Dear China, my beloved two-faced girl, you’re married to a huge continent and History is falling in love with you more and more as the moon keeps passing over your waters, yellow and black as they are. Islands are sprouting like mushrooms as we speak, your millions of small hands are creating a different world. Your beauty allures me, with palaces and lakes, gardens and skyscrapers which shimmer in the sky just like they reflect in my eyes. Your horrors scare me as sights of fireballs make me shiver, as your earth eats up your people far in the West. You are like sand on my skin, too cold to ignore and too hot to bear. You caught my senses with your small fingers, your vastness, your ambiguity, you’re tricky. So I pack my bags, I leave everything I know behind me, I forget about fear. I will come and see you, taste you, touch you, buy you, and you will eat my thoughts and my time. I will never be the same, and you know it.
Today I would like to tell you something about chinese painting. As the chinese culture is the most ancient culture that has continously developed over thousands of years (fascinating, right?) there is a much older tradition when it comes to … Continue reading →
In Austria, there were 77.623 people of asian nationality in 2013.
They account for only 7,73% of the just over one million of foreigners living in Austria. Meanwhile, their number rose much more than the number of immigrants from all other areas outside the EU within the last two years. My home city Vienna is not very big city in international comparison and has the biggest intake of immigrants of all Austria which results in them being 40% of its population. There were more than 8000 Asians migrating to Austria in 2012-2013, probably most of them to Vienna. Even though the absolute number does not seem big, this group of people becomes quite visible in public space. Within recent years, many Asians came to live near the market area of Naschmarkt (V. district, 23% foreigners) which might grow to become an actual Chinatown in the future. I have the impression that most immigrants from other origins seek employment in Asustrian companies, while Asians and especially Chinese tend to run their own businesses in the country they are moving to, often with trade links and other close ties to their home country. The rest of the asian migrants tend to live in districts which are typically inhabited by immigrants such as the XVI. district of Ottakring (25%) and the X. district of Favoriten (20%), [approx. percentages from wikipedia, 2001]. Similar to the turkish immigrants, parts of the asian “group” built up parallel structures in society and economy. There are restaurants which serve actual, authentic chinese food, there are chinese hairdressers, chinese church, chinese school (in addition to normal school) and the corresponding private and public social activities. This sort of segregation allows to maintain a certain lifestyle as much as possible as well as speaking one’s native language most of the time. In that way it could be one of the reasons why some people don’t acquire a high proficiency in the austrian/german language, even after living here for decades.
This raises many questions for which I haven’t found an answer yet. Is the majority of people living in segregated societies conscious of this fact or not? If so, do they bother, do they think about it an a negative or a positive way? To which extent is integration possible for the individual, necessary to ensure peaceful and fruitful cooperation, and desirable as being beneficial to society in general? Why does the Austrian integration discourse sets the term “integration” as equal with “assimilation” and why is it ignored that this would mean a fundamental change in the identity of the individual? To which extent the “label” of being a migrant includes itself into the identity of an individual? Can state and society demand a change in the individual’s identity (which assimilation would imply)? Isn’t the pressure to “integration” counterproductive in some ways (as pressure always produces counterpressure)? Isn’t the way the Austrian society and therefore law generally treats migrants a part of the “social problems” we have and which are related to migration?
I hope I will find answers to all these questions. Until then I can only state what I see: our society having the feeling of being enriched through migration and at the same time feeling threatened by the big number of (sometimes seen as uneducated) immigrants changeing our lifestyle and undermining our very own culture by introducing theirs. I think we reached a point where fear is so big that it’s hard to see what is truth and what is imagination.
As you can see from the sheer fact of writing an extensive blog about Asia which is filled with lots of photos from my travels as well as with descriptions of practical experience, I am extremely interested in everything asian. That made me think because I wanted to find out the reason why. And here is the result which consists of four parts:
1) The most evident part of the answer is that Asia becomes more and more important for the other parts of the world which includes Austria, my home country. This is a development which is on its way for quite some time now and actually started with the opening of China in the end of the 1970’s. The big difference it that right now, it’s on the news media permanently and, even more importantly, it became part of our lives. We eat food from chinese takeaways, we dine with our saturday night date in a Sushi restaurant and we shop at the asian supermarkets that can be found pretty much everywhere. Moreover, some of us are taking over asian habits such as eating with chopsticks and drinking green tea. And why do we like that, after all? It’s different, it’s new and it’s cheap. Another point is the presence of asian immigrants and their descendants in our daliy life, as our neighbours, or classmates, colleagues, friends, as tourists and as the guys from the grocery store at the corner. To sum it up, asian people and asian things are everywhere around us. Those developments surely influence people towards being interested in Asia, and the easily available asian products make people curious about their taste, purpose and origin.
