They lean over and chat with customers; they work the espresso machine effortlessly; and the coffee, the sandwiches and the patatas bravas are just as good as any other bar.

I always ask where the bar owners or waiters come from, and in almost every instance, they have told me: “I come from Qingtian.”

The phenomenon of Chinese-run bars in Italy and Spain is a fairly recent development, something that began in earnest about five years ago. Some of the earliest immigrants started off running restaurants, serving Chinese food catering to the local populations. In Spain and Italy, “almond chicken” seems to be a favourite and of course, everyone (whether you’re Italian, Spanish or American) seems to love the spring roll. Then, the Chinese started opening garment and shoe factories. As China’s manufacturing industry boomed, the import/export businesses proved to be a lucrative venture. The Chinese bring over shiploads of clothing and products that are “Made in China” and sell them for double the value in Europe.

But all of these markets are now saturated as migration from China has continued to flow to Europe.

So the immigrants are branching out. Now, bars seem to be the all the hype. I have met migrants who have left the clothing business behind for a life behind the bar. One closed down a garment factory in Rimini after more than 15 years in operation and moved to Torino this year to run a bar.

There has been some nasty talk in the streets and in the Italian and Spanish media about Chinese immigrants stealing business opportunities from the locals. But, the fact is, running a bar is hard work. The hours are long and you are always on your feet. Many young Italians and Spaniards don’t want this life, so family bars are sold to Chinese immigrants who are willing to take on this lifestyle.

The more interesting question is: What do the Chinese know about running bars? Coffee and wine are a way of life here in Europe. Can an immigrant be a part of this scene here in Europe?

I believe they can. But there are some common missteps Chinese immigrants should avoid. I sat down with a young Qingtian entrepreneur in Italy named Leo Chen. Chen has done a lot of research on the bar scene in Italy. Not only is he an Asian who can hold his liquor, he’s preparing to open a bar in Torino this month. According to him, here are some of the common mistakes Chinese bar owners make:

Kecheng "Leo" Chen, a young Chinese entrepreneur in Italy, will open a new bar in Torino later this month.

Mistake #1
Not turning on the lights. “I’ve walked into bars run by Chinese where there are 10 lights and the owners will only turn on two or three,” Chen said. “They just can’t bring themselves to turn on the other ones for the sake of saving electricity. It’s a problem because customers walk into a bar and it’s dark and unpleasant. They’ll turn around and walk right out of there.”

Mistake #2
Not turning on the heat. “Again, it’s a problem because many Chinese immigrants don’t even turn on the heat at home. They see it as a waste of electricity,” Chen explained. “I’ve also been in Chinese-run bars where the owner can’t bring himself to turn on the air conditioning during the summer.”

Mistake #3
No free food. “Italians expect that if they go into a bar and order a drink, there will be appetizers like potato chips, or bread and parma ham for them to much on,” he said. “In my bar, I hope to provide not only free appetizers, but also biscotti, and eventually maybe even sushi.”

Mistake #4
The owners won’t allow the bar tender to drink with patrons. “It’s important to establish a good rapport between bar tender and customer,” Chen said. “Running a bar is not just about pouring the drinks and serving them.”

I will be in Torino next week for the opening of Chen’s new bar. Let’s see how this young entrepreneur fairs in this new business venture!

Haven’t heard of it before? Neither did I, until I came to the Netherlands.

Babi Pangang is actually an Indonesian delicacy of grilled pork. In Holland, the pork is fried and covered generously in a sweet and sour red sauce.

“Chinese-Indonesian” restaurants can be found all over Holland. Most of them are run by Chinese emigrants from Guangdong and Zhejiang Provinces. So why the Indonesian fusion?

The Netherlands has a long history with what is now modern-day Indonesia. The colonies of the Dutch East India company came under the administration of the Netherlands in 1800, and it wasn’t until 1949 that Indonesian sovereignty was recognized. So, over the course of 150 years, the Dutch had developed a palette for Indonesian food. Chinese emigrants saw a niche.

