The week of New Years is about to start and Ho Chi Minh City is already starting to clear out. Everywhere, decorations are being put up and flags are being flown proud. So far, I get the feeling of 4th of July and thanksgiving is coming. National pride is everywhere, flags and banners are everywhere. Today I saw someone driving around in a Mercedes with a giant 6×9 flag attached to the roof. People are getting filing out of the city and traveling to stay with family during the celebration. The city is quieter and it is ten times easier to cross the street, even during rush hours. The excitement can be felt in the air everywhere around the city as people clean their shops and restaurants and post signs saying they will be closed during the New Years. I can’t wait for the fireworks.
Last weekend, a group of nine of us Loyola students took a trip to Vung Tau, which is on the coast just east of Ho Chi Minh City. We woke up early on Thursday morning to make it to the river to catch a hydrofoil boat. It was around $10 for the hour and a half ride through ports and forests, all while weaving in and out of huge container ships. This was really cool because we were going so fast and it was pretty smooth. When we got off the boat though, we were overcome with the sea breeze and sunshine. It is crazy how just an hour boat ride and the air clears right up and it is noticeably easier to breathe.
We walked over to the bus station and bought our tickets, then checked into our hotel and straight to the beach we went! The waves were huge! It was so much fun to jump and play in them, even though it was really really really salty. After what seemed like 45 minutes, but was really 3+ hours of swimming and building sand castles, we all realized we were starving. We caught some xe oms to a restaurant that everyone was referring us to. Our table was literally 15 feet from the waves and we had some of the freshest seafood I have ever had. It was so yummy, especially the calamari.
That night, we played a card game in the hotel driveway on little plastic chairs, it was awesome, especially when the desk worker guy played with us. A couple people went to go get food and when I went to go find them, I ran into this guy who called himself “Crazy Moe.” I tried calling him just Moe a couple times, but he would correct me every time. He walked me to his house and I had a good forty-five minute discussion with him. He was 66 years old, fought for the South Vietnamese Navy during the Vietnam war, was “reeducated” after the war, and about his family. His first daughter was born in 1972, his youngest, 1992. It was great to hear someone talk about how the government really works in a citizen’s point of view.
After checking out of the hotel the next day, we traveled to the base of a giant hill that had a huge jesus on top. Kind of like in Brazil. It felt like the stairs went on forever, but we finally made it to breathtaking views and a strong breeze to cool off with.
The journey back was an experience unlike any other… a sprinter van pulled up to our hotel, we climbed in and the sliding around started. Our driver was one of the most aggressive drivers I have ever even seen. It reminded me of the Night Bus in Harry Potter, weaving in and out of thousands of motorbikes. We would just stop in the middle of a huge intersection, someone would climb right from the back of a motorbike into the van, then we would speed away. Another weird thing that happened was it was picking up more and more people as we went. It got to the point where someone hopped in and the driver handed them a little plastic stool to sit on.
Something really funny that I’ve been noticing here, restaurants must just pick “popular english music” playlists. I am currently sitting in a cafe, with Jingle Bells blasting. It really makes you smile, especially when you don’t know what you’re eating.
This weekend was weird, for the first time in my life, did not watch the greatest game of the year. I could not watch the Super Bowl. I tried to pull a How I Met Your Mother and watch it later without hearing any news of it, but I accidentally saw the score.. but nothing more! It is currently downloading on this super slow internet… at between 12 and 24 KB/s… not to mention the only one online that I could find was 8.9GB. I am anxiously waiting to watch it when it finishes downloading. It’s been downloading for over 15 hours, and just over half way.. I hope I can last!
Back to classes for a couple days, then now I am off until the 17th for the New Years. After growing up in Wisconsin, this whole hot weather in February stuff…. I feel like I might actually melt into the sidewalk.
First of all, Spain is beautiful. When we first landed in Madrid, we got to see this beautiful sunrise made up of layers of orange and gold and yellow with the silhouettes of the mountains in front of it. From Madrid we went to Málaga, which is a coastal town with a lot of palm trees. We didn’t see a whole lot of it because we were all basically vegetables from jet lag and travel, but we did get to go to el centro and see a really beautiful cathedral and a building from when Málaga was a port for this region.
