Toronto City Life

Posts Tagged ‘ chinese ’

Good morning, China!

Posted on June 9th, 2024 – Comments Off

First off, huge confession: I keep stats on this blog.

I like to see how many people are dropping by, what they’re looking at, and where they’re coming from. For quite a while the numbers have been pretty steady … a mix of visitors from around the globe who typically view a few pages per session. Occasionally I’ll get bursts of obvious bot activity but most of the time the site’s traffic looks like regular people just poking around and exploring.

For the last little while, however, I’ve been noticing a certain trend:

You get the idea. So what to make of this?

In my mind there are two main possibilities.

First, China is a big and populous country, the state hasn’t blocked my site (or people are breaking through), and TCL is simply gaining a bit of traction there. If the idea among readers is to gain some exposure to proper English then woe be to them, but I try to take interesting pictures from time to time so maybe that’s the allure. If that’s all there is to this then welcome, 中國人民!*

The second option is a little more sinister: the ostensibly Communist Chinese government has taken an interest in my site, scraping it for any and all content. It’s not as if I haven’t been critical of the Canadian government and its many tendrils, something I imagine the CCP’s domestic propaganda outfits may find appealing.

I suppose that I could also just be cynical and/or jaded. Maybe I’m just misreading the stats. It could also be that I’ve encountered bureaucracy and have scried the truth by gazing into its abysmal maw. Either way, I won’t be singing the praises of the Chinese government, or the Communist ideology any time soon. Socialism, no thanks. I have a few things to say about a few other systems too and if I ever I sing any of their praises, rest assured it’s been coerced.

_{* if this is wrong then it’s Google’s fault.}

Filed under: Dispatches, Patrick Bay, Why I'm Right

We’s not ig’nant

Posted on May 9th, 2011 – 4 Comments

Sarah and I did some casual, Sunday afternoon, stroll-y type shopping at the Cherry Street T&T yesterday. It was my intention to give her a taste (yes, pun included), of my years in Taiwan — at least in terms of product selection. We were missing the traditionally oppressive humidity and funky odours known as “authentic street cuisine”, but with its hordes of English-less products, mystery ingredients (on the labels we could read), and unintentionally hilarious packaging, I feel pretty satisfied with the authenticity of the store. And to top off a fully immersive experience, you should always walk out feeling a little more ignorant than when you came in — mission accomplished! Well, maybe ignorant isn’t the exact word, but I’m sure you get the gist.

Filed under: Dispatches, Patrick Bay, Pictures

Midnight Roler

Posted on October 7th, 2010 – Comments Off

Having…

Filed under: Dispatches, Patrick Bay, Pictures

Congee, nai cha, and me

Posted on May 20th, 2010 – 12 Comments

Aha! I finally figured out why the smell of frying food conjures up such strong feelings of summer. And it isn’t all funnel cakes either.

The whole synesthetic experience must’ve started when I was still doing my ex-pat thing overseas. It was on the tropical island of Taiwan where winter temperatures hardly dipped below 10 Celsius (50 Fahrenheit), and the summers we non-stop steam baths regularly hitting 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), that I first made the association. After a few years of that, the link between summer heat and fried food musta just burned into my brain, I guess.

The fried food part of the equation is my favourite Taiwanese breakfast, usually eaten in small roadside shops surrounded by greasy steam and greasier customers.

The three most common meals at such establishment are, as I recall, lobogau, diced fried daikon (giant white radish), congee, a cold soup consisting of rice, some kind of shredded meat, and a variety of veggie / nut toppings, and dan bing, which I’ll be discussing here and the only thing that I actually enjoyed in the mornings. (Fried radish — gross!)

The name dan bing comes from the Mandarin words “ji dan” (chicken eggs), and “bing” (platter or plate – or ice if mispronounced). It’s usually accompanied by “nai cha”, literally “milk tea”, but with whitener being used instead of real milk — for a variety of reasons. Incidentally, this is also the secret ingredient in Tea Shop 168’s milk teas, unsurprisingly since this is also a Taiwanese company. (With tapioca in the milk tea — buble milk tea — it’s called “jinju nai cha”.)

Dan bing is super easy to make: