basically savoury doufunao with jianbing strips instead of tofu, kind of analogous to the German frittatensuppe. Both jianbingguozi and guobacai are variations that stemmed from the Shandong jianbing.

Left: a Tianjin dessert named gaogan/糕干, a cake made of steamed rice flour and various dried fruits/sweet red bean paste.

Right: zongzi/粽子, just in time for Duanwu Festival/端午节 (aka Dragon Boat Festival/龙舟节). The color of the string tells you what the filling is, but in general zongzi in northern China are sweet and are served as a dessert. In other regions (mostly southern China) zongzi may be salty or savoury and may contain meats like cured ham, and these zongzi can be served as a part of a meal.

And here's some home cooking. This is dalumian/打卤面, or noodles served with a sauce and fresh vegetables, here the sauce is a savoury sauce simmered with meat, eggs, mushrooms, other veggies. In Tianjin dalumian can also be called laomian/捞面, and may be eaten on birthdays since long noodles symbolize longevity. There's also other stir fried dishes on the side here.

And some plans for the 2025 China series:

This time the series will be mostly museum pictures, so the food posts will be more spaced out in between posts about exhibitions. Organization wise, the 2024 China series was mostly organized in a chronological order, but this time I'm going to mix things up a bit to even out the pacing a little and give myself a breather (some posts are way more time consuming to research and write than others). I went to Shanghai and then Beijing this year, but I'll begin with Beijing since I didn't finish going through the Ancient China exhibition of the National Museum of China last year.

For now, the general plan will be:

National Museum of China/中国国家博物馆 (Ancient China exhibition/古代中国展)

The Palace Museum/故宫博物院 (architecture, the Rejoicing in Woods and Springs/乐林泉展 exhibition, the Ceramics Gallery/陶瓷馆, the All Beings Thrive in Harmony/万物和生展 paintings exhibition, the Treasure Gallery/珍宝馆, and the Gallery of Clocks/钟表馆)

Yonghe Temple/雍和宫

Prince Kung's Palace Museum/恭王府博物馆 (mostly architecture and scenery)

Chinese Archaeological Museum/中国考古博物馆

China Maritime Museum/中国航海博物馆 (in Shanghai)

The posts about food and scenery will be placed in between all of these museum posts

Also I'm still busy for the rest of July so there will be 1 to 2 posts every 2 weeks for July, and then I'll figure out a schedule after July ends.

[niteshade925]

Finally done with some stuff at work, back to writing posts.

Maybe because the new series has to do with Beijing, maybe because I've been listening to shows about history, I'm suddenly remembering this song

Fun fact and fun fact(?):

This song was the theme song of the 1997 show "Records of Kangxi's Travel Incognito" (《康熙微服私访记》), a historical fiction (key word: fiction; historically Kangxi is known for his inspection tours but has never traveled incognito) about the travels and experiences Kangxi Emperor had while disguised as a commoner. This is the fun fact.

The other fun fact (?) is that I'm 90% sure this show is the inspiration for the story Rex Incognito (帝君尘游记) in Genshin.

[niteshade925]

Mirror mirror on the wall, who has the best feet of them all............

[niteshade925]

The perfect pear-shaped bod

[niteshade925]

Couldn't sleep, turned and saw a pair of eyes watching me from the foot of the bed

Maybe she's waiting for me to get off of her bed 🤪

[niteshade925]

Yea it's honestly not that hard, the hard part is convincing yourself that it's possible

I started reading (modern) Traditional when I came here, because my parents use a certain free Chinese newspaper offered at Asian grocery stores as a makeshift floor covering while cooking (it makes cleaning the floor easier). I was bored so I started to read it. I had to guess some characters at first based on context, but it became easier and easier over time

Also to clear up a part of that post:

I did say Traditional isn't hard to learn by oneself, but this is for people without learning disabilities. Sorry for the lack of clarification there.

Personally I've only had 3 years of elementary education in China and this was almost 20 years ago. I have not taken any Chinese language classes since, but taught myself simply by using Chinese whenever I could. Right now I'm about native university student level with the ability to read Traditional and write a little bit of Traditional (it's because I'm starting to explore Chinese calligraphy). So for people who already know Simplified Chinese well, it's definitely possible to self-teach Traditional, and vice versa.

[niteshade925]

And now that I've spoiled season 8 for myself, I think I'm really going to hate Vogel with a passion. And maybe Harry too.

