Latest / bit of a Rambler / 134 Ramble On

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134 Ramble On · bit of a Rambler

0:00
Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Kai, and I like to travel,
0:03
Speaker 1: learn and tell stories. And let's keep talking about China.
0:08
Speaker 1: So I learned from my friend that there was there
0:13
Speaker 1: were like a few terms for Trump, like taco, you know,
0:17
Speaker 1: became popular in the States. Trump always chickens out, but
0:21
Speaker 1: I found out in China, especially now with this second term,
0:26
Speaker 1: Like the rest of the world, it's just embarrassing that
0:33
Speaker 1: he was elected and he's making decisions. If you're inside
0:38
Speaker 1: the US and you're unaware of this, America's I don't know.
0:45
Speaker 1: Dominance as a world power is largely obliterated, partly due
0:51
Speaker 1: to Chinese technological primacy in most fields in the world,
1:00
Speaker 1: and they're rapidly increasing trade deals largely due to Trump's
1:06
Speaker 1: first and second terms. Nobody wants to economically deal with
1:10
Speaker 1: the US. Oh, plus, they're buying all the scientists because
1:15
Speaker 1: Trump isn't letting immigrants work in the US anymore, which
1:22
Speaker 1: was the US's one of their strongest strengths for two
1:29
Speaker 1: hundred years. But aside from China becoming so dominant in
1:34
Speaker 1: most fields of the world, if you are from the
1:38
Speaker 1: US and you decide to travel, just know that nobody
1:42
Speaker 1: respects the country you're from. At all anymore. They might
1:47
Speaker 1: like Marvel movies still, but Trump is just that's what
1:53
Speaker 1: people see. Like when Obama's president and you were like, oh,
1:58
Speaker 1: I'm from Montana. Oh the US. Oh. They they're like
2:02
Speaker 1: Obama and that's your reference now, oh Montana, oh the US. Trump.
2:10
Speaker 1: That's the association you're going to get now as a
2:13
Speaker 1: traveling US American, And the associations are very not smart
2:20
Speaker 1: and extremely ignorant and very harmful. Now they're not going
2:25
Speaker 1: to dislike you. I've met many of traveler many many
2:28
Speaker 1: a traveler people in every country. China. I was just
2:33
Speaker 1: in China, right, and people are still happy to talk
2:36
Speaker 1: and everything. But the attitude toward the US was bad,
2:44
Speaker 1: and people were like, oh, what a weird one off
2:46
Speaker 1: this is when Trump was elected. He's really embarrassing. But
2:50
Speaker 1: we can just ignore it until the US gets back
2:52
Speaker 1: to itself. Now that he's been elected a second time,
2:57
Speaker 1: it's kind of good in a way that the US
3:00
Speaker 1: is knocked off their pedestal. But even though money bought
3:06
Speaker 1: the second election, he was still elected a second time
3:11
Speaker 1: in the US despite gerrymandering and money and politics and
3:15
Speaker 1: all that. The fact that Trump became the president in
3:18
Speaker 1: the second time has permanently damaged the reputation of the
3:24
Speaker 1: US and its citizens, and not just the reputation. Like
3:28
Speaker 1: I said, generations of scientists trade deals like abandoned by
3:33
Speaker 1: countries and being made between other countries independent of the
3:38
Speaker 1: US because they know they can't if you're going to
3:41
Speaker 1: elect someone like Trump a second time, countries don't want
3:46
Speaker 1: to deal with you. And since he was elected to
3:49
Speaker 1: his second time, I've talked to people from I don't know,
3:52
Speaker 1: I don't know a few dozen countries. Travelers meet travelers,
3:56
Speaker 1: and during the first term some people were like, no,
3:59
Speaker 1: I like Trump, I'm interested to see what he's doing.
4:02
Speaker 1: And now no, there's no because he was different the
4:07
Speaker 1: first term. But I think by the second term everyone
4:11
Speaker 1: every European i've met now and Europeans were interested in Trump.
4:16
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've seen the right leaning elections recently in
4:22
Speaker 1: many parts of Europe. But after they realized he like
4:26
Speaker 1: literally doesn't know what a tariff is, and he imposed
4:30
Speaker 1: them on almost every country in the entire world without
4:34
Speaker 1: understanding what they are or how they work. There's not
4:37
Speaker 1: a lot of interest in Trump, even as a novelty anymore.
4:42
Speaker 1: From all the all the people I've talked to since
4:46
Speaker 1: his second term, there's pity. There's a lot of pity
4:50
Speaker 1: anybody who finds out I'm a US American, and it
4:54
Speaker 1: comes up pretty quickly that I don't support any of
4:57
Speaker 1: Trump's extremely harmful policies demtically or abroad. There's a lot
5:03
Speaker 1: of there's a lot of bewilderment and pity for the
5:07
Speaker 1: US American who voted against Trump, which folds right back
5:11
Speaker 1: into the current events of myself that brought this up
5:17
Speaker 1: in China, he I mean, like I said, nobody respects him.
5:22
Speaker 1: US respect is in the toilet because especially because he
5:26
Speaker 1: was elected a second time, it can't be counted as
5:29
Speaker 1: an aberration or anomaly. So anywhere you go, like a
5:33
Speaker 1: country has different names for Trump, and I didn't know
5:38
Speaker 1: that China had a lot of them because they liked
5:41
Speaker 1: him a lot in the first term, because Chinese people
5:46
Speaker 1: like rich people. Rich people are morally good, because that's
5:51
Speaker 1: what Mau Zadong told them. That was like in the seventies.
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Speaker 1: That that ended, and Xijinping is very pro capitalist if
6:00
Speaker 1: it's national capitalism, but in general, the population of China,
6:05
Speaker 1: the general pop likes money. So during his first term,
6:10
Speaker 1: they were like, well, he's rich. You can't be that
6:12
Speaker 1: rich without being a good smart person. They were shocked
6:17
Speaker 1: to learn that all of his money was given to
6:19
Speaker 1: him by his dad, and he went bankrupt several times,
6:22
Speaker 1: and he doesn't pay his employees. Oh, or that the
6:26
Speaker 1: reality show is not reality. That's a big revelation for
6:31
Speaker 1: a lot of Chinese people. So I was talking to
6:33
Speaker 1: my Chinese friend who does not like Trump, and during
6:36
Speaker 1: the first term, he was one of the well, Trump
6:40
Speaker 1: is rich, so he's like a good smart person, right,
6:43
Speaker 1: And then now during the second term, he's like, this
6:46
Speaker 1: guy is so stupid. He's so really dumb. He sounds
6:51
Speaker 1: so dumb. And so he told me the name that
6:54
Speaker 1: Chinese people have for Trump. They don't say Trump. It
6:58
Speaker 1: used to be I can't even remember whatever, who cares.