A typical Chinese restaurant menu in Holland will not feature chow mein or beef and broccoli as an American might know it. Instead, these are some of the dishes you’ll see:

Nasi — fried rice
Bami — fried noodles
Loempia — deep-fried spring roll
Foe Yong Hai — a stir-fried egg omelet with green onions and ham.
Kip Saté — Chicken in a peanut satay sauce
Tjap Tjoy — this is actually “Chop Suey” – Cantonese for stir-fried leftovers. A medley of vegetables and meat stir fried.

Today, I had a dish called “Kip chili sauce” which is breaded chicken stir-fried in a spicy sweet and sour sauce. Here are some photos of the young Chinese chef in the southern town of Brouwhuis who cooked it up for us:

Qingtian 青田 is mountainous county in Zhejiang 浙江 Province, 300 miles south of Shanghai. For more than 200 years, its people have sought to escape a life of wretched poverty. So they went out. Today, more than 200,000 people – amounting to half of Qingtian’s current population – live in more than 120 countries around the world.

Qingtian’s migrants are spread out all over South America, in the United States and Canada, across Asia and in Africa. But, most of the migrants have ended up in Europe, working in restaurants and factories. For years they have sent their hard-earned cash back home, lifting their families out of poverty and transforming Qingtian County beyond recognition.

Over the last year and a half, with my trusty Canon DSLR, I’ve captured a changing Qingtian. New homes, apartments and yes, even a KFC have opened in the county’s biggest and most prosperous town, Hecheng Town 鹤城镇 (also called Qingtian City).

See how the old is clashing with the new in this album: Qingtian through my lens.

There’s a sort of obsession going about town. It’s June in Qingtian, on the south-east coast of China, and everyone is talking about yang-mei 杨梅: a round, sweet, dimpled fruit that ripens to a deep shade of brilliant red.

Biting into one of these fruits is refreshing not only because of the incredible juiciness of the yang-mei, but also because I’ve never had anything quite like it. Sweet but not too sweet. Tart but not too tart. Juicy juicy juicy. The yang-mei that grow in Qingtian are about the size of a ping pong ball, with a knobby surface. They sort of remind me of a cross-breed between a raspberry, strawberry and pomegranate.

But the taste of the yang-mei is superior to all three fruits listed above. I imagined today, after plucking fresh yang-mei in the countryside, that the fruit would go really well in a smoothie or as freshly blended juice. Apparently, it’s already been done in the United States. While fresh yang-mei imports are not allowed into the U.S. (to keep out insect pests), they are being made into juices and marketed as super juices rich in vitamins and antioxidants. And they’ve got a new name: yang-mei is known as “yumberry.”

The locals here pluck yang-mei in June and on the streets women stand under the hot summer sun, fanning themselves with one hand while grasping a basket-full of the yang-mei in the other, hawking the fruits for an average of 20 yuan (about $3) a kilo. Prices range from 13-40 yuan a kilo, depending on who’s selling and who’s buying.

The fruits are native to east Asia and have been growing for at least 2,000 years in several warm, humid provinces across China. Here in Zhejiang, hillside rice terraces have been replaced by numerous short and incredibly leafy trees that bear the crimson fruits. Thirty years ago, only the essentials – rice, vegetables, potatoes – were grown and harvested. These days it is more profitable to be growing yang-mei and selling them to consumers who can now afford to indulge in some luxury.

Today, I visited a friend in the countryside, about 20 minutes outside of town. He brought me up a mountain, through the brush, past a cow, and onto a hillside where we plucked and ate the fruits simultaneously. The trees belonged to a close family friend who told us that competition among the yang-mei tree owners was fierce. Some of his trees have been vandalized in the past, he said. And once, when it rained for several days on end and he didn’t climb the mountain to check on his yang-mei orchard, he discovered after the rainfall that all his trees had been plucked clean.