From Málaga we drove to Granada. It’s probably one of the only hour and a half road trips in the world where you see a beach at the beginning and snow-capped mountains at the end. Granada. Is. Beautiful. It’s in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and almost every home and building has views of the mountains and the Alhambra. Granada is a medieval city, so many of the buildings are extremely old, and much of the city retains a lot of its history from when it was home to los arabes, los judios, y los católicos. A lot of the buildings are white with red tile roofs, and it actually looks like paradise. Much of the city was constructed before cars, so the streets are very narrow and change direction a lot. The streets also don’t have prominent signs, and nothing’s on a grid, so it’s somewhat difficult to navigate. I do not envy the drivers around here at all.
There are a few things I’ve noticed so far. Spaniards are all about second breakfast: you eat a small breakfast, then halfway through the morning everyone has another cup of coffee and a snack. Siesta is also serious business. Everything shuts down and everyone goes home to eat lunch and take a rest. Right now it’s siesta time, and it’s practically silent outside. Lunch is the biggest meal here, and it’s very important that everyone gets to eat with their families (not unlike dinner in the States). Dinner is a lot more casual, and people often go out for drinks and tapas for the evening meal. Vegetarians are uncommon here, and if you say that you want something vegetarian, it usually ends up including ham. However, my host mom is an excellent vegetarian cook, which works out well because my roommate and I are both vegetarians.
Spaniards have a very odd relationship with their floor. You can’t put things like bags on the floor because it’s bad luck, and you can’t put clothes on the floor because the floor is considered to be dirty. No one goes barefoot in the house for the same reason, but people clean their floors all the time. It’s very rude if you walk around without slippers or shoes on in the house, but my roommate and I keep forgetting that. Whoops.
Let’s hope I remember to wear my slippers and be very clear about not wanting ham on anything I eat. ¡Hasta luego!
Over a week since that first plate of rice at 3 AM half-way across the world from Chicago, there have been far too many stories and topics to address in a single post. For the continued duration of this blog, I will attempt to address posts by specific topics rather than try to create a chronological narrative of my adventure in Vietnam.
Ho Chi Minh City is a fascinating city; a kaleidoscope of sights, sounds, and smells that are both familiar and bizarre. Its people continue to surprise me everyday with their hard work, determination, and character. I feel that my experiences for these next 4 months will be undoubtedly shaped by my interactions with the Vietnamese. However, ever present in my thoughts will be the Vietnam–both the idealized and the actual–that my parents raised me by. I only hope that these juxtaposition of these two dynamics will enrich my study of Vietnam.
However, in my first few days living in district 1 of HCMC, I’ve been able to explore a great deal and meet a lot of remarkable individuals. Foremost, all of the Vietnamese roommates that we Americans have been paired with are incredible. They are each intelligent and talented in their own ways. Some of them have worked for the Argentine Consulate, others have traveled far from home to seek higher education, one teaches English 7 days a week to foreigners, and there is still more to learn about each of them. My roommate, An, has essentially become an adopted little brother to me. We have similar majors, and family stories and its just been wonderful to explore this city with him as a guide. Sometimes we know we’re going (because of his leading), and other times we end up discovering new diamonds hidden in the rough.
HCMC itself is host to a vibrant culture and city life that strikes a balance between the sleepy-town of my parent’s past and the bustle of a metropolis like Chicago. Many businesses are still managed by family, and they often close near dinner time, leaving the nightlife to commercial ventures and specific districts. By nighttime, many retire and if you are a night owl you’ll have to venture out to districts such as Pham Ngu Lao (Backpacker’s District) which cater to a foreign crowd used to a nightlife that wanes when the sun rises. Even though I’ve only extensively been through District 1, I feel like I haven’t seen nearly half of it yet and there’s still 20 other districts to visit!
To avoid rambling on in a single post, here are some pictures of my first week in Vietnam. With each picture is a story that will be expanded upon later.
One week, one day, one month? Who knows on Vietnam time, either way it’s a blast!
It has been a week and all I can say is WOW. Vietnam is exactly what they say, a totally unique study abroad experience. Everything is dramatically different than life back in Chicago. From the millions of motorbikes crowding the streets to being able to barter for anything, even groceries and on to buying a decent DVD copy of Skyfall for 10,000vnd. Loyola University Chicago’s Vietnam Center is a truly immersive study abroad experience. Vietnam has everything from living with an awesome Vietnamese roommate to getting a ride on some random guy’s motorbike. Just walking down the street is like a sensory explosion from the sights and smells. Cell phone stores line the streets next to family run bakeries and restaurants. This program is everything a student who wants to study abroad somewhere unique wants.