7:02
Speaker 1: Now he's called super unreliable Trump. That's like his because
7:09
Speaker 1: characters in China words are just one syllable, But basically
7:14
Speaker 1: what they call him turns into super unreliable and that's
7:19
Speaker 1: like his nickname apparently in China now, which very accurate.
7:24
Speaker 1: Moniker Wow, I talked about that for a long time,
7:28
Speaker 1: considering all I had to tell you was that his
7:33
Speaker 1: nickname is super unreliable. So let's get back to China,
7:37
Speaker 1: because I loved it. It was so much fun visiting
7:40
Speaker 1: all my friends, and I wasn't there too long. And
7:44
Speaker 1: the air tasted metallic, Like I said when I got
7:46
Speaker 1: off the plane, that was gross. But that was the
7:49
Speaker 1: only the spog man. If there was no smog, it
7:52
Speaker 1: would be so fun to continue living in China, but
7:55
Speaker 1: I just don't want to walk outside and taste the
7:58
Speaker 1: pollution in the air. But everything else was really fun.
8:02
Speaker 1: The place I stayed, the hostel that I had a
8:05
Speaker 1: room in a private room was there was a pool
8:08
Speaker 1: table and it was I was really confused by it
8:11
Speaker 1: because China doesn't have hostels. They have binguan, which are
8:17
Speaker 1: sort of like mom and pop private hotels, and then
8:21
Speaker 1: they have big, large hotels like chains, and I wasn't
8:27
Speaker 1: expecting to find a hostel. Actually, I think it was
8:30
Speaker 1: on Hostile World or Booking, I can't remember, but I
8:33
Speaker 1: found a hostel that offered private rooms in Beijing, and
8:38
Speaker 1: I that was weird. So I booked my two weeks
8:43
Speaker 1: there and when I showed up, everything looked new and
8:48
Speaker 1: like they had a water filter and stalls and clean
8:53
Speaker 1: tile and they were trying to keep it clean anyway,
8:56
Speaker 1: which kind of rare in Beijing. I don't worry about
9:01
Speaker 1: cleaning stuff a lot, but the hotels are generally clean,
9:05
Speaker 1: and this hostel was clean. But there was a brand
9:09
Speaker 1: spanking new pool table, and I like the old billiards,
9:15
Speaker 1: and so I started playing. And the first day I
9:19
Speaker 1: get this a lot. I get like when I'm excited
9:21
Speaker 1: about something, especially playing a competitive sport, when I'm interested
9:26
Speaker 1: in the first ten minutes or really like the first game,
9:30
Speaker 1: I do pretty well. And I did pretty well here,
9:34
Speaker 1: and I won like five games in a row against
9:37
Speaker 1: five different people right when I started. But I also
9:41
Speaker 1: this happens all the time. I get bored really quickly,
9:45
Speaker 1: and I just stop paying attention, and I don't even
9:50
Speaker 1: if I like focus, like with pool, especially if I
9:53
Speaker 1: win a few games, then I'm my body's like whatever,
9:57
Speaker 1: let's go do something else then, And that's what happened here.
10:01
Speaker 1: So I did five games and then this lethargy came
10:04
Speaker 1: over my body and it was like, whatever, we're done,
10:08
Speaker 1: and I missed like the easiest eight ball shot, and
10:13
Speaker 1: then I lost two games in a row. And I
10:15
Speaker 1: like playing even if I'm losing. So I was still
10:18
Speaker 1: having fun, but I just can't win. And the guy
10:20
Speaker 1: was playing with against was like, wait, what happened? Where
10:24
Speaker 1: did Why did all of your skill turn off instantaneously?
10:30
Speaker 1: My skill's whimsical, what can I say, shows up and
10:33
Speaker 1: departs as it chooses to. Oh, you know, since I'm
10:37
Speaker 1: talking about the pool table, I did play it the
10:39
Speaker 1: entire two weeks I was in Beijing, because I do
10:42
Speaker 1: love playing pool, even like I said, winning or losing,
10:46
Speaker 1: or just for fun, shooting by myself or playing against someone.
10:49
Speaker 1: It's just I like the angles. It's a little tricky,
10:55
Speaker 1: but it's not very complex, you know. It's you just
10:58
Speaker 1: draw a line from the pocket to the ball and
11:00
Speaker 1: then from that ball to your cubeball. So it's fun.
11:05
Speaker 1: It's just my level of engagement for an activity. And
11:10
Speaker 1: after that first stay, maybe I just got tired. I
11:12
Speaker 1: did pretty well. I had a reputation if I started playing,
11:17
Speaker 1: then someone would people like to play me. And they
11:19
Speaker 1: were all acting intimidated because I won the first few games,
11:24
Speaker 1: and I was doing okay for maybe the first week
11:28
Speaker 1: I was at the hostel. I generally won games. Oh
11:33
Speaker 1: and then this kid who looked to me like he
11:36
Speaker 1: was twelve, but don't I can't judge ages very accurately.
11:42
Speaker 1: I guess maybe he was twenty, who knows. But now
11:46
Speaker 1: that I'm an old fart, all young people are just young.
11:51
Speaker 1: So to me, it looks like a sixth grader is
11:54
Speaker 1: walking in with a backwards baseball cap and he picks
11:58
Speaker 1: up the stick and it suit like just holding he
12:03
Speaker 1: picks it up, and I just noticed immediately. I was like, ooh,
12:07
Speaker 1: he's the first guy in here who has who knows
12:10
Speaker 1: what he's doing, like, is very comfortable holding a pool
12:15
Speaker 1: cue like that. It just looked normal. And then he
12:19
Speaker 1: asked if he could play, and I was like, yeah, sure,
12:22
Speaker 1: and he ran the table. I was interested in what
12:24
Speaker 1: would happen, and he got I don't know, like five
12:27
Speaker 1: in a row in and then I got a couple,
12:29
Speaker 1: and then he finished, and then we started a new game,
12:32
Speaker 1: and then he didn't run the table the second time.
12:36
Speaker 1: I think I might have won that game, but it
12:40
Speaker 1: was close. I won. I had to catch up with six.
12:44
Speaker 1: He got all of them in except the eight ball,
12:48
Speaker 1: and I had six left and I had to hit yeah,
12:51
Speaker 1: and I got all six in and then I got
12:53
Speaker 1: the eight ball and I was like, well, and I
12:56
Speaker 1: tried to play it cool, but that's about as good
12:59
Speaker 1: as I've ever done, especially on track to lose as
13:04
Speaker 1: I was. And then we played another game and the
13:09
Speaker 1: same thing happened, except I missed the eight ball the
13:11
Speaker 1: next time. I got six in in a row, and
13:15
Speaker 1: then I was all caught up, and then I didn't
13:17
Speaker 1: get the eight ball in and he won that game,
13:19
Speaker 1: and then I never won another game against him, and
13:23
Speaker 1: he just wrecked it. He was better than me anyway.
13:26
Speaker 1: I think that first where I got six in and
13:28
Speaker 1: the eight ball was a fluke because he was dialed
13:32
Speaker 1: in and he played four all day after that midway
13:38
Speaker 1: point or something. Any day I saw him out there,
13:42
Speaker 1: Oh you know what. He left a few days before me.
13:44
Speaker 1: But anytime I saw that kid at the pool table,
13:48
Speaker 1: like we played at ten am, I think, and he
13:52
Speaker 1: was still there at six pm, just pulling it up.
13:57
Speaker 1: And people played him and they were like and they're
14:00
Speaker 1: like yeah, and then he would destroy them and just
14:04
Speaker 1: keep playing. But he was not malicious about it, and
14:06
Speaker 1: he had no hubris. He just loved that game more
14:11
Speaker 1: than anything else, apparently, because it's all he did. Anyway.
14:16
Speaker 1: High five to that guy. He wrecked everybody else at pool. Okay,
14:22
Speaker 1: So I mentioned last time my friend took me to
14:25
Speaker 1: hot Pot, but not spicy Hotpot specifically, and I found
14:30
Speaker 1: out that not only him, the other one. So Sean
14:35
Speaker 1: and Terry were the main people I hung out with.
14:37
Speaker 1: They're in like city center, Beijing. Nobody I know eats
14:42
Speaker 1: spicy food anymore. I have zero Chinese friends who like
14:46
Speaker 1: to eat spicy food regularly now. But after I showed
14:51
Speaker 1: up and we go to restaurants, Sean and Terry both started. Actually,
14:57
Speaker 1: everyone I hung out with started eating spicy food again
15:02
Speaker 1: because if it's there, especially their Chinese and I'm so
15:07
Speaker 1: obviously not Chinese, they feel like they should keep up
15:12
Speaker 1: because it is their cuisine after all. And it was
15:15
Speaker 1: really fun eating spicy food with my friends again like
15:18
Speaker 1: back in the day. But it's pretty wild. I have
15:22
Speaker 1: a lot of friends in China still all over the country. Okay,
15:27
Speaker 1: one of them she had a baby, so she can't
15:30
Speaker 1: eat spicy food. Okay, that's fair. She says she's eating
15:33
Speaker 1: spicy food anyway, but she's like keeping it. She has
15:36
Speaker 1: a very strict threshold of how much she eats. But
15:39
Speaker 1: like the day after she gave birth, she started eating
15:42
Speaker 1: spicy food again because all the Chinese doctors are like,
15:46
Speaker 1: do not eat spicy food while you're pregnant, and she
15:48
Speaker 1: likes a lot of really spicy food. So yeah, maybe
15:52
Speaker 1: she does regularly eat spicy food. That's good. Okay, Yeah,
15:57
Speaker 1: I still have one friend in China who eats spicy food.
16:01
Speaker 1: But if you go to China, you'll be yeah, you'll
16:03
Speaker 1: be surprised. They generally Chinese people do not like spicy food.
16:08
Speaker 1: Even if they go to a Sichuan restaurant or a
16:10
Speaker 1: chunching restaurant, they'll ask for boulah, don't make it spicy
16:14
Speaker 1: or weila, just a little bit of spice, but that's
16:17
Speaker 1: the chili oil, that's the base of that flava. So
16:22
Speaker 1: I was very happy when my friends indulged me and
16:24
Speaker 1: ate spicy food with me. And they were also very
16:27
Speaker 1: excited to drink beer. Sean has a family now, so
16:31
Speaker 1: he doesn't drink that much, so whenever he sees me,
16:34
Speaker 1: he's very excited to drink a whole bunch of beer
16:36
Speaker 1: with me. And then Terry and me, I think we
16:40
Speaker 1: just used to drink constantly, and he has his wife
16:45
Speaker 1: who doesn't drink so whenever he hangs out with me,
16:48
Speaker 1: he's also excited to dive back into some beers. So
16:52
Speaker 1: last time, I mentioned how I found that traditional Sichuan
16:56
Speaker 1: restaurant and when I went in, the oil was genuine
17:00
Speaker 1: chung Ching chili oil, which is very fresh, very tangy,
17:03
Speaker 1: very strong, with lots of Sichuan peppercorn which makes the
17:07
Speaker 1: numb spicy flavor. And I was really excited to go back,
17:10
Speaker 1: but I had to eat food with Terry and Sean
17:15
Speaker 1: every day for at least two days, and so I
17:19
Speaker 1: didn't get to go back to that restaurant that was
17:21
Speaker 1: so good. Yet I got back too late and they
17:25
Speaker 1: were close. So the third day I got back and
17:27
Speaker 1: I think it was eleven PM or something, but I
17:31
Speaker 1: ran around the corner and they were still open, and
17:35
Speaker 1: I had had some beers because I was hanging out
17:37
Speaker 1: with a friend, but my Chinese was still working, and
17:41
Speaker 1: so I spoke Mandarin to one of the waitresses. She
17:46
Speaker 1: might have asked where I'm from, I can't remember, and
17:48
Speaker 1: then I was just that perfect level, like a couple
17:51
Speaker 1: beers in. So I had confidence in my language skills
17:55
Speaker 1: and I wasn't questioning any of the grammatic mistakes that
17:59
Speaker 1: might give me anxiety, but I wasn't so drunk that
18:03
Speaker 1: I was forgetting things, you know. After a few beers
18:07
Speaker 1: in and I ended up talking to all of the waitresses.