2) It might sound funny, but part of this interest in Asia is “inherited” from my greatgrandmother. She was born after World War I. and when she died she left her library to us in the 1990’s, with editions of the translations of Laozi’s texts and of chinese poetry. Even the chinese ceramic spoons that I used for today’s soup are inherited from my greatgrandmother. In her house she had a big, chinese handmade gong which my partents used to call us back inside from the garden when dinner was ready. This sound became part of my childhood memories. Meanwhile, I have no idea where my greatgrandmother got those things from.
3) My first time in Asia was a trip to Thailand and there I saw people doing many things that did not seem logical to me in any way. As it was clear to me that they aren’t just stupid or uneducated (which some other tourists considered as a possible answer!), there had the be another reason for this totally different behaviour and this different manner of solving problems. In the following I found out for the fist time just how different European and Asian ways of thinking are from each other. This was the point at which I wanted to learn about the different way of thinking and the different image of the world and its order, because it would double the amount of ideas I could have and it would widen my world view to a considerable measure. In general, I want to understand everything that’s different from myself and discover everything I do not yet know.
4) The chaos associated with Asia is something positive for me because it signifies livelyness and energy. Europe seems nearly lethargic and everything is restricted by countless rules and regulations. The streets seem empty without the food stalls, vendors and cultural performances. In Europe, everything is formalized and put away from the streets in houses, halls, closed places. It is this feeling of energetic life that makes Asia interesting and appealing. At the same time it is said that Asians value the family, food in general and the respect towards parents higer than Europeans. Although I know that this representation is not true for everyone, I can relate to it looking at my own values.
To sum it up, my interest in Asia comes from its strong presence in my daily life, my feeling of relating to values seen as typically Asian and the contrasting function that learning about it gave me as opposing itsef to my representation and understanding of Europe.
Song Ching Ling was the wife of Sun Yat-Sen, the founder of the Guomindang and the first president of the Republic of China. Sun Yat-Sen was born near a place called Zhongshan/中山/”middle mountain”. The name of this place stands symbolically … Continue reading →
Many parts of the forbidden city are museum halls with different types of exhibits. Even though I spent more than 5 hours walking about in the huge palace, I did not see but half of the exhibition space. I became … Continue reading →
In both countries, modern day skyscrapers are perfectly westernized and are the only type of buildings built in big cities nowadays. Even apartment blocks have about 20 storeys so I count them to this class of tall buildings.
The difference between China and Korea is visible in the style of their traditional buildings, even though the Korean style was heavily influenced by the Chinese example over a very long period of time. This can be seen from the shape of a rising curve at the edges of the roofs for example. In both countries the houses were built on a base made of stones from round pieces of wood which were painted afterwards. But let’s look into the differences.
First of all, the chinese palaces are much bigger, due to the difference in size between the two countries (I suppose). Another significant difference is the choice of colours used to paint the wooden parts of the buildings. It is said that the Koreans always were much more connected to nature so they made green the colour of their choice while the chinese preferred the more aggressive coulour of bright red which is a lucky coulour symbolizing prosperity at the same time. It is often combined with blue and golden elements. As examples I chose the forbidden city in 北京 and the Gyeonghuigung palace, one of five palaces built by the Joseon dynasty in Seoul.
The forbidden citiy in Beijing.
Wooden window grating in the forbidden city, Beijing.
Gyeonghuigung palace in Seoul.
Gyeonghuigung palace in Seoul – wall painting.
The Koreans used red as well but a less bright version of it. There are more patterns and motifs directly influenced by the colours and shapes of nature, while the Chinese chose more abstract patterns and mythological animals such as the dragon who symbolizes the emperor and the mythological lions who proctect houses and palaces.
In contrast to european palaces which largely consist of one big building and some garden pavilions, chinese and korean palaces consist of a big number of buildings aligned and placed next to each other in an orderly manner, forming lots of small and big courtyards.
…and then they said: It’s so complicated to eat with fork and knife. Why would anyone prefer that? You need two hands for it. Chopsticks are so much easier.”