Globalization is very prevalent here, Vietnam was ruled by the Chinese for over a thousand years, then the French colonized it and the Americans were here in the sixties and even more. Even though it is not a truly developed country, the effects of globalization can be seen everywhere. Here I am, typing this up on a computer that was designed by an American company, then built in China. Then, I am sipping on some of the freshest orange juice I have ever tasted while savoring some ice cream from New Zealand and listening to music from the United Kingdom. I would say the orange juice rivals Spain’s.
Now I bet you are wondering what I have been up to other than class and homework. I have been exploring Saigon a lot by foot, walking around is great because you get to capture every sight as it happens. I’ve visited the backpacker’s district and it was pretty crazy! I visited a museum yesterday, and it totally changed my perspective on the Vietnam War.
The War Remnants Museum here in Ho Chi Minh City, I honestly have never been so impacted by a museum. At first you get there an are amazed by the American jets, helicopters and tanks, but then you get inside and read the stories and see the pictures of the monstrosities that occurred during the Vietnam War. Now I know that this museum is very propagandaish towards the Vietnamese, they did ‘win’ the war so they can tell any story they want, but it truly made me feel a wide range of emotions while walking through the exhibits. They had a section on American war crimes of aggression, I always knew a lot of bad stuff happened during the war, but they had pictures of everything. There was a picture of American G.I.s waterboarding a Vietnamese, another where someone was being unruly while being transported in a helicopter and they threw him out, another of a G.I. holding up a man ripped apart by a grenade launcher. There was a section though in that exhibit that hit me the hardest, it was pictures that were taken by journalists. One that sticks out the most in my mind; of an elderly man who was so weak he couldn’t walk who looked like he was begging, his face showed one of pure terror. The photographer noted that he was ushered away after clicking the shutter and a minute later heard two shots. In another exhibit, it displayed the dramatic effects of Agent Orange, a defoliate agent used by American troops to clear the jungle canopy. Agent Orange devastated the country, from destroying land and farming livelihoods to birth defects seen by pictures in the museum as late as 2008. I do not want to share too much of the museum though, because I feel that it is a must go place to anyone coming to Vietnam, even if you come with a main purpose of spending the 15,000vnd to get in and experience it. After some reflection, the propaganda side of the museum comes out; with portraying Americans as evil and the Vietnamese as peace loving farmers, but the facts are still there. I highly recommend everyone to visit the museum.
Well, on a lighter note, living with a Vietnamese roommate is one of the greatest things about Loyola’s Vietnam Program! My roommate, Trung, is an amazing guy. I feel like I got really lucky, especially since we both love to sleep in past the time the cleaning lady comes in to clean on weekends. Which is one of the most vivid differences between America and Vietnam to me. When staying at a hotel, at least the guest house, when it is time for the cleaning lady to come clean your room, even if you are still sleeping, she will come in and clean the bathroom and sweep/mop the floor. At first this really shocked me!
Vietnam truly is an amazing place, and I cannot wait to explore more of it! With Tet coming up, I will have a break to walk around Saigon with less traffic and people about. I cannot wait to see and experience as much of it as I can. I hope everyone had a great weekend!
Once again, insomnia strikes me. It is roughly 5 A.M.right now in Ho Chi Minh City. I’m happy to report that all of us Loyola students who left Chicago on Thursday afternoon have made it without incident to the Vietnam Center.
After a grueling 20+ hr flight, terrible airline food, and a brief layover in Hong Kong, we were able to meet up with our Vietnamese counterparts by 1 AM! Having been restless for most of the journey, several of us had, and still have our sleep cycles thrown off (yours truly in particular). Luckily, some of the Vietnamese students, including my roommate were of the same mind and were more than willing to lead us out on an early morning adventure.
We traveled to the Backpacker’s District, which is known to stay open late and cater to expatriates. There we settled down at one of the street-side restaurants and indulged ourselves in plates of delicious broken rice and grilled pork. Weary travelers always find respite in warm food and conversation.