18:11
Speaker 1: It was late, so there were still like two tables
18:14
Speaker 1: open or two tables occupied, and they were prepping my
18:20
Speaker 1: frog order, but they didn't have a lot of work.
18:22
Speaker 1: And after they saw me talking to the first waitress,
18:25
Speaker 1: the other few waitresses came over and they all just
18:28
Speaker 1: asked me questions about traveling and what I was doing.
18:30
Speaker 1: And I was fine, and I was speaking fluently. Well,
18:34
Speaker 1: not fluently, that's not true at all. I was speaking
18:37
Speaker 1: conversationally well with everybody. And it was really fun to
18:41
Speaker 1: practice my Chinese and to realize, like, hey, it's still
18:44
Speaker 1: pretty good if I can speak to four people at
18:48
Speaker 1: the same time who have zero English. And I was
18:52
Speaker 1: so excited about getting the frog, and I asked them, hey,
18:56
Speaker 1: this chili oil is so good. It's so fresh, like
18:59
Speaker 1: Chung Ching chili oil, and they were like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
19:02
Speaker 1: we're all from Chung Ching. And it turns out every
19:06
Speaker 1: single person in the restaurant is from Chung Ching. It's
19:08
Speaker 1: a chunk Ching restaurant. It just says Sichuan Hot Pot,
19:13
Speaker 1: because that was the name when the guy started it.
19:16
Speaker 1: But it's a chung Ching specific restaurant. And I was like, oh,
19:19
Speaker 1: that makes so much sense because the flavors are so
19:22
Speaker 1: strong and they're so regionally specific like this, these are
19:26
Speaker 1: chong Ching dishes for sure. The flavor, not just the
19:30
Speaker 1: chili oil, but the different flavors they use, and the
19:32
Speaker 1: fresh Sichuan peppercorns. Oh did I mention it? Last time?
19:37
Speaker 1: They put in instead of the dried peppercorns, a fresh sprig,
19:41
Speaker 1: so it's still covered in the green skin, like it's
19:44
Speaker 1: a fresh peppercorn. That's wild, and you almost never see
19:47
Speaker 1: that except in super fancy restaurants. But this place was like, hey,
19:51
Speaker 1: if we're making it, we're making it real, we're making
19:53
Speaker 1: it good. And I asked them, I've been to a
19:55
Speaker 1: couple other chong Chin places around here, and the oil
19:58
Speaker 1: is not chunk chili oil, and the spices are not
20:02
Speaker 1: like chun Ching spices. And they told me the waitresses
20:07
Speaker 1: that they actually flew in the chili oil from chong Ching,
20:12
Speaker 1: which is pretty far. It's like a easily twelve hundred
20:16
Speaker 1: miles from chong Ching to Beijing. I thought I would
20:21
Speaker 1: check that just in case. That's almost exactly correct. It's
20:24
Speaker 1: seventeen hundred kilometers, which is just about twelve hundred miles. Oh,
20:29
Speaker 1: eleven hundred miles pretty close. So that's quite a way
20:33
Speaker 1: just to make sure you get the right condiment in
20:36
Speaker 1: your restaurant. But if you do, I am a loyal customer,
20:41
Speaker 1: because nobody else in that neighborhood is flying in drums
20:46
Speaker 1: of chong ching chili oil or whatever they bring in there.
20:50
Speaker 1: Maybe they're just flying in the bricks of that good
20:53
Speaker 1: old hot pot based soup based brick. So that was
20:59
Speaker 1: a really because I got to practice Mandarin, and I
21:03
Speaker 1: was when I'm with Terry Orshan. Both of their English
21:06
Speaker 1: is so good that we usually just speak English, so
21:10
Speaker 1: this was probably no I guess. I talked in Chinese
21:13
Speaker 1: in the hostel also, And then everybody added me on
21:17
Speaker 1: wea Chat, because if one person had you on wea Chat,
21:20
Speaker 1: then everybody else wants to add you on wea Chat
21:22
Speaker 1: that's nearby, especially if you're a weird looking foreigner like me.
21:27
Speaker 1: And after I talked to those waitresses for whatever twenty
21:31
Speaker 1: minutes while they were making my my frog, I got
21:34
Speaker 1: to take that around the corner. It's still piping hot
21:37
Speaker 1: and sit down and enjoy again my favorite meal again
21:40
Speaker 1: and it was so good. And the sprig of fresh
21:45
Speaker 1: Sichuan peppercorn was in there, which is so cool, and
21:49
Speaker 1: it was just it was as mind blowing the second time.
21:52
Speaker 1: The food. I love traditional Chinese food if it's made well.
21:58
Speaker 1: You can find plenty of crappy restaurants, especially I was
22:01
Speaker 1: in the middle of the city. I'm assuming that's why
22:04
Speaker 1: it was so difficult to find a genuine restaurant, not
22:08
Speaker 1: even chung Qing restaurant, but just a traditional restaurant. It
22:12
Speaker 1: does seem like the flavors are becoming palatable for everyone,
22:19
Speaker 1: so not not very not as strong or regionally specific
22:26
Speaker 1: or frankly impressive, not as deep or complex as they
22:32
Speaker 1: are if you go like if you go to Chian
22:34
Speaker 1: and you get the rojamo in Chian, that is a
22:37
Speaker 1: Chian sandwich. You can get them in Beijing, but they
22:40
Speaker 1: just taste like ground meat. They're nothing special. If you
22:42
Speaker 1: get in Chian, there's a bunch of very specific spices
22:46
Speaker 1: and the ratio of peppers and the chili oil they use,
22:50
Speaker 1: and it's a flavor explosion. But when you're in the
22:53
Speaker 1: middle of a city, especially Beijing, and people are from everywhere.
22:57
Speaker 1: It seems like all the flavors kind of mix together
22:58
Speaker 1: and they lose a lot of their complexity and depth.
