Fuchun - My favorite Xiaolongbao

It shows my fantastic lack of consideration that after one hundred fifty posts or so, this is the first proper posting about xiaolongbao, a Shanghai specialty and a favorite snack of mine. It's a small dough wrapper, filled with a mild pork and soup filling, and then steamed - it's usually served on the steamer, and the "xiaolong" of the name means "small steamer." It comes with a sauce, which is generally diluted Chinese black vinegar - a flavored variety that is a thousand times tastier than distilled white vinegar.

But I'll leave a general update for later. Take it for granted that xialongbao is probably the one positive contribution Shanghai has made to world cuisine. This post is about my favorite place to buy them: Fuchun Xialong. It's a restaurant I first learned about through the Chinese-language review site Dianping. It's located near Jiangsu Station, or about a ten minute walk West from Jing'an Temple/station. The address is 658 Yuyuan Lu, and the nearest cross-street is Zhengning Road.

The insides are really nothing special, there's a big sign behind the counter and you either order at the front desk and get a receipt, or tell one of the waitresses the order. It basically feels like an average every-day sort of restaurant, or maybe half a step up from that:



There's no English, but it shouldn't be hard to convey a desire for xiaolongbao! It's four kuai (about fifty cents) for six of them. There's a fairly lengthy menu with noodles and so forth, however every time I've been, every table is ordering xiaolongbao, and then maybe something else as well. Here's a look at the menu:



But most important is the xiaolongbao! The reason why I like Fuchun's variety is the skin, which is excellent - delicate but not easily breaking, which would let the soup out. The insides are also very good, perhaps a bit on the sweet side. The only thing I don't like is, while I like the vinegar strong, at Fuchun it's a little weak - it isn't really a problem, it just means I smother it in the dipping sauce a little more than I usually would. Sometimes I take the xiaolongbao to go and add Chinese vinegar at home, which is even better. Here are a couple of the xiaolongbao, lying in their steamer:



I order more than my fair share of xiaolongbao, and Fuchun's are my favorite, but I'm not confident enough to say it's Shanghai's *best* xiaolongbao. I haven't yet been to Ding Tai Fung, an upscale Taiwanese chain I've heard mentioned as Shanghai's best. I also see that Fuchun is a mere ninth in Dianping's top-rated Xiaolongbao restaurants. Writing this update has inspired me, I'll try the places that are supposed to be tops, and perhaps report back later.

Shanghai Eagles Baseball!

Baseball is the only sport I care about, and honestly I don't care all that much. Every year here I've briefly considered signing up for the online baseball channel MLB.TV, but I've never really gotten around to it. I keep remembering that I didn't even bother to plug in the rabbit ears of my TV when I lived in Oakland - they were purely ornamental.

However I at least understand the basic rules and points of strategy, which is more than I can say for soccer. So after reading about the free baseball games in Eastern Shanghai on Micah Sittig's short article, I decided to head over to the stadium and catch a free game.

It's not quite as easy to get there as the article would suggest - yes, it's an easy ride on a brand-new subway line to Gaoke Road Station. And as a sideline, I was very impressed with the tranfer station, it didn't require a ten minute hike like a lot of other Shanghai transfer points.

However, it dropped me off in the middle of god-knows-what. I wrote down simple directions off a map before leaving my apartment, they had me walking through a weird desolate area with a lot of construction going on, as shown to the left. I instead asked a policeman that happened to be nearby, he told me to walk down Gaoke Road, make a right on Dongming Road, and then another right on Yunlian Road. It's about a ten or fifteen minute walk, located in a larger Sports complex much like the one the Shanghai Sharks play in.

There's a Kedi Convenience Store along Dongming Road, it's important to stock up on supplies here because the stadium doesn't sell anything. Not peanuts, not cracker jacks, no baseball hats, no jerseys, no foam "#1" fingers. Not even water or beer, although most of the fans were sporting 22s of Malt Liquor (no really). It seems kind of nonsensical until you see the stadium:



It's a very small stadium, even without considering that those red and white flags limit most of the stadium off limits to fans. It was maybe a hundred or so people in the stands, all either players, foreigners, or their friends. It also ended up raining really hard. It didn't stop the game but it explains the umbrellas out in force.

The small size and the low-key feel gave the whole affair the feeling of a high-school game. I have to admit, this extended to the level of play. I saw one of the ugliest plays I've ever seen at any level. The man on first was caught attempting to steal by a pitch out. The catcher made a pretty good throw to second base, but the throw got past the tag, past the second baseman backing him up, and then past the center fielder. Also, the pitcher for the Shanghai Eagles threw entirely fastballs down the center of the plate - looking at the teammate tracing him on the speed gun, all the pitches were in the 70s. Wow.



The pitcher for Tianjin threw sidearm, with pretty good movement. I was a little surprised throughout the game, there were several players with strange batting stances and the like. But really there wasn't much that different to the baseball I'm used to, aside from the Tianjin team bowing to the Umpire before stepping into the batting box - the Shanghai team didn't. I remember this from watching a Japanese baseball game once - maybe they have a Japanese coach or something. Oh, also the teams had a group huddle before starting their half of the inning.