Eventually, we trekked back to the guesthouse. However, restless as ever, I struggle to catch enough sleep for orientation tomorrow.
I hope this is true, and if it is then I am possibly one of the most learnèd 20- year olds on the planet. Or, at least, in Loyola’s study abroad program.
My stay in Santiago started in a very… interesting manner. And what I mean by ‘interesting’ is a 5-hour stay in the airport. Think Tom Hanks in ‘The Terminal’.
Mind you, this situation was one completely of my own making, as these kinds of things usually are. It started with me leaving my passport in Chicago and needing to get a new one when I came to stay with my family in New Jersey after fall semester ended and I vacated my apartment.
Lesson 1: DO NOT LOSE PASSPORT
I received my passport a little less than a week before my Chilean adventure was to start and due to the complete unresponsiveness of the NYC branch of the Chilean Consulate and the unfortunate vacation period of the person who approves passports in the Philadelphia Chilean Consulate branch, I was unable to receive my student visa before coming to Chile. I couldn’t bear the thought of waiting to come to Chile, so I decided to come as a tourist and get my student visa after getting here.
Some countries require tourist visas, but in the case of Chile, tourists are able to stay without a visa for 30 days, and only have to pay a reciprocity fee (which is a fee that the government of Chile charges incoming tourists from countries who charge their citizens. Example: US charges Chileans $160, and therefore so too does Chile to the citizens of the US).
So as to be able to pay this fee, I made sure to have $200 in cash with me when I travelled. This would have been perfect, except that when I got to the front of the checking baggage line in JFK airport, I was told that I would not be able to bring my longboard on board (no pun intended) with me, as I had been able to do with Southwest. My only options were to get rid of my board (trash? random donation to the people behind me in line? who knows) or pay, as my father was long gone by then. How much was the fee you’d like to know? $180.
Lesson 2: Be ABSOLUTELY SURE about the rules regarding special baggage.
addendum: or just…. don’t bring a longboard.
As you might have guessed, I paid said fee. With the $200 meant for the reciprocity fee. Once I got to my gate I called my parents, knowing that this would be the last time I would be able to do so until probably Chile a day later. Because now the problem lay in my lack of money. Because, you see, I only had about $50 in my bank account at this time, as my parents were going to transfer the other money in two days later on Saturday. The best my parents could do was promise that they would try to get to the bank on their lunch break tomorrow to transfer some money into my account. And that was the last time I would be able to contact my parents for a long while.
Lesson 3: CARRY EXTRA CASH!
12 hours, a rerun of ‘Pretty Woman’, two in-flight meals, and a layover later, I touched down in Santiago, Chile. What a beautiful country! And now to see if my father was able to get to the bank on his lunch break… too bad we had thought that Chile was two hours behind EST rather than two hours ahead, which left my father with the idea that he had until around 4PM EST to get to the bank rather than 12 PM EST (I touched down at 1:45 PM … ‘Chile time’).
Lesson 4: KNOW THE TIME DIFFERENCE… WITH CERTAINTY
After I tried paying with my debit card (twice, about an hour apart from each other), I knew something was wrong. And not only was I stuck in the airport unable to leave the section cordoned off by the Chilean police, but my host mother, Yali, was also waiting for me outside, and now, cellphone-less, I had no way to contact her. Worse, even if I had had a phone, I didn’t have her number.
Lesson 5: KNOW HOW TO CONTACT SOMEONE IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG
I had my United States OIP coordinators number and an iPod touch with a calling app, but unfortunately I was unable to access the wi-fi, and the only place with wi-fi happened to be in the departing section of the airport. With my stumbling spanish I was able to explain my problem to the guards and was let through to the departing area. I found the VIP Salon, where there was free wi-fi, and beggared my way in.
I started sending e-mails to everyone I could think of, as well as sending my Chilean mother a message through facebook (the means through which we had been communicating) saying that I would be fine and would take a taxi to her address when my parents were able to transfer funds into my account. As I was sending this I received an e-mail from my father saying that he would be unable to reach the bank until the next day, Saturday. And so I started to settle in to spend the night in this VIP lounge.