23:02
Speaker 1: And that's why this restaurant was so exciting for me
23:07
Speaker 1: to find. And I ate that and watched Video Game
23:10
Speaker 1: High School, which is this pretty funny TV show about it.
23:19
Speaker 1: It's like, what's it called realism, surrealism, Everything about the
23:23
Speaker 1: world is the same, except that instead of like football
23:28
Speaker 1: in the US, the most popular sport is esports, is gaming,
23:35
Speaker 1: and so you can get into Video Game High School,
23:37
Speaker 1: which is the most prestigious high school in the world,
23:40
Speaker 1: and by a series of fantastical events, a casual gamer
23:46
Speaker 1: gets into it. And then that's the series. And it
23:50
Speaker 1: was pretty fun and it's really cool because it's independent,
23:53
Speaker 1: so you can tell these people are making it because
23:58
Speaker 1: it's a project they all want to make and they
24:01
Speaker 1: all want to be a part of. And the production
24:04
Speaker 1: value really impressive. Those special effects were amazing. I couldn't believe.
24:09
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe how good the special effects were, and
24:13
Speaker 1: then just kept getting throughout the series. I'm assuming is
24:16
Speaker 1: they got maybe a little higher budget each year. But
24:19
Speaker 1: from the first episode. This is an independent film studio
24:26
Speaker 1: and it doesn't seem like there's a huge infrastructure or
24:29
Speaker 1: budget behind anything. But the special effects were very, very impressive,
24:35
Speaker 1: and not just the special effects, the practical effects, like
24:38
Speaker 1: when they were in the video game. They would just
24:40
Speaker 1: change costumes and shoot it differently with like a filter
24:46
Speaker 1: or in a different environment like the desert instead of
24:49
Speaker 1: a suburban but it worked so well. Like the cinematography
24:52
Speaker 1: and the effects in the first episode is what kept
24:57
Speaker 1: me watching. And then I started having a lot of
25:00
Speaker 1: fun with the series, and it even had some dramatic
25:04
Speaker 1: turns that I was not expecting at all. Yeah, a
25:08
Speaker 1: very interesting show. I recommend it to people who can
25:13
Speaker 1: tolerate video games. It was made well and it was Yeah,
25:17
Speaker 1: did a lot of interesting things that I was not expecting.
25:21
Speaker 1: I talked to the front desk clerk. I decided to
25:23
Speaker 1: stay for two weeks instead of one week because I
25:26
Speaker 1: was having so much fun in Beijing and I hadn't
25:29
Speaker 1: bought my ticket to Mongolia yet because with the invasion
25:35
Speaker 1: of iran Oh and then Spirit shut down the airline
25:41
Speaker 1: from the US, tickets were incredibly volatile, more than normal
25:47
Speaker 1: and the prices that week, especially that I was planning
25:50
Speaker 1: on buying my Mongolia ticket, were just shooting up and down,
25:53
Speaker 1: mostly up, and I was trying to get a good price,
25:58
Speaker 1: and I was checking back now and then, but I
26:00
Speaker 1: had to check in. I don't know, I made an alarm.
26:02
Speaker 1: I think to check in every four hours or something.
26:05
Speaker 1: And I did finally find a very good ticket to
26:10
Speaker 1: and from Mongolia, actually about fifty percent of the normal price.
26:15
Speaker 1: Because it's such an isolated country, it's kind of pricey
26:17
Speaker 1: to fly in there, usually like two hundred and fifty
26:20
Speaker 1: two seventy one way, and I basically got half price
26:24
Speaker 1: there and back. But I was having such fun, and
26:27
Speaker 1: my friends were there in Beijing, so I decided to
26:29
Speaker 1: stay an extra week. And I went out and talked
26:32
Speaker 1: to the front desk clerk who was cute, and then
26:38
Speaker 1: I was playing pool and she got off work five
26:40
Speaker 1: minutes later, and she walked over and told me she
26:42
Speaker 1: got off work and would I teach her how to
26:43
Speaker 1: play pool? And I liked teaching people how to play pool,
26:48
Speaker 1: so I taught her and she was flirty and it
26:50
Speaker 1: was fun. Oh, and I had already been there for
26:52
Speaker 1: a week. That was the day I found out there
26:55
Speaker 1: were very few private rooms in the hostel, and it
26:59
Speaker 1: was it was just a traditional hostel, and it was
27:03
Speaker 1: surprising that I had a private room. There was me,
27:06
Speaker 1: and then no, actually, I can't think of anybody else.
27:10
Speaker 1: I know. I talked to this crazy beautiful girl who said,
27:14
Speaker 1: who might have said she had a private room, but
27:17
Speaker 1: maybe there's only one in each gendered side of the
27:20
Speaker 1: hostile because there's a boy side and a girl's side.
27:22
Speaker 1: And I was shocked because I was talking to a
27:24
Speaker 1: lot of people and like a programmer was bragging about
27:28
Speaker 1: how much money he made, and there was another guy
27:31
Speaker 1: who'd been in Beijing a long time. But then I
27:33
Speaker 1: found out that they were just staying in rooms with
27:37
Speaker 1: at least three other people. And Chinese people still smoke
27:42
Speaker 1: indoors all the time. So imagine like a ten by
27:46
Speaker 1: ten foot room with four beds and three Chinese people
27:50
Speaker 1: are smoking cigarettes around you. So, especially the gregarious programmer
27:55
Speaker 1: who was very proud of his new job at ten Cent,
27:59
Speaker 1: I was like, why are you staying with other people?