While a number of european people thinks that they can eat with chopsticks, most of them just handle them in some funny way to get food into their mouth, but most of them don’t do it the right way. I met a person who told me that I’m doing it wrong only after I came home from my China trip so I felt ashamed and decided to improve my skills at home for the next time we would go out and eat together. Although this never happened I want to explain what I learned about 筷子 (chopsticks). In my opinion it is a good idea for everyone to learn how to eat with chopsticks in the proper way because it is a skill which trains your fingers. In addition, whenever one eats asian food it is easier to do so with chopsticks and at the same time it’s more fun. Especially when one eats sushi, it looks ridiculous doing so with a fork or with one’s fingers. I want to emphasize the fact that it is important to learn it the right way – please check out the big number of youtube videos in order to have it explained how to. I recommend to watch several different ones because some of them are more, some of them less understandable for a specific person. This is the best one I found, because it is clear and short and states the general rule that only the upper chopstick should move while the lower is stable.
The proper way of holding chopsticks might be hard to do in the beginning. In order to improve you can help yourself using training chopsticks which you can order online, or you make them yourself.
I made the ones you can see in the picture myself but changed the position of the rubber band in order to fit my hands better.
As I wrote about the differences between China and Korea lately, they do not stop when it comes to chopsticks.
The type of disposable chopsticks widely seen in asian take-aways in Austria is japanese-style. They are rather short and flat and rather thick, made of bamboo.
Japanese chopsticks
Chinese chopsticks are longer than japanese ones and made of bamboo as well, but their diameter is rather round than eliptical or square-shaped.
Chinese chopsticks and my DIY – training chopsticks.
Korean chopsticks are very different. First of all, they are made of metal most of the time. In addition, they usually come with a spoon. Their shape is quite different as well: they are much thinner, but as long as the chinese ones. Also, they are quite flat so the tips can be considered as pointy in comparison. I made the experience that Korean chopsticks are a challenge, even after 2 months of eating with chinese ones. Their pointy tips make it much harder to take pieces of food, but once you can do so, your eating will consist of elegant and precise movements. The fact that they are rather rectangular and flat in diameter makes it harder to hold them. They might flip over if you don’t hold them the right way which might cause your piece of food falling down.
As you can see they also have rounded ones in Korea which were supposedly bought in a tourist shop (they are a much loved present from a special friend of mine).
Korean chopsticks and spoon.
The explanation for the diversity in the shapes of 筷子 has been explained to me just today. It lies in the fact that the dishes eaten in the countries respectively vary so the chopsticks are accommodated in the most ideal way possible to the shape of the consumed food. Korean food consists of rater small, solid pieces of food so the chopsticks are hard and pointed in order to meet the requirement of transmitting a lot of the hand’s force to the piece of food. Many chinese dished inlcuding 饺子 and 面汤 are much softer, so people need less pressure from their hands to pick them up. The chopsticks can be made with the softer and more flexible material of bamboo. For the japanese chopsticks we can say that the fine tips are ideal when it comes to picking the bones out of the fish that they traditionally eat most of the time.
If you are motivated to improve your 筷子 skills I suggest that you eat pretty much everything you eat with chopsticks. You can eat frech fries and salad with them, and even Ravioli or Tortellini. Just imagine them being 饺子 and do not add a lot of butter in order to make it easier to handle. After some time you can go for 面汤 which is not hard to cook and a good thing to train your chopstick skills.
P.S. Use a 碗 (bowl) when using chopsticks. It’s so much easier. Have fun! =)
China and Korea seem to be quite similar from the point of view of a rather uninformed european person when it comes to Asia (and I counted myself to those for almost all of my life, i.e. until I was 20 years old). For me it was hard to see the difference until I read more about Korean and Chinese History and then actually went there. However, there are some superficial similarities. Both peoples look “asian”, they eat with chopsticks and korean palaces are inscribed with chinese characters.
In general I think that South Korea is more developed than China. There are more big roads in a very good condition and especially when it comes to education, Koreans might have more choices and chances. Most people in Korea understand English (even staff at McDonald’s took my orders in English, answering in Korean) and still a majority of people in the street speaks English as well (at least enough to give me directions). In China it was an exception if anyone spoke English or any other language but Chinese. Even in a big business hotel in 昆明 (Kunming) there was no-one able to communicate with me without using their iPhone for basic translation. People who actually spoke some English were very proud of it. When I approached someone and talked to them in English they gave me weird looks and were embarassed and in a seemingly very uncomfortable situation. After some days I stopped trying to talk to people and instead learned some phrases in Chinese which was really hard but worked better still.