However this was not to be: the people from the program were having none of that. I know this because at that point Yali (well, the coordinator for my program in Chile using Yali’s Facebook from cell phone of my coordinator… yes it’s all very confusing I know) reached out to me through a Facebook message telling me to STAY WHERE I WAS SOMEONE WILL COME TO GET YOU.
The program, the woman told me, would lend me the $100 I needed (I had at the time $20 left on cash and $60 in my bank account) and would deliver it to me by one of the airport personnel.
Aren’t you happy that my story’s almost over?
I think that I would have appreciated that as well.
Except… remember how I wasn’t really supposed to be in the lounge? Because of this, when the airport personnel came to find me, she was told that I couldn’t possibly be in there. So after another hour of searching, they said my name over the loud speaker and I was able to find the woman, who gave me the $100 passed on to her from my program coordinator.
DONE NOW?
Spoiler alert: Nope.
When I returned to the window to pay the fee, the woman, who was the only person in this ordeal who spoke a good amount of English, shared with me a look of amused sympathy. Which then turned into a look of apprehension and regret.
Because, as she told me, you couldn’t pay half on a card and half with cash.
And where was the nearest ATM (‘cajiera’, as I learned that day)?
It was inside the ‘country’, where I could not yet go.
Of course it was.
So I waited in line for the Chilean police, as I would be able to get to the ATM if one of them were to accompany me.
The man to whom I explained my situation acted just as most of the people there I had met acted; with concern for me and with a wonderfully helpful manner. However no amount of helpfulness could have made me understand that gosh darn cajiera (cah-hee-erra).
Lesson 6: BE FAMILIAR WITH THE MONETARY SYSTEM (clarification: VERY familiar!)
Because that cajiera was NOT in dollars, and furthermore, it kept telling me that I had MUCH less money that I had (most likely because it was saying something like $30000 pesos and I was thinking ‘$30.00’.
Eventually (after three failed tries which left me near tears) I was able to take out [what I thought] was $20. It was also in pesos, which I wasn’t able to comprehend at that moment! I was very, very scared, because having only $20 more meant that I still would be unable to leave the airport.
I returned [YET AGAIN] to the register to try to pay the fee, and my new friend Mr. Chilean Policeman came with me to help. The woman looked at my money and said [to my relief] that there were $50! But then… “I’m sorry, but you can’t pay half in pesos.”
And so I climbed the stairs once more and Mr. Chilean Policeman (whose name is Hector, if you’re interested) handled the transaction for me.
I was finally able to pay. What relief I felt! And after some paperwork, I left Hector behind with this:
“Querría decir algo, pero no sé como… en español. Gracias. Por todo de tu ayuda.”
My grammar was horrible, but I got enough right that it was comprehensible. I wanted to get across what his help had meant to me.
And he knew.
Lesson 7: One person can change someone’s experience completely.
Without Hector, I wouldn’t have been able to change my dollars into pesos so easily or more importantly, been able to get through my ‘journey’ without a heart attack. He listened to me worry aloud [in very bad Spanish] and ask questions to calm me down, and went faaar out of his was to help me. I’ll always remember that experience.
I’ll always remember, also, my Chilean mother waiting for me when I finally exited out into the waiting area (Well, I exited the wrong way at first, but really, would you expect anything different of me? Eventually I got to her.) The first words I said to this wonderful, wonderful woman holding the sign was “LO SIENTO.” I think you probably know what this means.
The first thing she did after recognizing me?
She hugged me. “Mi hija!”
Most people might think that my 5 hour ‘journey’ in the airport was something to look back upon with horror, and while I can understand that sentiment, I also think that there is no better way that I could have been introduced to the absolute best part of Chile: the Chileans themselves.
Lesson 8 (and the moral of my story): You can learn a lot when you screw up.
Whether you learn that it’s important to double check everything, or you learn that people are a lot more wonderful than you expected. Both are valid, and both are things that I will remember for the rest of my life.
I’m including a picture of my Chilean mother, Yali (who says she ‘labored for 5 hours birthing me, her hija’) and some of my wonderful friends who came to eat ‘onces’ with us on my second day in Santiago.
Yali (mi madre chilena) and some of my wonderful LUC/UAH friends!
It is less than 12 hours until departure, and I cannot sleep.
The last week and a half back in Chicago have been phenomenal. I’ve never had such a chance to appreciate my surroundings and my friends as I have during this time.