28:03
Speaker 1: And he said he just didn't know that private rooms
28:05
Speaker 1: were available, which yes, I thought was weird, weird answer,
28:10
Speaker 1: But I think everything is weird, and I think everybody
28:12
Speaker 1: is crazy. But that's the day I found out that
28:15
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of private rooms and everybody else
28:17
Speaker 1: was staying in a dorm, which is how Chinese. Oh
28:21
Speaker 1: that's the other thing, I guess I should say, there's
28:23
Speaker 1: not many non Chinese people at this hostel. It was
28:26
Speaker 1: mostly Chinese people, probably over ninety percent Chinese people, and
28:32
Speaker 1: then just from other provinces, not from Beijing. And then
28:37
Speaker 1: there was me and a teacher and that programmer maybe
28:42
Speaker 1: someone else. But that's the weird thing about being so
28:46
Speaker 1: online like this, because when I was walking around, there
28:51
Speaker 1: are still benguans, there are still local places that you
28:55
Speaker 1: can go to, and I'm sure get a better price
28:59
Speaker 1: than this hotel. A lot of these local or Chinese
29:03
Speaker 1: people were paying maybe thirty qui or less than five
29:08
Speaker 1: dollars a day for a bunk in a room. But
29:11
Speaker 1: you can get a room for that private room for
29:14
Speaker 1: that price if you're just not in the city center,
29:16
Speaker 1: and you'll be right on a subway line so you
29:19
Speaker 1: can get anywhere you need to go in the city.
29:21
Speaker 1: The city subway is fantastic in Beijing. So I didn't
29:26
Speaker 1: really understand other than it is in the middle of
29:29
Speaker 1: the city, so maybe the prestige of its location that's
29:32
Speaker 1: why they wanted to stay there. And like I said,
29:34
Speaker 1: Beijing is weird, and everybody in Beijing is online. They're
29:40
Speaker 1: online all the time and all there's only one app
29:42
Speaker 1: where you get all the hotel deals, so I think
29:45
Speaker 1: I think this younger generation especially just has no conception
29:48
Speaker 1: of asking around for binguans and hotels and that kind
29:53
Speaker 1: of stuff. They just go on the one app and
29:56
Speaker 1: they reserve whatever is available. And because there's my op
30:00
Speaker 1: with that one app, the prices are definitely higher than
30:03
Speaker 1: they should be in China, which is such an inexpensive place.
30:09
Speaker 1: But the hotels were all easily twenty to fifty US
30:12
Speaker 1: dollars a day, which is insane, especially when a meal
30:17
Speaker 1: is like a gourmet meal is still less than five dollars,
30:20
Speaker 1: and many meals, like the everyday meals are three dollars
30:25
Speaker 1: three US dollars paying twenty US dollars even, which is
30:28
Speaker 1: a cheap hotel price in Beijing right now, so weird.
30:33
Speaker 1: The apartment the apartments are maybe three hundred US dollars
30:38
Speaker 1: per month. Still the apartment like rents are still inexpensive,
30:43
Speaker 1: but for some reason the hotels are expensive that I
30:46
Speaker 1: never understood that, and nobody understood that either, Like all
30:50
Speaker 1: of my Chinese friends didn't even think of They apparently
30:54
Speaker 1: hadn't thought about that because they had, you know, apartments
30:58
Speaker 1: by themselves. And they've heard that. So many people are
31:01
Speaker 1: leaving Beijing these days, just because it's so saturated with
31:06
Speaker 1: people and travel infrastructures better in China, so not there's
31:12
Speaker 1: a lot of online work. You don't have to be
31:14
Speaker 1: in Beijing to work since people are leaving, a lot
31:16
Speaker 1: of the hotels are empty. But that must be on
31:19
Speaker 1: social media, because when I was walking around, I walked
31:22
Speaker 1: around my neighborhood and every single hotel said that they
31:26
Speaker 1: were full and booked for like the next two weeks.
31:31
Speaker 1: It was a very odd. But also it didn't Beijing
31:36
Speaker 1: seemed less crowded to me. There definitely did seem to
31:39
Speaker 1: be far fewer people in the city than I was
31:42
Speaker 1: used to. So I'm thinking it must be the same thing,
31:45
Speaker 1: like all the young Chinese people must still there must
31:47
Speaker 1: be enough young Chinese people coming in and they just
31:50
Speaker 1: use the one app to book the available hotels. But
31:55
Speaker 1: if they walked around, I mean in the in windows
31:59
Speaker 1: I saw advertise Heisman's written in Chinese room for rent,
32:03
Speaker 1: call this number and one hundred percent. If you call
32:06
Speaker 1: that number, you'd be paying less than five dollars for
32:09
Speaker 1: a private room. But it's on the center of the city,
32:12
Speaker 1: and Chinese people especially do like living in the center
32:16
Speaker 1: of the city. Face it looks good for their reputation.
32:21
Speaker 1: What was I talking about? Okay, I talked about the
32:26
Speaker 1: hot pot already. Okay, Okay, I've got There were so
32:30
Speaker 1: many good dishes that actually I don't know if this
32:35
Speaker 1: was the best restaurant or even the best dish while
32:39
Speaker 1: I was in Beijing, but it was up there. Now
32:42
Speaker 1: I love frog. I keep talking about how I eat it.
32:45
Speaker 1: There's in the soup frog, which is very good, and
32:49
Speaker 1: then there's ganghua, which is in a dry pot, so
32:52
Speaker 1: it's like stir fried without soup. And then there's this
32:56
Speaker 1: mix that's in a tray, so there's like a cent
33:00
Speaker 1: meter of the red soup in there. But the frog
33:03
Speaker 1: itself is spiced and then fried and then just put
33:07
Speaker 1: on that bed of spicy soup. But most of the
33:10
Speaker 1: mountain of frog is sticking outside. So good friend Terry
33:13
Speaker 1: invites me to dinner and he went to the hot
33:16
Speaker 1: pot place first. I don't know what it is, but
33:19
Speaker 1: I swear to goodness when when someone is like, oh,
33:24
Speaker 1: let's go to this place. It's really good, that's all
33:27
Speaker 1: they have to say, and I'm like, crap, it's not
33:29
Speaker 1: a good restaurant in China. That happens so much. I
33:33
Speaker 1: don't know what like. I don't know if it's a
33:35
Speaker 1: visual cueue or no they're texting me. I don't know
33:38
Speaker 1: if it's a grammatical cue or what. However they say it.
33:42
Speaker 1: I can almost instantly tell if it's a famous restaurant
33:46
Speaker 1: that's probably not gonna be good, or an actually good
33:49
Speaker 1: restaurant that they like. And I felt that when Terry
33:52
Speaker 1: took me to his fish hot pot place, but I
33:55
Speaker 1: was wrong. That was pretty good. But then this second
33:58
Speaker 1: place just sounded like a hot spot, like a popular place,
34:05
Speaker 1: and he wanted to show me off, like his work,
34:09
Speaker 1: show me off, show off his work neighborhood to me,
34:13
Speaker 1: and this is like the best restaurant in that neighborhood
34:16
Speaker 1: according to all the reviews, which so I'm skeptical already.
