"Agony and Ivory" - a story of fairness and vanity - China and Africa

I’m a pretty big fan of the Vanity Fair monthly publication, as are a lot of people in the world I suppose. I like it because it gives me everything I want in a man – I mean – magazine. It’s good looking and trashy, so I get beautifully shot ad campaigns encouraging me to buy lipstick and profiles of beautiful new starlets to keep me jogging and eating salad. It has humor which often comes in the form of incredible wit, and is occasionally black – without fail this magazine illicits a laugh-out-loud response from me at least thrice. Finally, and this is really what keeps me coming back, is the substance. Unlike a lot of their competitors, VF let an article run for as many pages as it needs to be told. When I read about an issue I come away from it truly knowing the length and breadth of what it’s all about. Their stories continue on for several pages each (sometimes up to 10 and more) instead of filling space between pre-designated quotas.

Well, this is how I feel (which the most important thing in the universe…) so let us continue.

My point is, upon buying are reading the most recent issue of Vanity Fair I have, as per usual, become much more knowledgeable about many different things. One of these in particular, came from their ‘Agony and Ivory’ article and is about the current state of the ivory trade.

 http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/08/elephants-201108

Why did this catch my eye? Because as usual, it all comes back to China.

I remember talking with Peng (the father of the girl I tutored) a while ago about China’s international interests and guanxi – relationships. He told me that China and Africa were, essentially, the best of friends because Africa ‘needed’ China, and China was being generous and helping them out. At the time, I asked him what China had to gain from such guanxi, but Peng was at a loss for a response. So was I.

I did a little bit of searching myself back then, and came up with the predictable answer of ‘resources’. In other words – China was cultivating this guanxi in order to cultivate their mining sector. About one third of China’s oil supplies come from the continent. The Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) was formed in 2000, but flirtations between the two began back in Mao’s era and have only grown crazy-stronger over time. It is natural to treat such a relationship with suspicion. The governments of Africa and China share the same veins of corruption and the same long-seated distrust of ‘the west’.

Having been to both areas, I can certainly identify a few similarities amongst the attitudes of the people. From what I have seen, the Africans and Chinese both feel as though they have been cheated by Britain and America and even Europe because, well, historically, they really have been. ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’ is the pretext of what we have going on now, and China historically supported the independence movements of several African nations… whilst also sending Chinese workers and development projects to such areas.

Here’s a strange example: In Sudan there is a big long highway that was completed a little before 2007 by the Chinese. Originally, the highway was supposed to be a gift from Osama Bin Laden to say thanks for letting him hide there in asylum after he called for a holy war against America in 1993. However, in 1998 shit went down and Bin Laden moved on to Afghanistan – leaving the 520 mile project incomplete. In swoop the Chinese, completing the highway in record time and adding an adjacent railway track just for the hell of it.

What do you make of that? I’d love to know.

The state of trade between the areas now, is supremely suspicious to the point that it’s not even suspicious – it’s just obviously a whole truckload of illegal bullshit stuff. To begin with? Mass market flooding of Chinese imported products which crush local industry. To continue with? Arms trading from guns to tanks to jets and even military training. To finish with? Interconnected blackmarket deals in drugs and illegal imports such as ivory. Which is where we find ourselves back at the Vanity Fair article.

 

Photo by Guillaume Bonn from the Vanity Fair website.

Now, where to begin with this. Here’s a question – do you own any ivory? How do you feel about that?

Another question – do your parents own any ivory? Now how do you feel about that?

One last one – have you ever seen an elephant in the wild? How do you feel about that?

Yes/No questions followed by emotive questions are perhaps annoying, but I do believe they illustrate a point here. For example, I answer No/Yes/Yes, which leads me to a highly individual perception of the ivory trading situation. A combination of someone answering Yes to the first and No to the last question would raise a completely different opinion and perspective on the situation.

The emotive questions? Well, I don’t own any ivory because I’ve never bought it. I’m still a student and that stuff is damn expensive. Would I buy it if I could afford it? Well, now there is another question for all of us. Sometimes it’s easy to make the right decisions if you don’t really have choices. I answer yes to the second question because I believe my mother has an ivory bangle somewhere. In my mind I naturally begin to defend this possession for many reasons, which is relatively easy to do – but what I cannot defend is the purchasing of this ivory. I think one of the problems with ivory is the same problem I associate with the purchase of meat – people buy it under the justification that it’s already dead and prepared. The refusal to acknowledge an individual’s place within the supply-and-demand chain of the modern economy is a crime. Lastly, I have seen an elephant in the wild and it makes me feel truly blessed. The description of wild elephants in the VF article put perfectly into words my experiences too. Anyone who has encountered such a creature and still buys ivory has something seriously wrong going on in their brains.