The Shanghai Team had numbers and Chinese-character names on their uniforms, strangely enough Tianjin didn't have any easy way to identify who was who. Anyway for those with an interest, here's a copy of the team's lineup. It was given to me by the team's mascot, on the right. Players are as young as 16, and as old as 36, with most in their 20s.

All in all the game was fun if extremely casual, I'd recommend it. The league has a split season, from April 11th to May 11th, and then from September 5th to September 14th, with a playoff from September 20th to October 12th. Unless Shanghai gets into the playoffs, they will only host games for the first part of the season. Games are listed on Upcoming.org - to make it easy, the only regular-season home games left are May 2nd and 3rd at 2:30, or May 4th at 9:30 am.

Holgas and Toy Cameras in Shanghai

A very small update here, following up on my earlier post about Buying Photographic Equipment in Shanghai. One thing I didn't mention is Holgas - they're a toy plastic camera that were originally produced for the Chinese market, but really didn't do very well over here. Instead they caught on amongst hipsters in foreign markets.

They use the somewhat uncommon 120 size film, which is twelve shots per roll if shooting square pictures, with the film being three or four times larger than conventional film. Also, the lens is really basic, it makes the outside of the picture look blurry and dark. There's no way to choose aperture or shutter speed, the only control is the ISO of the film. So they only work on bright sunny days, or when used together with a flash.

I always thought the cameras were silly, however they're very cheap and I was impressed with the artsy black and white shots my friend took. I got one which I mostly use to take street scenes, when I'm walking around town. It's fun, I like the square format, the light weight, the way they draw attention to the center of the frame, and just that they're very casual and easy to use. With my glass-lensed version, plus Fuji Superia 100 film, I get really crazy colors:



I haven't seen any Holgas for sale around Shanghai, even in the camera markets - I purchased mine off taobao. However, looking around taobao the other day, I came across the Snaps Shop, which sells Holgas, in all the different variations and colors. It also sells Diana+s, the various Lomo cameras, and a few other interesting film cameras. I was interested in purchasing the new 35mm version of the Holga, the Holga 135BC. But it goes for about $60, more than twice what I got my Holga GN for, so I skipped it. Anyway, the shop is located at 497 Huaihai Road, Room 1, a couple blocks west of Huangpi Nan Lu Station, a very central location. However, there's no storefront, there's a buzzer at the front gate and they'll let in customers to their second-story shop. The place is open from 1pm-8pm.

Holgas (and Dianas), use medium-format 120 film, just a quick word on that. The film is available at the camera stores on Wulumuqi Lu (near Yan'an) and at the camera malls. However, recently I haven't seen any speed available except for ISO 100 - which on a Holga really requires a bright sunny day to be useful (they're about F13, and 1/100th of a second). So faster film might require ordering off of taobao.

The film can be developed for 5 kuai/roll, cheap, same as 35mm film. However, prints are 5 kuai for a print at Frontier, or 2.5 kuai for a tiny print at Weima. The film is too large to work with my lower-end scanner, and quality scanners are expensive and hard to find in China. Also, the black and white developing and printing is substantially more expensive than color.

There's some Chinese B&W 120 films available, even though they cost about 50 cents / roll maybe they're not great for toy camera. They tend to require very exact exposures, which is difficult to achieve on a toy camera.

Update 3/26/2009 - These places still work, but let me provide a few more.

Really the cheapest way to get a Holga is to buy one off US EBay. Most of the sellers are from Hong Kong, and will ship the camera to the PRC. Hong Kong's currency is vaguely pegged to the dollar, so the US's recent exchange rate problems make it cheaper.

As said the in replies, Lomography has a store on Jinxian Lu, next to Chun - it's a quite a bit more expensive for a Holga, but actually for the Diana or the 35mm Holga, it's not so bad. There's also a second Snaps Shop, near Duolun Lu.

In the Xing Guan Camera mall (near Luban Lu), there's a Yi Qian Camera store, which sells some Lomo type cameras. It's also a decent place to scan film, I'll probably have an update before too long about that topic. It's on the third floor, straight ahead but to the right of where the escalator gets off. The shop to the left is my favorite place to get film in Shanghai.

And near any tourist attraction in Shanghai, there's cheesy toy cameras.

Qibaozhen Old Street

Hongqiao is a district towards the outskirts of Shanghai, and one that isn't terribly convenient to get to. That also serves as a pretty accurate description of Qibaozhen, except Qibaozhen is even farther than that! Going to Qibaozhen district feels like visiting the suburbs, even though on a map it isn't all that far away. It's a testament to how convoluted it can be getting around in Shanghai. It might get a little better soon, with a subway line coming in sometime this year.