34:20
Speaker 1: And then when we showed up and I saw it,
34:22
Speaker 1: the sign was very new and there's a lot of
34:24
Speaker 1: flashing lights, and there was a ton of tables and
34:26
Speaker 1: not many people inside and so many waitresses. And I
34:30
Speaker 1: was like, uh, oh man, He's like, no, no, I swear.
34:32
Speaker 1: I swear it has like fifteen hundred five star reviews.
34:34
Speaker 1: It's very good. And I was like, okay, And we
34:37
Speaker 1: tried it and it was not good. It was very expensive,
34:42
Speaker 1: and that's about all I can say for it. We
34:48
Speaker 1: did go into the supermarket first and get some beers.
34:52
Speaker 1: That is a nice thing about China. You can still
34:55
Speaker 1: just go to the supermarket and buy beers and then
34:58
Speaker 1: walk into a super fancy restauran with a grocery store
35:03
Speaker 1: plastic bag full of your own alcohol. So you don't
35:08
Speaker 1: have to pay six US dollars for one beer at
35:11
Speaker 1: the fancy restaurant. You just buy it for thirty cents
35:13
Speaker 1: across the street. And the beers were good, and we
35:15
Speaker 1: got like four fancy dishes. Terry wanted to order a lot.
35:20
Speaker 1: I think we actually maybe we only got two because
35:24
Speaker 1: I was like, let's just let's get to and try
35:26
Speaker 1: them and then if we like it, we'll get more.
35:28
Speaker 1: And we got the cold sliced beef in brown sauce
35:33
Speaker 1: which can be extremely good, and the meat was not
35:37
Speaker 1: good quality. It was clearly pre frozen and fatty, but
35:43
Speaker 1: not balanced. Well, it was just chewy. It was just
35:47
Speaker 1: it was just too rapidly thawed, overcooked, chewy, pre frozen meat.
35:53
Speaker 1: It was crappy. In the beginning, we were both like, yeah,
35:56
Speaker 1: it's not bad. But after we had a few pieces,
36:00
Speaker 1: me and Terry were like, it's really bad. But by
36:04
Speaker 1: that point I had ordered the test dish, Gandhi and
36:07
Speaker 1: dojiao dry fried string beans twice dry fried. It's a
36:13
Speaker 1: difficult dish to cook correctly. You have to fry the
36:19
Speaker 1: beans first in oil until they are dry, until the
36:24
Speaker 1: water is out of those beans before you fry it
36:26
Speaker 1: with the meat, so that both are actually dry and
36:31
Speaker 1: crispy when you eat them. And like I said, I
36:36
Speaker 1: think this is the first time I was in Beijing
36:38
Speaker 1: that I could not find a very good restaurant. I
36:41
Speaker 1: found one that was okay, but boy, when they brought
36:43
Speaker 1: this one. I tried a bean and I was like,
36:46
Speaker 1: oh no. And Terry tried and he was like, oh what,
36:49
Speaker 1: why is it so bad? And I explained the process.
36:51
Speaker 1: I just explained to you and told him they did
36:55
Speaker 1: not fry the water out of these green beans. They
37:01
Speaker 1: took a bunch of frozen green beans, threw them into oil,
37:05
Speaker 1: fried it up with the meat also at the same
37:07
Speaker 1: time what you're not supposed to do, and then poured
37:10
Speaker 1: that onto a plate. So it's just a bunch of oily,
37:14
Speaker 1: wet beans and ground meat. And before we went into
37:20
Speaker 1: that big restaurant, I told Terry, I was like, I
37:23
Speaker 1: got a bad feeling, but he said we should try
37:25
Speaker 1: it because that has all the good reviews and he
37:27
Speaker 1: thinks it should be really good. But after we went
37:30
Speaker 1: there and he tried the ganbian dojo to dry fried
37:33
Speaker 1: green beans, Who's like, this is sure gien surebian dojao.
37:38
Speaker 1: This is wet fried green beans, which is about as
37:43
Speaker 1: gross as you can imagine, just oily, moist green beans
37:48
Speaker 1: and chewy, oily meat, which is the opposite of what
37:52
Speaker 1: that it's in the title, folks, that's the opposite of
37:56
Speaker 1: what that dish should be. So after they failed that test,
37:59
Speaker 1: I was like, let's just drink these beers and go,
38:03
Speaker 1: And that was such a good decision. Rather than trying
38:07
Speaker 1: another dish, we just left and I was like, let's
38:13
Speaker 1: just walk up the road. I bet we'll see something
38:15
Speaker 1: and if we see something that looks really good, we'll
38:17
Speaker 1: try that. And we talked and walked and had fun.
38:20
Speaker 1: We were friends, drinking beer, walking down the road, just
38:23
Speaker 1: like old times before we were old. And then I
38:28
Speaker 1: saw it. I saw this restaurant and it said it
38:32
Speaker 1: had nuwah or something, but the sign wasn't super new.
38:40
Speaker 1: There were a lot of people in there. There was
38:42
Speaker 1: only a couple people as the waitresses, even though there
38:45
Speaker 1: were forty tables whatever. And I just felt it like
38:50
Speaker 1: I do, and I said, that's the one that's a
38:52
Speaker 1: good place. And Terry was like, I don't know, I'm
38:56
Speaker 1: kind of full. Should we do? You want to go
38:58
Speaker 1: eat there? I'll eat if you want to eat there.
39:00
Speaker 1: And at first I was like, I don't know. We
39:02
Speaker 1: did just eat a bunch of crap. And I was like,
39:04
Speaker 1: yes we should. I'm getting the good feeling. And they
39:09
Speaker 1: had multiple frog dishes on their menu, and I ordered
39:13
Speaker 1: the one that looked the best and it was, holy crap.
39:18
Speaker 1: It was what I was talking about earlier. They dry
39:20
Speaker 1: fry the frog first and then they fry that in
39:24
Speaker 1: the red chili oil, and then they serve it to
39:26
Speaker 1: you with that centimeter of chili oil and just a
39:28
Speaker 1: mountain of frog. And it was a mountain the traditional
39:32
Speaker 1: chon Ching restaurant where I talked to all the waitresses.