According to a 2007 New York Times article, production of Yangmei has surged to 865,000 acres in China. By comparison, the United States has about 432,000 acres of apples, about 856,000 of citrus trees and 1,044,000 of grapes, the only American fruit crop with greater acreage.

The yang-mei craze even stops some of the local businesses from operating normal hours. My friend’s brother runs a shoe factory in the area where he employs about eight workers. All of them didn’t show up for work this week. They had gone instead to the nearby city of Wenzhou to sell yang-mei.

A few weeks ago, Grandma gave me a quarter of a butchered duck. She told me some relatives had recently slaughtered it and they brought it to her as a present. When visiting relatives in China, it’s customary to bring a gift – fruit is usually best and most appreciated, but when your family come from the countryside, it’s not uncommon for them to give some meat – usually from the pigs, chickens or ducks they raised themselves.

The piece of meat sat in the freezer for weeks while I thought about how best to cook it. I considered doing Peking Duck. But that required an entire duck, not part of a duck.

My Mom gave me a really handy cooking book before I left to Hong Kong called “Everyday Chinese”. I’ve used a few recipes in the book and they turned out quite good. So I decided to follow their “Chinese Crispy Duck” recipe tonight.

Making the duck comes at an odd time for me, considering just 3 days ago I bought two little ducklings and are now raising them as pets in a big cardboard box that sits in our guest room. During the day, I take them outside to our balcony where they sunbathe and go swimming in the little plastic tub that I fill with water. I feed them boiled noodles, diced up veggies and eggs.

I didn’t want to buy the ducks at first because 1) they were going to be a lot of work cleaning up after every day and 2) I knew we couldn’t keep them forever. These ducks were sold in the old part of town on the side of the street. People bought them in batches and after 60 days when they are fully grown, I’m sure everyone slaughters and eats them. So I wasn’t sure how we were really going to do this – buy these ducks and raise them as pets, knowing that in about two months time they’d grow so large that we couldn’t handle them anymore in the apartment… and then what?

I thought about delivering them to relatives who live in the countryside (not the same ones who brought the duck meat to us) – but wouldn’t they end up slaughtering them, too? Who would keep a pet duck in these parts?

I also thought perhaps of releasing them in the wild. But I’m sure they’d be captured by some locals and then, inevitably, cooked for dinner.

Marc says we shouldn’t think so far ahead – that we should enjoy our time with the duckies. In the beginning, I didn’t want to touch them or spend too much time watching them because I didn’t want to get attached. Well, it’s too late for that now. They are adorable and I love watching them. When they sleep, cuddled up against each other, I love tiptoeing around the apartment so as not to wake them. I am up much earlier in the mornings now to check on them, because I know they’ll be hungry and eager to get out onto the balcony in the sunshine.

So I’m in a bit of a pickle. I know in two months, we’re going to have to make a decision about the ducks. I guess, as Marc says, for now I just need to enjoy and give them the TLC they deserve. What else can I do?

As for the Chinese crispy duck recipe, well, it turned out fabulous. It felt strange, going over to the balcony and watching the ducklings play, and then walking over to the stove and check on the duck in the wok.

For those of you who are interested, here’s the recipe.

Ingredients:
soya sauce
Chinese Five Spice Powder
pepper and salt
a quarter of a duck or 4 duck legs or breasts, cut into pieces
sesame oil
1-2 tsp of finely chopped fresh ginger
1 large clove garlic
scallions
rice wine
oyster sauce
3 whole star anise
2 tsp black peppercorns
dried shiitake mushrooms

Method:
1. Marinate duck pieces overnight with 1-2 tablespoons of soya sauce, 1 tsp of the five-spice powder, pepper, a pinch of salt.
2. Remove stems and soak dried shiitake mushrooms overnight in a large bowl of water.
3. The next day, heat vegetable oil in a wok and add the duck pieces and cook until browned, then transfer to a plate and set aside.