There's two reasons to go to Qibaozhen, and one is that you live there. The other is Qibaozhen Old Street. I had heard about it as a "Water Town" within Shanghai. "Water Towns" are a Shanghai-area tourist attraction, nearby to Shanghai there's a lot of small cities, or districts of cities, which are built around small streams,and even when I lived in the somewhat down-scale Caobao Lu Subway Area, I'd cross a few small bridges on my way home. Some of these districts have kept the old buildings and become tourist attractions - Zhujiajiao is a prime example. Qibaozhen seemed like an extension of the same, only I could grab a taxi there instead of having to bother with a train or tourist bus. But I'll admit I didn't think much of Qibaozhen's tourist center.

The district is named after an old temple. The grounds of the temple are very large, and I did see a large number of monks chanting, which is kind of interesting. It has a very long history, but the grounds all looked cheaply and recently constructed, and really the most interesting part was this silly statue, with a bunch of baby Buddhas playing on a larger Maitreya Bodhisattva.



The surrounding neighborhood is a bunch of corny tourist shops, just about the same stuff it's possible to see surrounding the otherwise excellent Yuyuan Garden, or a touristy Chinatown in the US for that matter. They're crowded and they go on and on, for a surprisingly long time. They were interspersed with snack shops with some unusual specialties that looked decent, unfortunately I had eaten my fill before I go there so I didn't try them. Kind of strangely, a very large number of nearby buildings had been torn down. I can only assume that the old buildings were being torn down to make way for tourist-oriented shops. Since it advertises itself as an "Old Street" and the entire point is to check out an old-time district, it makes no sense. That's just how Communist Planning Committees roll!



As I walked past the shops I assumed there would be a big payoff, and I'd eventually come to some really interesting site. It's like waiting in a long line at Disney, just on the assumption that there has to be something good at the end of the line. Well this is it:



OK that probably looks impressive, and it would probably be fun to have a cup of tea alongside the water. But really there's only a couple blocks of this, and after all the shops it felt kind of anti-climactic. Maybe once the subway come in, right around the corner, it'll be worth it for commuters popping by to go out and have a look. As it is, it's not worth the hassle.



And for those keeping score, this blog (and the rest of blogspot) is once again being censored within China.

The PRC vs. Pictures

Just a quick note here: apparently the Chinese government has stepped up its campaign against the photography-sharing site Flickr. While the bandwidth is throttled, and until recently accessing flickr required using a special anti-censorship plug-in to Firefox, it was basically fully usable. Now, however, photographs more than three or four months old are blocked - and not just blocked, but hard-blocked, where even my normal anonymous proxy (and really it's sad that I can use the term "my normal anonymous proxy") Anonymouse, can't view the pictures. Despite the failings, I still recommend Anonymouse, which has a convenient Firefox Plug-In.

While it's not as convenient as Anonymouse, the only real alternative I'm aware of is Tor, which does a better job of getting around the firewall. It allows one to have a look at flickr, or even to check out, say, Wikipedia's Falun Gong page.

One can go to their site and then enter the desired website into the boxes on the bottom right of the page. There's also a Firefox Plug-In that adds a bar to Firefox, with an address box - anonymous browsing is done within this second address box.

Hopefully this flickr censorship won't last forever - a lot of web 2.0 censorship seems to come and go within a week. Regardless, Tor is a very useful tool for accessing websites the government blocks, for whatever reason.

Looking around Kunming

For years, I've kept an eye on airline prices. Even if I didn't have any real intention to travel, I like the idea that I'll see some insane deal and just snap it up! The opportunity finally presented itself several months ago, when I was looking around on Chinese travel site elong, and saw 80% off tickets to Kunming, a city in Southern China. Not bad at all, and I made a quick trip of it.

Kunming wasn't actually the final destination - the idea was to arrive in the afternoon and take an overnight train to Dali, I'll have more to say about Dali soon. Still, what I did see impressed me a lot, I wish I had more time to look around.

When I first arrived at the airport, I took a taxi to the train station, it was only fifteen minutes or so. I got my overnight ticket without a problem, and then went to walk around the city, with a heavy backpack in tow. The area around the station was fun - a little scruffy, with a lot of small shops and stalls aimed at the train and bus passengers.


Kunming was a fun city to wander around - the weather was great with blue skies, there wasn't much pollution, the sidewalks were generally wide, and there were interesting sites scattered here and there. I also liked how the Qingnian River flowed through the downtown:



In that picture the buildings are stacked up right against the water, but overall the city didn't give me the impression of being so packed. Here's another picture of kids playing alongside the river:



Against expectations, there were some very old, shoddy buildings to be seen, even just walking around the downtown. I just took some quick snapshots, I wish I had gotten some better pictures, as I haven't really seen anything like them in Shanghai:



Jinmabiji Square, downtown, had a lot of people and a lot of shops. There was also a Best Buy, a Carrefour, and other Western chains. Here's a picture facing West - if I had taken a picture to the East, there would have been a lot more buildings. In Shanghai a shot like this would be impossible - there's no blue skies going up against buildings!



And North of the Square, was a long road filled with vendors selling snacks, or tea, or fruit:



There was street food all around Kunming, just the way it should be. Most of it was stuff I'd be able to get around Shanghai, but what I had was top-notch, and generally cheaper than Shanghai as well. These lamb kebabs were just awesome, with a great hot sauce brushed on!