Im only on season 2 ep 2 atm and have to stop here bc I have a crap ton of things to do but

I don't think Dexter is a psychopath, I think he's playing the part of a "psychopathic vigilante". The emptiness inside him may well be because he's lived all these years according to a script that someone else wrote for him, instead of real psychopathy.

I mean otherwise what the fuck was the point of Brian. Brian is literally a foil, a real psychopath that Dexter can be compared to

[niteshade925]

Im only on season 2 ep 2 atm and have to stop here bc I have a crap ton of things to do but

I don't think Dexter is a psychopath, I think he's playing the part of a "psychopathic vigilante". The emptiness inside him may well be because he's lived all these years according to a script that someone else wrote for him, instead of real psychopathy.

I mean otherwise what the fuck was the point of Brian. Brian is literally a foil, a real psychopath that Dexter can be compared to

[niteshade925]

Guy in a video: "...so if you know Chinese history..."

(oh cool this guy knows)

Guy: "...you would know that (spews a bunch of bullshit)..."

(Why the fuck did I bother.)

[niteshade925]

Thanks for all the effort you put into your posts! They are really informative and I'm glad to find an English source that doesn't demonize china

Thank you! I'm not professional but I try to dig for more information where possible

[niteshade925]

2025 China series will begin in the next month or so

I just need some time to arrange all the pictures I have so I'm not going to take forever writing the posts like I did last year

[niteshade925]

Also to clear up a part of that post:

I did say Traditional isn't hard to learn by oneself, but this is for people without learning disabilities. Sorry for the lack of clarification there.

Personally I've only had 3 years of elementary education in China and this was almost 20 years ago. I have not taken any Chinese language classes since, but taught myself simply by using Chinese whenever I could. Right now I'm about native university student level with the ability to read Traditional and write a little bit of Traditional (it's because I'm starting to explore Chinese calligraphy). So for people who already know Simplified Chinese well, it's definitely possible to self-teach Traditional, and vice versa.

[niteshade925]

Btw this is the post. If you've ever wondered why there's Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese, and what's the connection between the two writing systems, please read this post:

The reason I made that post explaining how (modern) Simplified Chinese came to be is because people still believe in lies such as "the CCP invented Simplified Chinese" (no they didn't.) or "Simplified Chinese is the same as 'Newspeak' and the CCP used it to control people" (that's not fucking true.)

Again I have my opinion on things but I feel like regardless of where one stands in terms of politics, they should still value truth above lies.

[niteshade925]

The reason I made that post explaining how (modern) Simplified Chinese came to be is because people still believe in lies such as "the CCP invented Simplified Chinese" (no they didn't.) or "Simplified Chinese is the same as 'Newspeak' and the CCP used it to control people" (that's not fucking true.)

Again I have my opinion on things but I feel like regardless of where one stands in terms of politics, they should still value truth above lies.

[niteshade925]

A continuation of my prev post:

So the exhibition that had Monet's painting and Tang Yin's painting side by side is a garden-themed exhibition called Rejoicing in Woods and Springs/乐林泉, and it's a collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago and others. Probably for the 100th anniversary of the Palace Museum (the palace officially became a museum in 1925).

Here's part 1 of the mini docu series the Palace Museum made about this exhibition (video has Eng sub):

If anyone is in Beijing now, you need to see this exhibition! The exhibition itself is free meaning you only need to pay to enter the Palace Museum, but you do need a separate appointment to enter this specific exhibition.

The Palace Museum is also reopening Hall of Mental Cultivation/养心殿 (in a nutshell: this is the place in the palace where Qing dynasty emperors actually lived) this October after a decade of extensive preservation, but very unfortunately, I won't have a chance to see it any time soon.

And lastly, while I will be posting about pieces in the Rejoicing in Woods and Springs exhibition, because of the nature of my posts and because my phone had limited storage and battery, the pictures will all be about Chinese paintings and artifacts.

[niteshade925]

Wow. Never thought I would see Monet's painting and Tang Yin's painting side by side in one gallery that used to be a palace gate, and none of them are replicas. I don't think I will ever see such a sight ever again.

I have accumulated some ~1500 pictures in Beijing alone this time, and will be accumulating more in the next two days. Idk how many posts will come out of these pictures lol, just today I burned through the batteries of two phones by taking pictures and burned halfway through the 3rd phone when I finally had to stop because I needed that one to navigate my way back to the hotel :P

[niteshade925]

When Tums, a Western social media platform, has a stricter definition of what constitutes "mature content" than the National Museum of China:

This is for my Dehua porcelain post btw.

I don't want to hear another person cry about "China censoring mature content" ever again.