In a way, it is almost somewhat bittersweet and a little bit cruel that the Vietnam Center students leave so late compared to those at Rome or Beijing. However, I know that a great adventure awaits me, and I hope that everyone is ready to come along for the ride.
For now, as I count down the hours, I’ll be cleaning, packing, and preparing myself. In 40-some odd hours, I’ll be back to my parents’ birthplace.
The rest of Loyola is back on their grind, and I’m at home in the frozen Midwest for the next two weeks until I can finally land in sunny Spain. Thank goodness for Netflix.
Somewhere in that period of time I should probably find a suitcase and maybe pack and brush up on my Spanish and find a gift for my host mom. Also, Netflix.
I’ve been planning on going to Spain since before I even got to college, and I’ve been stalking Granada on Wikipedia, lonely planet, Google Maps, architecture websites, etc… I’ve been excited about going before I even applied. But now that I have all this free time to think, I’m starting to get a little nervous. Will the moon look the same from across the Atlantic? Will my Spanish be good enough? Will my host mom and I get along? Will I miss my cat too much?
I expressed these feelings to one of my friends who studied abroad last semester and he told me that yeah, I’m going to be nervous because I’m about to go live in a country that I’ve never been to for an extended period of time. But he also said that I absolutely need to do it and I’m going to have the experience of a lifetime. I don’t think that we can grow as people unless we do things that make us nervous and uncomfortable, and I know that right now it’s time for me to grow some. I believe Eve Ensler when she says that we should take trains (in this case, planes) by ourselves to places we have never been, and I believe Shiloh when they say that if I have a heart, I have a home.
Despite the fact that I’m freaking out a little (a lot), I’m reminding myself that I’m going to be in the same city as my favorite building, I’m going to be speaking a language that I love, and I’m going to be surrounded by so much beauty and knowledge I don’t know how I’ll handle it. It’s also warm there (score!). The fact that I feel nervous never ends up eclipsing the fact that I feel so lucky.
Well here I am, in limbo between Winter break and the Spring Semester. All of my friends at Loyola are already almost half way through their first week of classes, and I am procrastinating packing for a semester in Vietnam.
I leave on Thursday for the grueling trans-pacific flight and have hit the “what am I doing with my life” stage of packing. What do I bring? Am I forgetting anything? Quick! I have to go pick up something at Target! With one more full day here in Wisconsin, I am gallivanting around with my thin rain jacket, freezing while convinced that pulling out my winter jacket from the basement closet for a couple days is far too much work.
I am really excited and cannot wait to meet all of my new classmates. I have been emailing back and forth with my Vietnamese roommate, but still feel like I have not even scratched the surface of getting to know him. I actually think I am getting more nervous than excited to go, or maybe it’s just because I have an empty suitcase and a starving mind for all of the new experiences that I will have starting in less than a week.
I’ve been abroad before, but from what I have been seeing in movies, videos and reading about, Vietnam is going to be a totally new experience for me. I was at the John Felice Rome Center for both Summer 2012 sessions. That was a blast! So far while preparing for this semester though, all I can do is remember all of the memories from last summer. I cannot wait to make more.
I will check back in once I get settled into Saigon, until then, I hope everyone is having a great week!
There is always that local place that you love to eat at. Back home in Cincinnati I love to go to my neighborhood Skyline Chili. In Chicago I really enjoy going to a place called Ghareeb Nawaz before or after I head into work for the day or in the harsh Chicago winter to Pho 888 a few stops down the Red Line to reminisce about Viet Nam over a bowl of steamy pho, remembering the pho restaurant I frequented everyday down Alley 18 so that by the end of my semester in Saigon, I could just say ‘the usual’.
I was looking for a nice place to eat here in Beijing, that little restaurant that would become ‘my place’. I technically can cook for myself but the public kitchens on each floor of my dorm are not the most sanitary. There was once instance when I went to fill my metal and clay thermos with hot water to make a warm green/oolong tea and when I turned the level to the spout of the hot water heater, a half dozen roaches scurried out of the grille of the machine. Besides that the kitchens are not always open, and when open are usually occupied by Thai, Indonesian, or Vietnamese exchange students. They seem to have a monopoly on the kitchens while the American, Korean, and Japanese students seem to have resigned themselves to eating out. Is this a cultural thing? Going to supermarkets around UIBE have also led me to believe trying to cook here would be more expensive than just eating out. It would also be a waste to buy all the utensils to cook and then just leave them behind at the end of the semester. Thus, I searched around for some good (and cheap) local restaurants. My adventures around campus and a few streets slinking away from the university yielded interesting results, none could compare to the glory that is… DONKEY!