The thing is, the ‘new rich’ in China are some of the biggest purchasers of ivory and almost all of the ivory sourced in Africa actually ends up in China. I do believe, as was suggested in the article, that ivory is simply an extension of the “Chinese will eat anything” thought process - especially if it’s expensive. The whole society is about face, and modern rich Chinese choose which traditions they want to keep and which traditions they want to throw away. Carved ivory statues have traditionally been an immediately recognisable symbol for wealth in China, and the new upper-middle class are famous for seizing every possible opportunity to flaunt their newfound wealth. The same problem is being experienced with luxury cars and the famous shark’s fin situation. Anything that is deemed to show ‘class’ and ‘standing’ in China is being consumed at dangerous rate – ivory is no exception.

Even if you have never been to China or Africa. Even if you don’t own ivory or haven’t seen an elephant. Even if you have never read Vanity Fair before. I cannot recommend this article and this publication enough.

visuality

"Enough of the rambling!" I can hear you say.
Okay okay...
Here is a visual tour of my last few days in Shanghai.

Baozi Banquet: A Guide to Chinese Dumplings

Today has been one of the worst days for me in terms of trying to swim my way through the sea of Chinese red tape... So I decided to stretch my mind back to a few days ago when I was in the blissful nirvana land of having just finished exams, yet not - well - not where I am now...

Hanna and I were staying in a hostel in Shanghai that happened to have an amazing baozi (Chinese steamed dumpling) place just around the corner...

 
The trick with small food stalls in China? - Don't give it too much thought.

Don't think about the proximity of the public toilet to the kitchen or what exactly the ingredients are or how many times the cooks have (read: have not) washed their hands or knives. All you need to know is that so long as it's fresh - it's good. Make a request from one of the lower levels, and the steam plumes up from the traditional stacked bamboo steamers in such dense fog that for a moment you are completely blinded. What this tells me, is that the heat is so intense that bacteria cannot survive. Buy it fresh and eat it hot and you'll be right as rain.


We had been snacking on these phenomenal creations for a few days, and it was the last day of our time together when we finally decided to embark on a massive "baozi banquet".

The plan was to try one of every single kind of dumpling.

This is the story of how we succeeded in that plan.

Step one was, of course, to buy the dumplings. The lady was honestly not too surprised when we asked for one of every single kind of what she had - which is either a reflection of common tourist practice (unlikely) or a reflection on how strange we looked (I dress unusually with strange sunglasses these days, so this is more likely) or a reflection on how long she had been making dumplings and the idea that she has 'seen it all' in relation to strange dumpling-related etiquette (this is the most likely reason). Nevertheless, we were clasically overcharged and emerged from the sauna-of-a-cornerstore with this:

I feel like this photo almost doesn't do justice to the sheer mass of dumpling that we had for two people. Now that I count them up... we had a total of eleven different kinds of dumpings - each the size of a large fist. I can't believe the bag didn't break.

So the next step was finding somewhere to eat them... Normally small street vendors have little kids' chairs around tiny tables where you're virtually squatting on the ground eating, but this dumpling place was right on a corner and not open at night, so they didn't have a 'dining area'. There were no parks around, so we couldn't take a rug and lie on any grass. Our hostel was right near Nanjing Lu and there were plenty of empty benches along the beautiful commercial strip, but we were getting so many stares from just carrying the bag! People were coming up to us and laughing at our baozi and asking as about it, we couldn't bear the thought of settling down along the main road of Shanghai and actually eating all of them in front of passers-by. Far too much attention.

So, what was the solution? The solution has a lot to do with the time, which was 10:00 am, and so of course we were craving coffee... The solution has a lot to do with how hot it was, and so of course we wanted air-conditioning. The solution has a lot to do with our highly developed senses of irony.

The solution was Starbucks.

I think perhaps a lot of people might find this behaviour distasteful, but anyone who has been to China knows that this stuff happens all the time. Does that make it better? No, I guess not. But I think what made it okay for me, was that it was such a perfect example and reflection of the pure city of juxtapositions that is Shanghai. That whole bag of dumplings, enough to feed four people, cost the same as one cup of coffee. The people working at the dumpling place were trained and knew by heart the methods and recipes for amazing traditional dumplings, and the staff at Starbucks were on their iPhones between using a state-of-the-art coffee machine. It was the perfect scenario at which to say goodbye to Shanghai. We sat down with east and west, with modern and ancient, with rich and poor. We sat down and experienced the most supremely familiar beverage possible, and the most foreign meal possible. We sat down and watched Shanghai moving around us. I though about the time that had passes since the conception of baozi and the conception of coffee. I thought about the business men ordering macchiatos and wondered what their grandparent's sipped and bit. I thought about a lot, to be honest.