39:35
Speaker 1: That is a very very good frog dish. But I
39:39
Speaker 1: didn't get as much frog as I want. I got
39:41
Speaker 1: a lot. There's a lot of food in that dish,
39:44
Speaker 1: no doubt. It was stacked with frogs. It was fantastic also,
39:49
Speaker 1: so I was very happy with it. I had plenty.
39:51
Speaker 1: And then I go to this place, this in the
39:55
Speaker 1: middle of nowhere place with a couple people running it.
39:57
Speaker 1: That's how you know it's gonna be good. And I
40:01
Speaker 1: had twice as many frogs. It was. I couldn't believe it.
40:04
Speaker 1: When they brought it out. I was shocked. And it
40:06
Speaker 1: was cheaper than the restaurant where I was, that restaurant
40:10
Speaker 1: near my hostel. And the flavor, oh man, if you
40:13
Speaker 1: get good dry fried and then fried in chili oil,
40:17
Speaker 1: it's the opposite of Wilhelm's the scream painting. It's the
40:21
Speaker 1: best taste in the world. And I was absolutely blown away,
40:27
Speaker 1: and I was kind of full. I had drank a
40:29
Speaker 1: bunch of beers and I had some of that crappy
40:31
Speaker 1: food you know, we also got like genbing or whatever,
40:35
Speaker 1: and that was the worst. It was, Oh my god.
40:39
Speaker 1: They totally screwed up the chun bing shoot. I can't
40:43
Speaker 1: remember the name of the dish now, but it's like
40:45
Speaker 1: spring vegetables wrapped in chunbing. Chun Bing should be a
40:52
Speaker 1: very thin, like somewhat transparent, you can almost see through it.
40:58
Speaker 1: Sort of pancake, I guess she would call it, but
41:00
Speaker 1: very thin, like a crape, thinner than a crape that
41:05
Speaker 1: you wrap around vegetables and there's a little bit of
41:07
Speaker 1: sauce and it's delicious. It tastes great. They basically used
41:12
Speaker 1: burritos or tortillas for their spring vegetable medley, so it's
41:17
Speaker 1: way too much bread, and the bread was stiff chunebing.
41:23
Speaker 1: These these wayfer thin slices I'm talking about, are a
41:28
Speaker 1: little bit stretchy, and they're they have great texture. They're
41:32
Speaker 1: chewy a little bit, but you can still bite through them.
41:35
Speaker 1: And they just served us regular crappy frozen vegetables, probably
41:40
Speaker 1: heated up in like mission tortillas. It was insane, but
41:46
Speaker 1: we were, you know, drinking to while away the pain,
41:50
Speaker 1: and did each have like one of the tortilla things.
41:54
Speaker 1: It was so bizarre. We were probably just eating them
41:57
Speaker 1: just to be like, is this really as bad as
42:01
Speaker 1: it seems like it is? And yes they were, so
42:03
Speaker 1: we were kind of full already, and when they brought
42:05
Speaker 1: out that much frog, probably five pounds how much frog? Honestly,
42:11
Speaker 1: it had to be at least three pounds of frog
42:15
Speaker 1: because the tray is huge, the tray is I don't know,
42:18
Speaker 1: the tray is how big a foot and a half
42:21
Speaker 1: by maybe eight inches. It's a large tray, and it
42:27
Speaker 1: was mountained with frog. So I was like, man, I'm
42:32
Speaker 1: not even that hungry. I can't believe how much frog
42:34
Speaker 1: this is. And then I took a bite, and then
42:37
Speaker 1: after like two more bites, I was like, never mind,
42:39
Speaker 1: I can eat this entire thing. We're good. And Terry
42:43
Speaker 1: looked at me with shock on his face, which was
42:46
Speaker 1: another blast from the past, because I was known for
42:49
Speaker 1: eating insane amounts of hot pot and good Chinese food
42:53
Speaker 1: back in the day. Whenever I went out with my
42:55
Speaker 1: work colleagues, they were always shocked at how much I
42:58
Speaker 1: could eat, especially consider how skinny I was. But my
43:01
Speaker 1: trick was literally running marathons every other day because I
43:05
Speaker 1: was eating pounds of food, but this frog. If food
43:08
Speaker 1: is good, I will just keep eating it. And this
43:11
Speaker 1: frog was insane. Probably you know what. I'm sorry traditional
43:17
Speaker 1: chunching people, You're very cool, But I think this was
43:20
Speaker 1: the best dish I had while I was in Beijing,
43:23
Speaker 1: so much so that I think I went back to
43:25
Speaker 1: get it two more times with Terry. It was crazy,
43:30
Speaker 1: it was so good, and we just drank. Oh. And
43:34
Speaker 1: when I told Terry I could eat, his face just
43:37
Speaker 1: like was a mix of confusion. He's like, but we're
43:41
Speaker 1: I'm so full now, and I was like, I know,
43:43
Speaker 1: but this is too good. We're just gonna have to
43:45
Speaker 1: let's do it, and I just crammed them on. And
43:48
Speaker 1: even when there was none left, I dug through the
43:51
Speaker 1: remaining soup and like looked for little pieces and found
43:54
Speaker 1: several little pieces of frog, and Terry by that point
43:57
Speaker 1: was just giving me all the every leftover piece of frog,
44:01
Speaker 1: because I could have eaten another dish of that that night.
44:05
Speaker 1: It was so good. Man. I'm gonna get distracted a
44:09
Speaker 1: lot in these China stories, because every time I talk
44:12
Speaker 1: about food, I'm gonna want to describe it in detail
44:15
Speaker 1: so that I remember it. And I can replay the
44:18
Speaker 1: visceral taste of my favorite foods and preparation. I even
44:24
Speaker 1: love talking about the preparation of Gandhi and Dojia and
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Speaker 1: the pgo kaya and all that stuff. Thank you so
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Speaker 1: much for listening. You can talk to me at a
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Speaker 1: Bit of a Rambler at gmail dot com or bit
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Speaker 1: of a Rambler and Blue Sky and Lemmy, I'm here, folks.
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Speaker 1: I hope you're having a great day and I will
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Speaker 1: talk to you soon.