Sept 13: Chinese BBQ

Today we are invited to my uncle's house for a BBQ!

BBQ is a new concept for Chinese people. It is also a luxury reserved for those rich enough to live in a house - can you imagine what your apartment would smell like if you light a BBQ in it?
My uncle's house is located in Sakura Garden, a development in the suburban area Xin Zhuang. In the 80's, Xin Zhuang might as well be timbuktu to Shanghai people. It was considered remote countryside. As rapid development gobbled up land in Shanghai, the city started to expand at an alarming pace. Farmland in nearby suburban areas were converted into residential and commercial developments. The municipality followed up with infrastructure improvements. Today there are enough residents in Xin Zhuang to warrant a subway line leading directly to it from centertown Shanghai.

We left at 9 AM via Subway Line 1. There are altogether 8 subway lines connecting different areas in and around Shanghai. Line 1 passes near my parents' apartment and its final stop is Xin Zhuang. It only took us 20 minutes to get there. The subway was crowded on this Saturday morning. There was barely enough room to stand.

We walked out of the subway station into the blazing sun. The weather is unseasonable hot and humid for September. But neither the heat or the humidity deterred the bustling crowd around us. From the subway station, we had to take a bus to get to Sakura Garden. Most of the well-maintained developments in suburban Shanghai have their own buses that travel back and forth between the subway station and the community. When we got to the bus terminal, we saw at least 4 different buses, each with the name of the development written on the front. The ride is free - it is part of the real estate contract between the buyers and the developer. We were lucky enough to arrive just in time for the next bus or we would had to wait for half an hour.

When we got to my uncle's place, they were busy preparing for the barbeque. As I mentioned before, a Chinese barbeque is quite different from what we are used to in Canada. My cousin Martin was trying to pierce squid tentacles onto a skewer when we arrived. The big kitchen table was already covered with food: little purple yams, eggplants, onions and peppers, chicken wings and seaweed. My aunt has gone to the club house for some entertainment program organized for the residents of the development. Each development has a posh-looking club house. It is usually the most impressive-looking building in the entire development and located right in front of the main entrance. It caters only to the residents of the development and contains various entertainment and fitness facilities. The club house in Sakura Garden has a theatre. My aunt was the lead singer for that day's performance! Since there are many retired people in the development, these activities provides a good venue to help them kill time.

Unfortunately, before Martin and I could run to the club house to cheer on my aunt, the program had ended and we met my aunt halfway. She was followed by my other uncle and his family (wife, daughter, son-in-law and grand-daughter). We started our barbeque.

My uncle's barbeque stove was not powered by propane - it was known as a Hibachi. Martin and I waved two pieces of cardboard paper violently over the charcoal, trying to start a fire. We were not too successful. Cherry's husband Cai came to our rescue. Cai is from a neighboring province of Shanghai and grew up in the countryside. Starting a fire is a piece of cake for him. Besides, he is an athelete and a phys-ed teacher. His stamina and strength put us to shame. He took over the fan and with several powerful waves, there was fire! Of course, Martin and I both inhaled a good dosage of smoke.

Martin and Cai were the main chefs for barbeque - it is indeed a task for men. I have always thought there is something very sexy about a man doing a barbeque. Even the meekest and mildest man looks manly when he is barbequing because makes him look a bit like a caveman! Martin and Cai didn't let us down - food started to arrive at the table quickly.

I hate to report that most of the food were pretty tasteless (the picture to the left shows my cousin Cherry displaying a chicken wing). Clearly my uncle and aunt have not mastered the technique of marinading. There was no oil or condiments on the many species pierced onto the skewers. As a result, things burned easily and didn't taste that great. I noticed the popular practice is to pour a lot of HP sauce on the barbequed products before you eat them. I stuck to orange juice and peppers after a skewer of very dry seaweed and tough squid tantecles. But it was obvious that all my relatives enjoyed the non-marinaded food as they were eaten up quite quickly. Guess what was the most popular item? Bacon! They were the biggest bacon I have ever seen - easily 3 times the size of a piece of Schneider's bacon. "Bacon crisp" is an unknown concept. My aunt simply made the bacon pink before she served them, wrapped in a piece of Boston lettuce. Surprisingly, Boston lettuce was a novelty. Chinese lettuce is very similar to the Romaine variety we have in Canada - actually the only variety worth eating since all other lettuces are just water without much else in it. But since Boston lettuce is rare and looks really pretty and clean, it was the highlight of the barbeque. I didn't want to tell them that it is a nutrition-poor vegetable - why dampen the spirit?

As we sat around a long table eating away underneath a new tent that my uncle's neighbor just bought, many neighbors walked by. My uncle and aunt get along really well with all the neighbors. One of the neighbors bought a tent the day before and generously gave it to my uncle for the barbeque. He said he wanted my uncle to test it out. When my uncle gave him good feedback about the tent, the neighbor beamed and said he would go out and buy another one that day. There was going to be a neighborhood barbeque party in 3 days: a birthday party for that neighbor's one-year-old grandson. The neighborhood holds a party every month. When you live that far away from your family, your neighbors become your family.

I also noticed how affluent the neighhood was. 3 groups of neighbors passed by when we were eating. First came a couple in their 40's. The husband went to fetch the car - a Volvo SUV, while the tall and pretty wife stood waiting with her little white Bichon. Then came 3 well-dressed girls in their 20's, piling into a large Nissan. Then came the "tent neighbor". He has a chemical factory in the countryside and is extremely successful. His wife, a lady in her 60's, was a submarine weapon designer. They were taking care of their two grand children (having a second child will bring monetary penalty but money clearly is not an issue for this family). The whole development is full of rich Chinese people, some much richer than most of the Canadians I know. It is a scary sight to behold - because I also see a lot of people in Shanghai with little to live on.

Just when all of us were stuffed, my aunt's shrimp delivery arrived. She had ordered live Taiwanese shrimps from a nearby market. The delivery was late but she accepted the order anyway. I helped her skewer the shrimps and felt extremely cruel. The shrimps were all still alive. As I tried to put them on a skewer, they struggled with their distinctive bright yellow legs. I had to give up after a few - I just couldn't do it any more. I didn't have any shrimps. If we had to slaughter our own food, most of us would be vegetarians.

After the meal, we helped clean up and then checked out the many interesting things growing around my uncle's house. Climbing high onto the tree in front of the house is a silk gourd vine, full of gourds. Silk gourd is native to eastern China. It is 15 to 20 inches long, slender and light green in color. It has a pale green flesh and a delicate taste. It is perfect in soup or omelettes. We looked at the silk gourd growing on top of the tree. It was almost as high as the third floor.

"How are you going to get that gourd?" we asked.

"This is what I call retirement entertainment." uncle proudly claimed.

He brought out an apparatus that amazed all of us. It is a special pair of shears tied onto the end of a very long bamboo pole. The shears are operated by a long string. If you tug on the string, the shears will close. Then he gave us a basket tied to the end of another bamboo pole. One of us held the basket directly underneath the gourd while uncle pulled the string. Voila - a fresh silk gourd. Uncle picked about 8 of them for us to take home. They were so fresh and delicious!
Beside the silk gourd, a vine with feathery leaves and pretty star-shaped flowers caught our eyes. Uncle said he didn't plant it. A bird probably dropped some seeds under the tree. The vine grew very fast and was flowering profusely. I took some seeds and hope to grow them next year in my own garden. Although looking at the delicate leaves, I wonder how it will stand up to the vicious Canadian earwigs and other pests. The picture here shows two fully-grown silk gourds as well as a pretty little red star-flower and its delicate leaves.

We spent the rest of the day there. Martin, Cherry, Cai and I went to an abandonned fitness club and played a game of badminton. Of course, Cai beat us badly. He would easily win even if he played against all 3 of us at the same time. The elders (uncles, aunts and parents) sat around and chatted. We were also eaten alive by mosquitoes.

We didn't get away without getting fed one more time. When dusk fell, uncle made his famous fried onion noodle, served along side some Russian soup. Again we were stuffed.

It was my first Chinese barbeque experience and it was unforgettable. Apart from the food, I got a glimpse of how the upper-middle-class live in China. They are catching up really fast with the upper-middle-class of the developed nation and probably will surpass them soon.