Tag Archives: Dai

A Few Cooking Resources

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As a follow-up to the story I posted yesterday about learning to cook while in China, I thought I should mention a few of my more commonly used resources. I found myself wanting to mention them in the previous post, but decided not to interrupt the flow of the story by including too many details.

For breads and cakes, I have worn out my Betty Crocker’s New Cookbook. I learned a while back that if you can start to get a feel for the right proportions of dry and wet ingredients in a recipe, you can adapt it to your own flavor preferences, and this standard cookbook has some solid, basic recipes that I’ve tweaked over and over again to make breads and cakes with my own flair. Betty Crocker is also where I tend to turn for basic information about meat and vegetable preparation—it’s just a solid resource book.

A few years back, a roommate introduced me to More-with-Less Cookbook, by Doris Janzen Longacre. For someone living overseas, this book is a must. So many simple, yet delicious recipes. I love that the recipes don’t start with a can of cream of mushroom soup or a block of Velveeta or any number of other American recipe staples that I can’t get here (and really shouldn’t be eating on a regular basis in America, anyway).

My favorite online resource is allrecipes.com, in large part because of its ingredients search function. I can search for recipes that include ingredients that I have on hand, as well as excluding ingredients that aren’t available to me—a big deal if I’m trying to find a recipe that, say, uses cocoa powder instead of baking chocolate. And, again, if you get a feel for how to use the right proportions, this site is a good place to read through several similar recipes for ideas and then strike out on your own.

Several people have asked me over the years about writing up some local recipes, and I just haven’t had time to do it in addition to my other work (with the exception of a blog entry I posted last year of Lydia’s mom’s steamed fish). Chinese cookbooks abound, if you’re in the mood for Cantonese or Sichuan or some of the more popular cuisines. But recipes from Yunnan are a bit more hard to come by, so I was quite excited when a friend gave me a recently published cookbook called A Taste of Shan by Page Bingham, with recipes from the Shan State in northern Myanmar, just across the border from where I live. The Shan of Myanmar have ethnic (and therefore, culinary) ties with the Dai of China, so this book will be a treasure to me in days to come, when I need to whip up something to remind me of southern Yunnan.

(Thanks, Emily, for More-with-Less, and thank you, Erin, for A Taste of Shan.)

Next in the “Finishing Well” series:  ”What to do with our talents”

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Census

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I can understand why the census taker was surprised when I opened the door. I’m sure he wasn’t expecting to see a white woman wearing a Dai ethnic skirt.

The electricity was off in the apartment complex that morning, and I was fiddling around trying to pack up last minute items for a village trip when he pounded on the door.

I don’t like it when people pound on the door. It’s very KGB, and very unnecessary. I told him as much as he stammered at me through the three inches I cracked the door. “The doorbell doesn’t work,” he tried to explain.

“The doorbell works when the electricity works,” I replied.

He recovered enough to show me the registration form he needed me to fill out—very similar to one that I filled out just a few months ago. I decided he was shaken up enough by my whiteness and my lecture on proper door knocking techniques, so I spared him further argument and compliantly answered his questions. Name, age, occupation, number of years lived in this town.

“ID card number?” he asked.

“I’m American. I don’t have a Chinese ID card.”

He nodded and gave me a look that conveyed, “Right, of course, I know that, but I have to ask.” Scribbling something on the form, he continued, “And which ethnic minority group do you belong to?”

“I’m American,” I repeated. “I don’t belong to a Chinese minority group.”

This time he glanced down at my Dai minority skirt before marking his form—and I’m pretty sure he officially registered my ethnic nationality as “Confused.”

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Sandy and Mom in JH

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Once we finally made it to JH, after all the delays, Sandy and Mom had a good visit, though rather quick.  Barely one week in all, with most of our time spent at Mountain Café chatting with the waitresses.

I had been concerned that my apartment might be a bit rough for them.  Having lived here as long as I have, I find it quite comfortable (on most days), but when newbies come from the States I suddenly remember that it has its inconveniences.  I don’t have air-con (except one broken unit in my bedroom, which I haven’t attempted to turn on in two years), and of course it didn’t rain the entire week of their visit during rainy season, so the temperature stayed in the upper 90s.  But Mom and Sandy were troopers about the heat—I think I complained about it more than they did.

My bathroom was also a concern.  No Western toilet and no shower stall.  Just a shower head over a squat toilet.  But again, no complaints from my houseguests.  Nor did they complain about how half the apartment doesn’t have overhead lights because the wiring of the fixtures burned out long ago.  Maybe they were waiting until they got back to Texas to discuss all the ways they didn’t enjoy my place.