4. Drain the fat from the casserole and wipe down. Add sesame oil and vegetable oil and heat.
5. Add chopped ginger and garlic, let sizzle for a few seconds. Return duck to casserole. Add rice wine, a few shakes of oyster sauce,star anise, peppercorns. Stir fry for a minute or so.
6. Pour the water from the shiitake mushrooms into the wok to just cover the duck.
7. Bring to a boil and let simmer gently for 1 1/2 hours, adding more water if necessary.

8. Drain the mushrooms and squeeze dry. Add to the duck and let simmer for additional 20 minutes. (Watch the water level: it should be low, duck should be simmering in a little sauce.)
9. Garnish with some chopped scallions on top and serve.

And then there are the factories. Plots of land that used to farm rice and raise fish are now massive factory compounds. Soil and crops and livestock have been cleared away for the gargantuan cement buildings. But one thing has not entirely replaced another. Eastern Zhejiang is a clash between rural and industrial, between farm and factory. Amazingly, people will grow what they can wherever there is fertile soil: bean stalks rising between the imposing ancestral stone tombs high in the mountains, a few sprouts of bok choy by the side of the highway. Here, chickens and BMWs share the road.

Today, we were walking in town and saw some ducklings for sale. Bright furballs of yellow were the regular ducks and went for 13 yuan each, less than $2. The smaller, yellow and brown ducklings were water ducks and they went for 6 yuan each. The last few weeks we’ve seen little chickens all around town – spring hatchlings – and Marc has been talking about getting a pet (or two).

So on impulse today, we bought two water ducklings and brought them back home with us.

We made a home for them in a giant cardboard box that we mailed here – it once held clothes, my kitchenware, and our books from Hong Kong. We lined the bottom with newspaper and a towel, filled a big plastic tupperware bin with water and put a plate of rice in the corner. We learned from this website that we can feed them tomatoes, diced up veggies and hard boiled eggs. Surprisingly, we are advised NOT to feed ducks bread. But doesn’t everyone do that at the park?

The two seem to be adjusting to their new home – having spent the first hour eating almost all of the rice – and they really like swimming (and then pooping) in the water bin. They also seem to be attached to us. They don’t necessarily like being held, but if they can’t see us, they start a high pitch chirping and won’t stop until we come to the box and back into eyeshot.

Grandma says that people generally keep these ducklings in a barn and when they reach their full size (at about 60 days), people slaughter and eat them. You know how I love bbq duck. But I just can’t see myself eating these two.

Here are a few photos of them from today.

He had asked me the night before: “Do you know how to cook fish?”

The next day, my uncle returned with a giant plastic bag in hand. It was tied with a big knot on top and the bottom ballooned out. It was filled with water and in the water was a really, really big fish.

We ran outside to the balcony where there’s a stone wash basin for doing the laundry and quickly plugged the drain and filled it up with water. Then, we untied the bag and tipped it over.

GUSH! The smell of river water filled the air. Out poured green water and with it, the big fish – all 6 pounds of it.

It was a strong one. It swam around in circles, its head hitting the walls of the basin, trying to find a gap, a hole, a way back to the Ou River.

The next morning, when I went to check on the fish, it had given up. It lay on its side, opening its mouth and flexing its gills, but no longer looking for an escape route. It was time to put the fish out of its misery.

I often bought fresh fish from the market when we lived in Hong Kong. But all the dirty work was done by the people at the market. I have never slaughtered a fish myself. Nor have I had to scale or gut the creature. So I handed over this responsibility to Marc, who took the task very seriously. It was, after all, quite a large fish for a first-timer. After quite some time on the Internet reading and watching tutorials, he was ready.

First he had to knock it out. It wasn’t easy.

The fish was heavy but Marc grabbed it by the tail and started taking the scales off by sliding the knife along its side.