What I also thought about, was how damn good those baozi were. As part of the meat-eating week, I had promised myself to really do the dumpling thing, and there I was, doing it. I savoured each flavour with new incredulation, and immediately wondered why more foreigners in China didn't just live off these bundles of deliciousness...

So I thought I might write up a bit of a dumpling guide... Lord knows we took enough photos of the event to justify a post like this!!! It was just a wonderful experience, to really acquaint myself with the total extent of (arguably) the most fundamental food group of Chinese cuisine. It was also great to share it with someone, becuase as we all know, food is meant to be shared! Hanna was inspirational in the way she sank each fresh and mysterious new dumpling into her mouth. It was a brave kind of reckless abandon - we had no idea about what was going to be inside so many of them! It was like eating blindfolded. Needless to say we had a few burnt tongues and a few truly yuck moments... But it all served to enrich the experience.

Now let us begin. In chronological order.

土豆包子 - Tǔdòu Bāozi - Potato Steamed Dumplings, are one of the several kinds of incidentally vegetarian dumplings you can find in China. I say incidentally because they are incredibly tasty and regarded as a dumpling of equal value to their meat counterparts, yet have not been created with vegetarians in mind.

The potato has obviously been peeled raw, and has only been cooked through the process of steaming that the whole dumpling goes through, because each shred retains a wonderful crunchy feeling without that characteristic starchy taste of undercooked potato. The spices used are tasty and a generous amount of chives means that you have that fresh herb feeling as well as the stronger flavours of pepper and spice which really stay on your tongue.

I loved the flavour of the filling itseld, but question it's placement in a bun of steamed bread. Potato traditionally fills the 'carbohydrate' or almost 'base' roll of a dish, and I did feel like this dumpling was missing an extra level of intensity because of it. If I were to make them myself, I think the problem could easily be solved with some onion. That's all it needed. Something to compliment the spices and potatoes without adding an entirely independant flavour which might remove the focus on the potato. The incredibly unique texture could also be retained by cutting the onion in the same way.

Overall though, this dumpling was very tasty. I can reccommend it as the perfect snack, but might leave you wanting more if bought to fill the role of a meal.

This next one is honestly a bit of an anomoly, but holy crap was it a tasty anomoly. I can't seem to find the name for this kind of creation, and I'm not sure if it's technically even a baozi considering it doesn't have any bread. From what I've heard, it's a bit of a Shanghai specialty and has the same kind of glutinous wrapping as a traditional jiaozi. The filling is made of rice in a sweet dark soy sauce, and the starring role belongs to pieces of sweet chewy beef which have been soaked in that same sauce until almost caramalised.

It was honestly one of my favourites. The wrapping was so thin that I didn't feel an overload of basic flavours as I did with the potato baozi, which I thought might be a risk given the main ingredient here is rice. It was the size of about three mouthfulls, and in each you could expect a couple of small chunks of chewy deliciousnes (read: the beef) which got wonderfully stuck in your teeth. The sauce was obviously the genius behind these, and reminded me distinctly of the 红熟牛肉 - Hóng shú niúròu - red cooked beef dish. When prepared as a dish, the flavours are strong and the colours dark. The best way to describe it is a very sweet soy sauce. The addition of rice during the cooking process make a lot of sense, though, as it soaks up the sauce and makes every bite a delight. I cannot reccommend these highly enough - if you ever see them promise me you will try them!

These next two can be combined in documentation, but should definitely not be confused. These are known as 面包 - Miànbāo - bread. They are steamed in the same way as the baozi, but are a special kind of soft and fluffy bread. Whats the difference between them? The square shape on the left with sprinkled sesame seeds is slighly sweet, and the beautiful almost artisan scroll shape with chives on the right are slightly savoury. I use to word 'slightly' because this subtle difference only became really clear to me once I ate them next to each other. When taking consecutively alternating bites, the difference in flavour becomes incredibly clear, but eating one bun alone, almost imperceptible.

I have come accustomed these days to buying some savoury mianbao scrolls before buying street food, and soaking up the stirfry juices with the specialty breads instead of rice. It makes the eating experience wonderfully hands on, and the bread is really incredible by itself. When eating these mianbao I can taste the fact that it has been steamed. When concentrating, you can identify the flavour of water despite the texture being entirely solid. It really is incredible. Also, speaking of texture, one of the finest characteristics of these mianbao is how soft they are. Tearing off pieces and popping them into your mouth, they will almost melt and yet become slightly chewy - in the same way you might think of a tender medium-cooked steak. It melts and yet is chewy. Mianbao such as this definitely cannot be underestimated.