While in Korea there are loads of public wifis available, there are hardly any in China. If one happens to find one, there are so many restrictions on its use that it is impossible to use it. Furthermore the login site being written in Chinese only doesn’t exactly help. Especially in western China there is no necessity seen to write anything in any other language but Chinese. I think that this is natural to a certain extent but it makes life harder for foreigners.
Since the Korean War, Korea is very much inclined towards the West and especially towards the US as it seems. There’s a huge embassy with numerous security staff at one of the main squares of downtown Seoul. In China, I did not see any embassies or other clear signs of the presence of other nations in important places.This is only normal when one thinks back in History: european nations de-facto colonized parts of China and commited the indelible crime of burinng down the summer palace of the Qing during the Opium war. Meanwhile, Korea got help from the US in the war against the communists which results in a more positive relation.
Talking about History, Korea was a peaceful kingdom (or several kingdoms) most of the time, while in China there were more wars and later revolutions (1911 and then the communist revolution ending in 1949). Both countries have in common that they were invaded by the brutally fighting Japanese who seeked for imperial expansion until 1945 when they were heavily bombed by the US.
Thinking of the people themselves, Koreans are much more polite than the Chinese, generally speaking and of course from a european point of view. In China, the word for “Thank you”, 谢谢, is much less used than the Korean 감사합니다 (kamsahabnidaaaaa!). Chinese only say “thank you” if someone did something exceptionally nice, i.e. something apart of their “natural duties”. In Europe, a shopkeeper would say “goodbye, thank you” to a customer and people would say “thank you” to a waiter who brought their food. In China, it comes across weird if you say 谢谢 (xiè xie) in either of those situations. In my opinion this comes from the fact that you are expected to work hard in any case and it is your duty to do your best, so there is no reason to thank you. The advantage of this is that if someone says 谢谢, they really mean it and it’s worth something in terms of gratitude, other than in Europe where it has mostly the meaning of being a polite person. In Korea, saying “thank you” seemed to be more normal. Also, Koreans show a lot more of respect to others than the Chinese. At least there are more rituals showing respect towards elder people, such as turning away when drinking Sozhou with them, and bowing when meeting them. When it comes to moods, Chinese and Koreans genrally seem much more calm than Europeans. While I saw people in China in outbreaks of sudden rage, shouting as something went terribly wrong, I did not see a single Korean behaving like that (but this may be due to the fact that I only spent one week in Korea). Generally speaking I made the experience that in Asia, people showing an outburst of negative emotions are generally ignored and what they say is not taken seriously.
More of my opinons and experiences concerning Asia are soon to come in part II. and I would appreciate your comments so feel free to post below!
As I keep informing you about my passion for asian food, I also want to show you what happens to be the outcome of my cooking. I’m still far from mastering it, as in getting near to what I see as authentic asian cooking, so I prefer to name it my “fusion kitchen”. For my mum’s birthday I tried to cook a chinese style meal, including fried vegetables with sesame oil, orange chicken (which was invented by chinese immigrants in the US. according to Internet sources) and omlette with spring onions and oyster sauce. It’s probably not what a family in China would have for dinner, but it brought a bit of variation to the choice of dishes usually cooked for family dinners in my parent’s home. It was fun watching everyone trying to eat with chopsticks and my mum was successfull with it all the way through. I had to make some concessions to what is practicable with my family, such as putting spoons to the dishes in the middle of the table so they can eat the chicken/veg/… out of their rice bowl.
Our funny chinese style dinner.
While being at home alone I also just put food on top of my rice in order to avoid using too many plates. Today I had japanese style ginger soy sauce pork with spring onions, which was delicious. (At least this is what my japanese couchsurfer, Akiko, cooked for me last year).
The following is what I’m eating maybe three times a week because it’s cheap and it doesn’t take long to be cooked:
Rice, soy sauce and fried veg – a student’s kitchen recipe 😛
I know that just adding soy sauce to everything does not make it asian style cooking, but it’s something to start with, as well as my experiments with all sorts of ingredients. My next plan is to try make jiao zi at home. I just need to find a partner for this project as eating them will be an experience that needs to be shared with someone – no matter if it will be a horrible or a nice one…
The Chinese Lantern 