Part of the time they were in town, I had my language class with Adam as usual, and we spent quite a bit of time practicing English with Lydia and Jenna at the café and visiting with other friends.  On Sunday night we had about 30 people over to my stuffy, hot little apartment to eat taco salad and celebrate Lydia’s graduation.  That truly gave Mom and Sandy an idea of what my life is like here—it took a full day plus to buy all the ingredients, wash and cut the vegetables, bake tortilla chips, clean my floors, and do everything else necessary to have guests over for dinner.  Nothing pre-packaged available here.

The rest of the time we did the other things visitors in JH like to do—go to the market, see the new temple and massive Buddha on the hill, shop on Burmese Street, eat Dai food, walk along the Mekong.  And talk until all hours of the night.

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Dragon Boat Races

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In the town where I currently live, JH, Water Splashing is a bit more tightly controlled.  The city organizes three days of festivities, of which only one day includes the actual throwing of water, unlike other towns where the chaos may last for a few days.  Aside from being targeted by an occasional kid with a water gun before and after the holiday, it is relatively easy to stay dry in JH, if you so desire.

The splashing of water falls on the third day of the holiday in JH.  The second day includes a citywide parade and dance performances.  On the evening of the first day of the holiday, people go to the river to float candles downstream and set off lighted paper lanterns.  The masses also head to the banks of the Mekong during the daylight hours of that first day to watch the dragon boat races.

The year I moved to JH, the races were held just a few days after I got settled in my apartment across the street from the river.  A couple of friends and I braved the sweltering heat and the teeming crowds to see what these dragon boats were all about.

We couldn’t get very close at all, but we were able to see the races from the bank above the rocks along the wide stretch of the Mekong River.  Even though I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, the excitement of the crowd was contagious, and the sight of the men and women propelling the long, slender dragon boats with their oars was well worth the heat of the noonday sun beating down on us.  (I don’t know why they don’t get up any earlier to race these boats before the hottest part of the day, but it’s not my holiday to plan….)

Each boat holds upwards of 60 or 70 people, mostly rowers dressed in identical Dai outfits.  Drummers stand in the middle of the boat, and Dai dancers stand at the front.  Several standing rowers are placed at the back to help steer.  The dancers, drummers, and steerers are all men, but the rowers can be either all-male or all-female contingents.  Their uniformity of dress and movement is stunning.

I decided that day that the dragon boat races are my favorite Water Splashing Festival activity that I’ve experienced in any location so far.  This year I was at the river for a picnic with friends the day before the races and got to see the boats practicing up close, without the huge crowds.  After getting a closer view of what it takes to get the boats in and out of the water and to coordinate everyone involved in rowing the boat, I’m even more impressed with these racers.

Next in the series:  ”Village Water Splashing“

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Water Splashing Past: SJ

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Three years after that, I was living in a different area, where there are Dai villages nearby, but Water Splashing is barely celebrated in town.  When it came time to celebrate the holiday, some local teachers who I’d met at an English teacher training invited me to visit them in a neighboring Dai county, SJ.  Feeling nostalgic for my days among the Dai in MS, I got on the bus and headed out to splash some water.

If I’d thought MS was rowdy during Water Splashing, SJ was almost beyond description.  But let me try to describe it….

After stuffing myself full of grilled pork, fish, and all sorts of other spicy foods and sticky rice at my teacher friend Lisa’s house, she and her husband and I headed out to join the “parade.”  I was imagining a parade with floats and marching bands and the like, but instead it was a mass of people moving through the main street, up towards the temple in a Dai village on the outskirts of town.  You could hear a few Dai drums and cymbals leading dancers in the distance, but otherwise the crowd was a horde of thousands of people walking along together, dancing and cheering and shoving and dumping buckets of water on each other.

There were hoses and tanks of water set up along the road for people to refill.  I didn’t have a bucket or any other form of offense or defense—a water fight with a few kids is fun and I feel like I have a chance, but in a mob of thousands I pretty much resigned myself to being soaked and just tried not to get separated from Lisa in the crowd.  Everything was so wet, there was no way I could use a cell phone if I got lost; this is the same reason why I have no pictures of any Water Splashing Festivals in the peak of the splashing action.

I marched onward, observing the chaos, resolving not to get myself in this situation ever again, and wondering if people would believe me when they heard me describe it.  I don’t know how people didn’t get trampled in the mob.  I heard later that one girl had died, I think because someone threw a bucket of water in her face while she was driving a motorbike.

I was soaked to the bone as soon as I had stepped out of the door of Lisa’s apartment.  Bucket after bucket of water was poured over my head, once even by a uniformed police officer.  At one point, a man grabbed both my wrists and dragged me out of the crowd, so that his friends could spray me with a water hose.  My resolve not to participate in citywide Water Splashing in future years thickened.  A few gentle splashes from people in villages is one thing, but mob mentality and men being forceful is another.

