It looks like whenever I finally do make the move to China, I will settle in Wuxi, located 1.5 hours west of Shanghai. Wuxi took my breath away because it's how I imagine California was during the gold rush. Wuxi is receiving 1/5 of all Smart City investments made in China, and in case you can't understand that, it means that billions and billions of dollars are going into just ONE city every year. Jiangsu Province, where Wuxi is located, is receiving 1/3 of all Smart City investments in China (almost $20 billion), so there's a lot of buzz. It was pretty evident by looking at the Wuxi skyline--all I could see were cranes and new buildings going up.
The interesting thing about China is that every secondary city (i.e., any city that is not Beijing, Shanghai, or Hong Kong) have set aside an "Economic and Technological Development Zone." These Development Zones encourage foreign direct investment and are a separate district adjacent to the main city. I love visiting these Development Zones because the city governments applied every textbook lessons learned from urban transportation problems by implementing green areas, 10-lane roads, solar street lamps, etc. to an area where they anticipate enormous growth. I have removed all thoughts of associating China with "slum," "shady building material," and the negative connotation of "Made in China." The highway system (especially in Jiangsu Province) rival the U.S. roads, and even more so because all road signs are in both Mandarin and English.
Side note: Although the highway system is pretty impressive, I will take a shady U.S. rest stop in the middle of the night over a Chinese one in daylight. And don't worry, even if they have a great highway system, the driving is still terrible.
After a day of meetings, I had some free time to explore Lake Tai, the third largest freshwater lake in China. The park surrounding Lake Tai was beautiful and scenic, and I took a ferry to Sanshan Island located in the middle of the lake. It was 36 degrees Centigrade that day (almost 97 degrees F), sunny, and humid, so I was silently melting on the top deck while spreading my arms out to get a tan. Apparently, that just made me look more like a foreigner to the other passengers on the boat, because they were covered from head to toe in order to NOT get a tan. I've never seen so many people use umbrellas as sun parasols in my life.
While in Wuxi, I was able to experience some of the local delicacies like:
I don't really know what the third treasure of Lake Tai is. Crawfish maybe, because I have a fuzzy memory of eating that before the baijiu kicked in.
The interesting thing about China is that every secondary city (i.e., any city that is not Beijing, Shanghai, or Hong Kong) have set aside an "Economic and Technological Development Zone." These Development Zones encourage foreign direct investment and are a separate district adjacent to the main city. I love visiting these Development Zones because the city governments applied every textbook lessons learned from urban transportation problems by implementing green areas, 10-lane roads, solar street lamps, etc. to an area where they anticipate enormous growth. I have removed all thoughts of associating China with "slum," "shady building material," and the negative connotation of "Made in China." The highway system (especially in Jiangsu Province) rival the U.S. roads, and even more so because all road signs are in both Mandarin and English.
Side note: Although the highway system is pretty impressive, I will take a shady U.S. rest stop in the middle of the night over a Chinese one in daylight. And don't worry, even if they have a great highway system, the driving is still terrible.
After a day of meetings, I had some free time to explore Lake Tai, the third largest freshwater lake in China. The park surrounding Lake Tai was beautiful and scenic, and I took a ferry to Sanshan Island located in the middle of the lake. It was 36 degrees Centigrade that day (almost 97 degrees F), sunny, and humid, so I was silently melting on the top deck while spreading my arms out to get a tan. Apparently, that just made me look more like a foreigner to the other passengers on the boat, because they were covered from head to toe in order to NOT get a tan. I've never seen so many people use umbrellas as sun parasols in my life.
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| Heading to Sanshan Island |
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| Things that would not fly in the U.S. #56: sun parasols |
While in Wuxi, I was able to experience some of the local delicacies like:
- White Taihu shrimp - It is one of the "Three Whites." Probably no more than an inch in length, the shrimp is one of the three treasures of Lake Tai. (Taihu literally means "Lake Tai" in Chinese). I didn't eat the head or the tail, but did eat the shell. It tasted like fatness and tenderness.
- Oil gluten - I know, it sounds disgusting. It's actually a vegetable protein used to make a dough, then all the starch and other impurities are washed off, leaving just gluten. Then it's shred into little bite-sized pieces, and fried in hot oil and smothered in brown sauce. Okay, I admit, it wasn't my favorite dish.
- Spareribs - Pork ribs are cooked in cinnamon, anise, garlic, sugar, and ginger until the meat can be easily separated from the meat. Need I say more?
- White Taihu fish - The fish is steamed and then topped with a light broth and a mixture of fresh scallions and ginger strips. It was so fresh, tender, and delicious. (It's actually just one fish on the plate. The chef just splits the fish laterally in such a way that it looks like there's two whole fish on the plate.)
- Xiaolongbao - In America, we call these Shanghai soup dumplings. Although I didn't eat it in Shanghai, I was close enough to Shanghai that these were a local delicacy. It was good, but I would have liked the ginger soy sauce to accompany the dumplings.
I don't really know what the third treasure of Lake Tai is. Crawfish maybe, because I have a fuzzy memory of eating that before the baijiu kicked in.
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| Baijiu - Oh so pretty and oh so potent |
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