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September 2, 2000
Saturday 10AM
This morning I took a usual walk down the mountain to the shops to buy breakfast. HNU is built on a very famous mountain, Yuelu Mountain. The guesthouse where I live is the last building on campus before the forests of the mountain rise steeply behind it. My room faces away from the mountain, and overlooks a wooded garden with benches and water gardens. From the floor above me you can see the river and city of Changsha in the distance. It may be that
I'm be able to see that also when the trees come off the leaves this fall.
So, this morning I walked down a steep road to the street level just outside the old gate to the campus. I stopped at my usual shop just beside the door and purchased a steamed bread dumpling filled with very spicy meat and a tortilla type of food. The steamed buns are held in bamboo circular shaped baskets. The tortilla type food starts as flour with small pieces of chopped green onion and spices kneaded into it.
It's then shaped into round, flat tortillas and cooked in a large flat electric pan with a lid that is pressed on top of it. The tortilla is taken out of the skillet with wooden tongs, placed on a counter, cut up into pieces with a cleaver, weighed, and handed to you in a plastic sandwich bag. All this is done, after the cooking stage, without any touch by hands. An important thing to note when buying food on the street. This morning I paid 1.5 yuan for breakfast. (about 0.18 US)
I leaned against a tree while I munched breakfast, watched the people streaming by, and reflected on the myth that the U.S. invented fast food. I suspect the Chinese, for centuries, have been stopping at these street side food stands and restaurants, buying their breakfast, and eating it as they walk along.
A man carried an iron bucket with a lid on it and sat it down near me, squatting back on his heels. In a minute a woman came up to him and spoke. He took the lid off the bucket exposing what looked like yogurt, but might have been some kind of bean curd. He scooped some into the ubiquitous plastic sandwich bag and she paid him and went on her way. A man came along and the vendor picked up plastic bowl, scooped mixture into it, sprinkled some sugar over it from a jar, and gave the customer the bowl and a small plastic spoon. The buyer squatted on his heels, stirred the sugar into the mixture, threw the spoon down on the ground, and drank the mixture from the bowl.
Now all three of us were people watching. Two men squatting on their heels and me leaning on a tree. The street was full of people, bicycles, and tricycle trucks. People lined up at the food stalls. People carrying packages, fresh vegetables, eating as they walked, drinking tea, chatting. There are dozens of places to buy food on just a few blocks of street. Most of the stores and eateries do not have doors and are open to the street. They have metal garage doors that roll down at night and lock. I finished my food and began the uphill walk home to start my workday.
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