After eating another huge meal in the village (thankfully we didn’t go all the way to the temple), I transferred myself from Lisa’s care to the hospitality of another teacher friend, Rose.  We spent the next day visiting her friends in a different nearby village.  On the way there, our taxi was stopped outside a shop while a member of our party bought Cokes to take to our host.  A gang of men came upon our car, opened the door, and told us to get out so they could splash us.  Not caring to be drenched by strangers, we refused.  They grabbed Rose and pulled her from the back seat, dumping a pail of water on her.  A man reached in to pull me out, but I had had enough.  I poked my finger directly at his nose before he could lay a hand on me and said “NO” in my most forceful voice.  He might not have known any other English word, but that day he knew the word “no,” and he knew better than to touch me.  The only water I got on me in that cab ride was dripping off of Rose when she climbed back in the car.

I wasn’t as fortunate at her friends’ house that afternoon.  As we sat around woven bamboo tables in their courtyard, drinking tea and eating fresh fruit, a man picked me up off my stool, carried me across the courtyard, and dropped me in a laundry tub full of water.

Since that day, I have made it a point to stay indoors during Water Splashing in cities.

Next in the series:  ”Dragon Boat Races“

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Water Splashing Past: MS

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My theory on Water Splashing Festival in town is you either have to embrace it or avoid it.  There’s no in between.  You can’t expect to go outside on the days of celebration and stay dry at all—so either stock up on food beforehand and stay indoors, or join the madness.  I’ve done both, depending on my mood that year.

My first Water Splashing Festival was in 2002 in MS, further west up the border from here.  I had several friends come to visit me during the holiday, and we bought Super Soakers and played with kids in the street.  Foreigners make prime targets during this holiday, so I stayed wet for several days straight.

The worst hit I took was outside the main market in town, where I had taken a couple of friends to shop for Dai bags and skirts.  To that point in the morning, we had all stayed relatively dry.  We needed to meet another friend at the airport, so we headed out to the street to catch a taxi.  Just as I opened the car door, a kid ran up and pegged me square in the middle of my back with a water balloon.  I was soaked to the skin.

Dripping wet as I was, I still needed to get to the airport, though I wasn’t sure how the taxi driver would feel about me getting in his car in that condition.  “No problem!” he laughed, as I apologized for the water.  He was dressed only in a pair of shorts and flip-flops and didn’t seem to be the type of guy to get real uptight about anything.

When I got out at the airport, I left a little puddle in the front passenger seat of his car.  He laughed again as I made some embarrassed comments about how wet I was.

That day I was wearing a sarong I’d only worn a couple of times before, so the dye still faded when it was washed.  Or when I was hit with a water balloon.  I discovered later in the day that my underwear had been dyed bright blue and purple during the drenching.

(to be continued)

Next in the series:  ”Water Splashing Past:  SJ“

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Water Splashing Festival

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Water Splashing Festival (a.k.a. Songkran, Pi Mai Lao, Po Shui Jie, and other names depending on which country you’re in and which language you’re speaking) is a Southeast Asian Buddhist holiday, the traditional New Year in Thailand and Laos and for the Dai people here in China.

There’s a local legend about how the tradition of splashing water on each other started, though I’m not sure if it’s the same story in other countries.  The following is a typical description of the legend, taken from an English language website in China; I find the story to be more “demonic” and “gruesome” than “beautiful” and “happy”:

There is beautiful story about the origin of the Water-splashing Festival. Long ago, there was a devil in the place where the Dai people lived, doing all kinds of evil. All the people hated him to the extremity, but had no method to punish him because of his powerful magic. Then one day in June by Dai calendar, his seventh wife, who had been robbed from the village, fuddled and induced him to speak out his own weak points. When he was sound sleeping, the seventh wife and the other sisters together used his hair to cut off his head. But once the head touched the ground, it began to burn fiercely. So the girls rushed over bravely to pick up the head and hold it in arms tightly, and the fire died out immediately. Therefore, the seven girls took turns to hold the head, each for one year. Every year at the time of changing turns, people would splash water on the girl who has held the head for a whole year, to wash away the blood on his body and the one-year fatigue. By and by, it developed into a happy festival to send off the old year and welcome the new.

In the villages of the Dai and other Buddhist minority groups in border areas of Yunnan, the holiday is spent with family and visiting the temple, with lots of eating and drinking and being merry.  The splashing of water on each other is generally fun and good-spirited in villages, unlike in town where the Han Chinese have taken over the holiday and made it into a tourist experience and an excuse for people to be drunk and obnoxious for several days.  On those days, it’s best to stay inside if you don’t want to be drenched to the bone as soon as you step out the door….

(to be continued)

Next in the series:  ”Water Splashing Past:  MS“

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