De-scale the fish before gutting

Then came gutting. He sliced open the belly from below the fins down to the tail.

Taking out the guts.

Next, wash the fish thoroughly, inside and out.

Chop fresh scallions and ginger.

The fish was so large, I was able to make it three different ways. The first: Cantonese steamed fish. The second: Butter pan-fried fish fillet. The third: Fish head and papaya soup, which is rich in carotenes, antioxidants and vitamin C. It’s believed to aid in the production of milk for women who are breastfeeding.

Before each meal, Marc and I were sure to bow our heads and thank the fish for its life. Some of you might be grossed out by what I’ve described above. But you have to realize that all our food comes from somewhere. Ever wondered how your chicken nuggets ended up in that cardboard box? Ever thought about the work that goes into making that meat fit so perfectly between your thumb and two fingers when you’re dunking it in sweet and sour sauce? Well, the nuggets came from a live chicken. Someone had to raise that chicken and then slaughter it. Then the chicken had to be processed and finally, cooked. So, in addition to learning some new recipes, we should also remember to be grateful for the food we have and for the animal that gave up its life for our nourishment and enjoyment.

On that note, let’s get cooking.

Cantonese steamed fish 广东蒸鱼

Ingredients:
1-2 pound fish
2-3 bunches of scallions
as much ginger as you like
soya sauce
cooking oil

1) Scale, gut, and clean fish thoroughly. Pat dry. Slice up gingers and scallions on the side.
2) Place fish on steaming dish (I use a glass casserole dish).
3) Insert a few strands of ginger and garlic along the belly. (I like to do this to get a bit of ginger and onion flavour to seep into the fish meat while steaming).
4) Fill a wok with cold water and place your dish on top of a steam rack. (If you don’t have a steam rack, you can place the dish directly in the water. Just make sure the water is low enough so it doesn’t spill into your dish.)
5) Steam for 15 minutes or until the surface of the fish meat begins to break apart.
6) Remove fish from wok and top with sliced gingers and scallions.
7) Pour out water from wok and dry it with a paper towel. Heat wok.
Add oil to wok and wait a minute or so until the oil starts to get really hot (don’t step away from stove during this time, watch the oil carefully).
9) Pour hot oil over the fish, green onions and ginger. It should sizzle and crackle.
10) Lightly pour a swirl or two of soya sauce over top, blending it with the oil.

Butter herb pan-fried fish fillet 牛油香菜煎鱼

Ingredients:
2-3 fish fillets (one fish fillet per guest)
black pepper
any dried herbs you like
butter

1) Scale, gut, and clean fish thoroughly. Pat dry.
2) Slice fish fillets approximately 2 cm in length.
3) Marinate a few hours before cooking with black pepper, and any other spices or herbs you like. (I used a spice blend called Mr. Dash, which is a combination of dried onions, carrots and peppers. I also sprinkled some dried basil, oregano and thyme.)
4) Heat frying pan with butter (as much or as little as you like). When the butter has melted and has spread out across the pan, place fillets on the pan. They should sizzle.
5) Fry for 3-4 minutes on each side. Cut into the fillet to ensure insides are no longer pink.
6) Stir fry some scallions and ginger in soya sauce. Garnish

Papaya fish head soup 木瓜鱼汤

Ingredients:
one fish head
1 large ripe papaya
salt
ginger

1) Fill a pot of water and put it on the stove on high heat.
2) When the water boils, put the fish head in the water. Sprinkle lightly with two teaspoons of salt.
3) Let water continue to boil for a few minutes as you cut up your papaya into small bite-sized chunks.
4) Slice up some ginger, too. A few slices will do.
5) Turn down the heat to medium-low, add papaya and ginger slices.
6) Simmer for at least 4-5 hours.
7) When it’s ready to serve, watch out for bones when scooping soup into bowls.

ENJOY

Yesterday, I took a three hour bus ride out to Yiwu (义乌), a city in the central-eastern part of Zhejiang Province.

It’s 100 km south of the capital, Hangzhou and famous for its gargantuan wholesale markets.

This region of Zhejiang is famous for manufacturing little things: lightbulbs, pens, lamps, screw drivers, faucets, Q-tips. A quarter of the world’s drinking straws are made in Yiwu.

Here, I saw the littlest things marketed on the largest of scales.

Since the early 1980s, Yiwu began opening permanent trade centers that have become popular with foreign buyers. I visited the most famous center which claims it is “the biggest commodity market in the world” with (deep breath) over 34,000 shops and booths selling 320,000 kinds of commodities over an area of 800,000 square meters.

A recent article in the Economist mentions Yiwu and writes about Zhejiang’s “scrappy” entrepreneurs, people who came from nothing – isolation, poverty, farming, little education – to having many, many things. i.e. BMWs, multiple homes, factories that hire hundreds of employees. This once isolated, once ignored part of China is now a booming economic machine.

Looking around, it was hard not to believe this was the biggest wholesale market in the world. I felt like I was on the inside of a Borg cube – I walked past one aisle and then another aisle and then another aisle and then another aisle, each one with no end in sight; a dimly-lit abyss of “stuff.”

Though this market in Yiwu claims 200,000 visitors per day, I suspect it never gets crowded here. It was eerily quiet the day I was there. I guess when there are 1,000 different stores selling plastic cups, there’s no reason to crowd in just one or two shops.

The place had been built with foreigners somewhat in mind. English signs pointed to the nearest exit, elevator, and washroom (though, like many of the toilets in China, I could already smell it when I was around the corner). Around the shops were non-smoking signs and most people abided by this rule. But the communal areas – small foyers between the aisles where one or two steel benches were placed – were designated open-air smoking places. Groups of cigarette-loving Chinese businessmen puffed away, a fog of smoke wafting through the entire complex, adding to the eeriness of the place.

The market was split up into four districts, with a fifth one under construction. Each district had four to five floors, spanning what had to be five to six big city blocks. The maps were helpful, but not without spelling errors.

The first district sold:

Flowers, toys, ornaments, arts and crafts.

The second district sold:

Rainwear and ploy bags, locks, electronic produts, hardware tools and fittings, vehicles, hardware and sanittary, home appliances, telecommunication equipment, electric instrument camerals, clocks and watches

The third district sold:

Pensandink, paper articles, glasses, office suppliesand stationery, recreation spowting articles, sport equipment cosmetics, zippers, buttonsand clothes accessories

The fourth district sold:

Socks, daily necessities, gloves, hats, knitting products, shoes, sewing thread and tape, lace, necktie, wool yam, towel, bra & underwear, belts, scarf.

It was a dizzying array of everyday things multiplied by infinity. Shops filled with every style of telephone you have ever seen and ever will seen. Cotton balls in every size, shape and colour. Shelves packed with hundreds of ketchup squeeze bottles, the kind you might see at any greasy spoon diner off the Interstate. A entire wall of clocks decorated with images of Mecca and the Koran. I got dizzy staring at a shop selling illuminated signs, the ones see every day in stores across America: “We are Open”, “ATM”, “Free Wifi here”, “Bonchon Chicken.”

I saw many foreigners wandering through the maze of shops. Arabs, Africans, Russians, Europeans, Americans. They clutched clipboards – an inventory of what they needed for their businesses – and many brought along translators, young Chinese men and women standing between the wholesale dealer who punched numbers in a calculator and the foreigner, who quietly asked for lower prices.

This was the slogan I kept seeing everywhere in Chinese: “It’s an ocean of small commodities, a heaven for shoppers.”

Definitely an ocean of small commodities. But a heaven for shoppers? No way. I felt like I was drowning in there. This was a place constructed very practically to carry out wholesale export transactions. There were no coffee shops for tired foreign buyers (or tired tourists), or restaurants in the centers (other than a scrappy university-style canteen) or places to lounge (other than the smoky steel benches). This was not a place to linger or enjoy. This was a place to go in, do your business, and get out.