My first week in Beijing was a whirlwind of Orientation. During that time, one of my good friends Tyler was just getting ready to head back to the States after spending the summer in Beijing. Tyler had also been in Beijing two semesters prior on the same program. So, for the first week before I headed out on the Silk Road excursion, Tyler helped out with some useful things, including finding some good places to eat. Of all these places, none come close to the ‘Donkey Restaurant’. The exact translation of the restaurant is something like, “Little Donkey Restaurant”. It is a cozy little hole in the wall a block from campus down a little side street.
The first time when I went with Tyler and his girlfriend I was a bit skeptical of how good donkey could be. He ordered some sandwiches and I was hesitant to bite into mine, but once I did I was hooked. The sandwich itself is made of a kind of flatbread they make in a big iron press in the back of the restaurant. It is so warm, oily, and flaky on the outside but soft and chewy on the inside. Stuffed into the flatbread are strips and chunks of donkey meat surrounded by minced green peppers. The meat is like beef, but a bit more chewy and sweet. The green peppers are juicy and mildly spicy. On the table red chili pepper paste and Chinese vinegar are available. I usually put just a dash of vinegar on the sandwich, gently slather on the red chili pepper paste with the tiny metal spoon, and then I add my own ingredient: Maggi Sauce. I carry a little bottle of Maggi sauce with me whenever I go to the donkey restaurant because it adds a little extra flavor to the already awesome sandwich. All in all a great meal, and all for just 5 RMB, which is close to 1 USD.
There are other great things to eat at the donkey place- like donkey rice, donkey jiaozi (potstickers), and donkey soup, hotpot, and fried green beans. The rice is nothing special, but the donkey jiaozi and soup are quite good. The soup is a kind of thick egg-drop soup with the shredded donkey and peppers from the sandwich thrown into the mix. It’s a great winter food- warm and spicy with lots of flavor. It always comes to the table in a large ceramic bowl accompanied with lots of smaller bowls and a large ladle, a family style soup. The jiaozi are packed tightly with tenderized donkey meat. The jiaozi from the donkey place seem to be more filly than other comparable jiaozi of pork, beef, or vegetable that I’ve eaten in other restaurants. The fried green beans are served with peppers and taste a lot like French fries. The hotpot is a whole meal in itself- a large bubbling pot of donkey chunks, tofu, mushrooms, noodles, cabbage, and peppers.
Going to get donkey has become something more than my little hangout, but has become a sort of ritual of my friends and I. At least three times a week for dinner or lunch we all decide to go to get donkey. A slang has come up “Lets go do the donk” or “let us partake of the sacred meal that is donkey” We have a little joke amongst ourselves. I’m sure you can guess what it is… Anyway, our little donkey excursions have been a bonding experience and the meals are always great. The workers in the restaurant know our faces and whenever we deviate from our usual meal they become surprised. One day we decided to try a donkey hotpot instead of sandwiches, and they were very surprised!
I never thought of donkey sandwiches as Chinese food, but I have found them to be one of my favorite dishes. I was talking with a professional photographer from Russia over a donkey sandwich one night after a photo shoot and he actually told me on his flight to China all he could do was think about eating donkey, at a different restaurant, but still- donkey. Who would have thought?
Sitting in the restaurant in the little orange tables and stools looking around at my friends, its so funny. It isn’t how I imagined China, but it’s great. I found my little place, I have good friends to share it with, and according to Chinese Medicine- donkey is a yang stimulating meat (heat producing) and so will be great for this winter. One of the Chinese students told me that there is an old saying that the finest meat in heaven is dragon, but that on earth the finest meat is donkey. I would have to agree. I’m going to miss eating donkey when I get back to the US, but for now I’m going to enjoy it while I can. Anyhow all this talk about donkey is making me hungry and it’s about lunch time, so I better call some friends so we can go eat some ass.
