Zhang Yimou

Filipo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images

I think we can all agree that the Olympic Opening Ceremony in Beijing were pretty fantastic. The artistic direction was done by Zhang Yimou, famed director of films such as House of Flying Daggers, Hero, and Raise the Red Lantern. Gong Li, whom I idolize as the most beautiful Chinese woman ever, was his longtime muse and amour.

When at the West Lake in China last summer, I got to see a production by Zhang Yimou on the lake. Not sure how they did it, but it was also quite fantastic, though on a much smaller scale. Here are a few (blurry) visuals. They retell well known Chinese tales, perhaps we would call them legends or fairytales, that center around the beautiful lake.

Dancers on the lake wave enormous feathers in unison.

Here the story of the White Snake and her husband are told on a floating pagoda.

Dancers perform the story of the Butterfly Lovers under a watery canopy. It's a story of star crossed love, but with a very slightly happier ending than Romeo and Juliet (the lovers meet as butterflies over their graves).

Happy 08/08/08!

Eight is a lucky number in Chinese culture because " bā " (八) sounds like " fā " (發) the word for becoming prosperous. Besides being an auspicious day for opening the Olympic games, today is also my sister's birthday!

I, however, have an unlucky Chinese number in my birthdate: Four, which is " sì " (四) sounds like " sǐ " (死), the word for death. Yay! Well, it's kinda cool, in a goth way.

Anyway, happy most auspicious day ever! I plan on watching the opening ceremonies tonight and maybe eating some " bā bǎo fàn(八寶飯) or Eight Treasure Rice. It is my favoritest Chinese dessert .

Birthday Pause: Puffs & Perfumery

Yesterday I turned thirty - and, actually, feel very happy about it. I think it has something to do with being a perpetual student, since as one I feel as though I'm in a constant state of not-there-yet. I'm always under someone's supervision, always the student in a student-teacher interaction. So, turning thirty for me has signaled that I am actually an adult and could and should demand some respect.

But on to other heraldry of my adulthood! I am happy to announce that....I have finally attempted and succeeded in making pate a choux! (What did you expect, a pregnancy announcement?) After years of thinking I could not do this, I finally got out the piping bag, the non-stick baking mats, and mixed the panade. Here are my pretties. Aren't they oh-so-pretty?

These I filled with fresh strawberry cream, but I am actually preparing to make a croche em bouche for my & Molt's 30th birthday bash. Then they will filled with pecan pastry cream, dipped in caramelized sugar, and arranged into a wreath - with a spun sugar nest on top. See, I'm an adult. I can make croche em bouche, damnit!

I've also been obsessing about perfumes lately, probably borne from the old-fashioned but romantic notion that a woman should have a signature scent. Now Smell This is my absolute favorite fragrance blog - I could spend hours reading it, and do! So, for my birthday, Molt bought me the sample set from London perfumery Ormonde Jayne.

The set includes samples of the whole line. So far we've tried Osmanthus and Ormonde Man. I was dying of curiosity over Osmanthus, since I've been searching for the Chinese gui hua flower ever since our trip to Taiwan last winter. It's a flower that's dried and used in fragrant sweet tea and dessert soups, such as this one below (enjoyed in Shanghai), with sweet rice balls with rice mead and gui hua (the yellow specks are the dried flowers):

Here is my interpretation of Ormonde Jayne's Osmanthus:
Opening - grapefruit burst (not so much pomello), green herbs
Dry down - sweet honey and cotton
Base - a sweet, cherrylike pink floral, water, and honey
It doesn't remind me of gui hua at all, unfortunately. Or maybe fortunately. I told my mom that if I smelled like gui hua I'd be a bowl of rice balls. She laughed and said, "Probably." So, OJ's Osmanthus to me is an elegant, well-dressed floral, very pretty, polished, and restrained. Not me. But! I will be trying Champaca soon - this is based on the magnolia flower, called bai lan hua in Chinese. They sell it hooked on wires in the streets of Taiwan (and throughout Asia) so drivers can hang it in their cars. It is a luscious fragrance. Ormonde Jayne mixes Champaca with the scent of basmati rice!! I can't wait to try it.

Some incredibly fragrant flowers I've sniffed (or eaten!) in China, Taiwan, and Thailand:

Gui Hua (Osmanthus). My aunt has a tree in her backyard.
When the flowers drop off the Chinese call it "golden rain."

Bai Lan Hua (Champaca). I was given a blossom at a restaraunt in Thailand - which I promptly put in my jeans pocket and forgot. Later my entire suitcase was redolent with the creamy white fragrance - it is that powerful, and beautiful.

Qi Li Xiang (Orange Jasmine) - translated, the Chinese means "Seven Miles Fragrant." We took a bike ride in the Taiwanese countryside and rode past a hedge of these flowers - it was amazing. I plucked a sprig, and it's still in the book I was reading at the time (Olive Schreiner, From Man to Man). Alas, it is fragrant no more.

Eating My Way Through China: In the Countryside

Here is a rural village we stopped by on our way to Hwang Shan. It full of tiny streets and bridges over small streams flowing into the lake you see here, bordered by enormous waterlilies.

Although it's a tourist trap now, folks still go on making their living, cooking, crafting wares, and washing their laundry in the surrounding pools.

Here are some chilies, drying in the baking sun.

Flatbreads and cakes for sale in a quiet corner.

This villager is drying tea - when I took this picture he joked,
"Don't - I'm too old and ugly!"

Eating My Way through China: Beijing was Peking, but Duck is still Duck

Of course I'm going to write about food in China! What do you take me for? Let's begin at Beijing, where I was stranded with my sister and then with my sister & mom for a few days (my dad lost his passport the night before our flight!!). Luckily, we had Peking Duck to comfort us - and this was no ordinary duck...

We begin with pate de foie gras in gelee.

Then dry smoked duck in a nest of lettuce and fine fried noodles.

The main attraction follows: Peking Duck at its finest,
with crisp skin and lean meat.

The duck is eaten on thin crepes with the above accompaniments: (clockwise starting from top left) garlic puree, sugar, plum sauce, scallions, cucumber, radish. The bottom left dish holds sour pickled vegetables to clean one's palate. The sugar is eaten only with the skin alone. It is perfection.

Put all together, ready to be folded up and devoured.

Finished off with a soothing duck broth.

I like duck in all its manifestations - but Peking Duck has got be my favorite. Followed by foie gras.

China: The World of Tomorrow and the World of Yesterday

Yes, I've been in Asia again. This time there was some family business to be taken care of (long story involving my mob family and a fantastic car chase John-Woo style... well, not really), but we also had some time to tour around.

Of course I will be uploading lots of food pictures. But here are some general trip photos before we begin - I think they really reflect the absurd paradox that is China:

Here we are in the World of Tomorrow - Shanghai. Behind me is the Bund, a mix of old colonial buildings (old German, French, British embassies, etc.) now dwarfed by towering corporate giants of steel and glass.

But China is also still the World of Yesterday, the world of calligraphy, poets, scrolls, temples, and burning incense. China makes it clear that these things are not dead and are not actually "yesterday."

And then there's the In-Between, the FOB-China that is totally Bhabhian - "not quite, not right" or "not quite, not white." China absolutely mimics the West - but not quite. For example:

Everything is translated into English, you see, and here the English is perfectly correct. But something is just off, missing the cultural mark by a long shot.

Beijing 2008 Olympics should be veeeeerrrry interesting.