Chinese outback
My stay in China was not tourism - just for work and far from tourist centers.
I lived for a week in Fuzhou (6 million, the center of the province) and 3 weeks somewhere 120 km north of Fuzhou, near the sea. More precisely, it’s hard to say, even Google didn’t fully help me determine the exact name of the town in which I lived. But it was a real hinterland - we didn’t see white people, except for us, a few Ukrainians, the children stopped on the street, looked at us with surprise and poked their fingers. Yes, some adults too.
During this time I lived in three hotels. They are not on Turpravda, I did not find them at Buckingcom either. Two of them in Fuzhou - about 100d per room (with breakfast). Hotels were with claims (justified) for good 4 stars. The situation in the rooms was as if from the same assembly line))). The room had everything you need, including internet, slippers, hair dryer, etc. Pretty decent, albeit a little pricey. By the way, the hotels were located in good places.
The hotel in the outback was super cheap (albeit on the central square of the town) - 20d per room (there was no breakfast). The room is spacious, but there was no closet or bedside tables. Only an iron clothes hanger on three legs, a table and a bedside table for the phone! The Internet was.
There are few tourist impressions... Traveling along the coastline is a very picturesque area: green hills, mountains mixed with straits, bays and islets. Yes, the center of our bedroom industrial area in Fuzhou. Clean, spacious, well maintained, everything is new - well done Chinese, go ahead!
But in the outback there is still dirt, smells, crowding.
But I had a very good acquaintance with Chinese cuisine))). I dined in the factory canteen for engineers, we had dinner ourselves...
What can I say about Chinese food. . . It is 90% unacceptable for us. . . But on the other hand, there is a huge variety of cuisines, dishes, and products. The problem is how to choose from this variety something not only edible but also tasty.
From the experience of eating in the dining room, it became clear what the Chinese themselves eat. This is a thin soup, there is always a choice of several seafood (shrimp, squid, various shells, octopus), chicken (occasionally duck), fish, vegetables (3-4 types) in a slightly boiled form, and of course - RICE !! ! The meat is very rare, tastes like paper and is completely spoiled by sweet sauce or seasoning. There are also all sorts of dishes, it is not clear from what, tasteless and terrible in appearance (chicken paws or duck heads - it was just at least understandable). There are no fresh vegetable salads. They also drink tea in special places. Sugar free and very thin.
Accordingly, we immediately had a problem with what is available in the city besides the factory canteen. We quickly sorted out breakfast - from the hotel window we saw that in the morning a certain colorful Chinese grandfather was selling steamed dumplings from a mobile (by bicycle) field kitchen))). The dumplings turned out to be really tasty, 10 dumplings and a bowl of soy milk in addition - a great Chinese breakfast and only 0.7d!
Dinner was difficult at first. There was no menu in English anywhere, the natives also spoke only in their own. But their products are usually laid out in plain sight - you can order something by poking your fingers (squid or shrimp - what you learned). As a result, they found two taverns, in which they ate in turn. One, purely Chinese, they took seafood and rice noodles with vegetables. Actually, the Chinese usually make all dishes with vegetables. The shrimp (5d) were excellently cooked - just boiled, but very fresh, juicy and without any Chinese seasonings. We made squid (3d) not only boiled with vegetables, but also fried - then it was also very tasty. They took the fish once, inexpensively, but we were not thrilled. Just fish stew with vegetables. There were still crabs (17d), but I don’t like messing around with them in public.
But even shrimp with squid get bored if you eat them every day. Another option was found, and completely unexpected - a "Muslim" tavern. Yes, real Muslims cook and serve there, they look like the inhabitants of Central Asia, in skullcaps, women in headscarves. And the food there is quite edible for us - beef and lamb, chickens, noodles (wheat), dumplings, rice, of course. Without any Chinese seasonings, we do not understand. Very tasty and very cheap. In Fuzhou, they also found such a tavern - and with a similar design (on the walls there are photos of dishes with prices, kondishka, by Chinese standards - clean). That is, apparently, there is a certain network of "Muslim" cafes. "Password" - ask: "Muslim? ". If the answer is yes, then it is.
They also tried cleaner establishments... There it is already three times or more expensive, and often tasteless, or even inedible.
This is how my gastronomic journey turned out...
From other experiences. . .
Playing cards for money is very common. At the factory, hard workers cut themselves during breaks - sometimes to the point of a fight. Serious players gathered in the hotel lobby almost every evening. There were no banknotes less than 100 yuan (16d) on the table.
Group dances in the evenings on the streets of the city are certainly impressive... almost only women dance.
Cleanliness and hygiene in China is not very good yet.