By 3 p.m. I was out and back on the bus back to my own town, south of Yiwu. When I finally got off the bus that evening, I breathed in some clean(er) mountain air and felt relieved to be out of the industrial zone. There are no major factories in this town. I used to think it was because this place had missed out on the factory boom. Now I am glad there are no factories here; an island oasis in a sea of commodities.

Boxes of salt were empty within minutes at a supermarket in east Zhejiang province on March 17, 2011.

This is happening across China today – people are rushing to buy as much kitchen salt as they can. Stores are raising their prices to cash in on the frenzy, meanwhile consumers continue to buy in bulk. (Rice and other condiments are also flying off the shelves.)

The widespread panic is apparently based on rumors that salt can no longer be harvested from the ocean due to radiation coming over from Japan. Another rumor going around is that iodized salt can help treat those who have been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. These rumors are false.
Salt does contain healthy, nonradioactive iodine, but not enough to protect the body against radioactive iodine that may be released during a nuclear event, according to health experts and authorities. And, only a fraction of China’s salt for consumption comes from the sea, a spokesman for industry organization the China Salt Association told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. “In China, most salt are from salt mines,” he said.
I went in to my local supermarket to check out the scene this afternoon. Stock girls were bringing out boxes of salt as dozens of people gathered around ready to pounce. As soon as she opened it, hands dug in, grabbing at two, three, four, five bags at a time, and within minutes the box was empty.

I played dumb to get some answers.

“Why is everyone buying so much salt?” I asked aloud.

“It’s because of Japan,” another shopper responded.

“Japan?”

“Yes, the radiation will affect China.”

“So what does that have to do with salt?”

“We can’t harvest the salt from the ocean anymore, so we’re stocking up.”

I stood and watched the frenzy for another few minutes. Then I approached a stock girl.

“I don’t believe it. Do you?” I asked.

Rice was also selling out fast in a supermarket in east Zhejiang province on March 17, 2011.

“The ocean’s awfully big…” she said, insinuating doubt. But I could see she was wavering. It’s hard not to start believing when you’re working at the supermarket and witnessing the panic first-hand.

“I don’t believe it!” said one man, who stood next to me and joined me in my public commentary. “These people don’t think for themselves! I’m not buying any salt. I’m not worried. Not worried at all.”

“It’s being reported on the television,” refuted another man. “It has to be true.”

I went into an aisle then, bought my can of pork floss, and went to the cashier who was handling the constant stream of customers quickly and efficiently.

“Do you believe in all this?” I asked her when it was my time to pay.

“I bought more than 10 bags of salt today,” she said bashfully.

Here, children have been setting off firecrackers all week, starting as early as 6 a.m., the booms echoing loudly off the dense apartments in town. I still yelp when I hear them – definitely not used to the racket. There are A LOT of people and traffic on the streets at all hours – the markets are PACKED with people buying chickens, huge cuts of pork, and lots of nian gao (sweet, sticky rice cake).

Prices in stores and businesses have skyrocketed (80 RMB – that’s $10 USD – for a haircut, when it’s normally less than 20 RMB) and everyone is in a good mood. Crime is on the rise. In this growing town near Wenzhou, a growing population and night life means walking home at night can be dangerous. An Aunt was attacked last week around 9 pm as she made her way home down a dark alley. The attacker wanted her purse, but when she fought back, he whacked her over the head. She screamed loudly and he ran off. But she was bleeding heavily when she made it back home and had to get stitches at the local hospital.

Yesterday I cooked everyone a meal of classic Cantonese dishes. The highlights: Braised fragrant mushrooms with bok choy, steamed pork patty with salted duck egg, soya sauce chicken, and of course, a radish and tomato pork bone soup.

Happy New Year Indeed!