This is the last kind of mianbao, and when the other two are available, I'm not really sure why anyone would pick these tough little pyramids. As oppose to the other two, this bread is the same which they use for the filled variety of baozi, and so of course it is much thicker and denser becuase it is designed to hold a lot of juices and fillings within its walls. It is very chewy and very dense, and lacks flavour. I suppose it is the classic 'utility' kind of bread, created for a purpose rather than a flavour.

It is also good for soaking up juices... but certainly not preferrable when either of the other two mianbao's are available.

This next one was pretty funny... Hanna took the first big bite and her face immediately told me to proceed with caution - we were dealing with pickled vegetables. I think they are known as 芽菜包子 - Yá cài bāozi - Pickled Sprouts Dumpling. This translation could be slightly incorrect, and you should also know that these are not the common vegetarian baozi that you will recieve if you ask for 'no meat' or 'vegetarian' options.

These are salty to the point of unbearable. They are that classic 'pickled' flavour and there really isn't much more to be said about them... other than I wouldn't reccommend them. Imagine old seaweed, and you have this flavour in a nutshell. They actually have a lot of seaweed stuff in them. I normally like seaweed flavour (for example in sushi or on dry crackers or snacks) but it is far too pungent in hot baozi mode. If you're a fan of Korean kimchi, or highly salty preserved foods in general, then these might be right up your alley. If you aren't, don't go anywhere near that alley.

Finally, we arrive at some of the more famous and recognisable meat baozi. I'm quite sure that aside from the special Shanghai beef ones I mentioned before, the rest of the meat dumplings we had were pork. Collectively they are known as 猪肉包子 - Zhū ròu bāozi - Pork Dumplings. That is not to say, however, that they all tasted the same.

This dumpling, as you can see, was essentially a meat ball inside of a bread pocket. I am almost tempted to consider it an asian kind of hotdog, because it follows the same principle of encasing an independant portion of meat within an easily holdable and filling base of bread. The meat itself was incredibly tender, and this kind featured tiny slivers of chives and herbs. The flavour was simple and surprisingly fresh, and really allows for an appreciation of the flavour of the meat itself.

The pork in all of the pork dumplings is very medium. I think perhaps it is only very lightly cooked - if at all - before it is steamed, and the result is an incredibly moist and tender texture. Not eating a lot of meat myself, I found this almost too much to bear, but every single meat-eater I have spoken to, without fail, loves this feature.

These were the second kind of pork filled variety we tried, and they tasted completely different! This time, as I'm sure you can guess by that wonderful orange hue, the meat had been soaked and steamed in a chilli sauce. The heat worked well in conjunction with the bread, because no matter how much chilli was in your mouth, the bread made it bearable and enabled you to really appreciate the way the spice worked with the meat. This may sound strange, but I feel like the chilli almost cooked the meat in your mouth. The pork was, in typical style, not-well-done, and yet as oppose to the other pork dumplings, I was able to enjoy that tender and strong meat flavour more here because of the presence of the chilli.

This is also one of those kinds of dumplings with a lot of liquid. As a testament to the structural integrity of that dumpling bread, this dumpling had about a tablespoon of sauce inside, waiting so be released into an unsuspecting mouth, and thus burn it. I for one, bit in naively and had precious dumpling juiced spilled (read: wasted) all down my chin. I think this was my favourite of the pork dumplings. I don't know how it's name would differ from the previous kind of pork dumpling, but if they have them and you ask for a pork dumpling and tell them 辣 - là - spicy, I'm sure they would understand what you're after.

This next kind was super shit. Rubbish. Crap. Don't ever get it. Please. It was the worst baozi I've ever eaten.

Again, here is that problem with having a plain flavour inside of a plain bread bun. The inside of this dumpling consisted almost entirely of glass noodles. There was no real sauce, and only a hint of flavour came from a bit of chilli and more of that strange salty preserved seaweed kind of thing. It was almost dry and the texture was not at all enjoyable. As if they could have made it any worse, the noodles weren't even long and fun, they had been chopped down to inch-long strips. Don't do it!

Now here we arrive at the typical vegetarian steamed dumpling. 蔬菜包子 - Shūcài bāozi - vegetable dumplings, are what I usually eat. Although they are not my favourites, there is definitely something to be said about these humble pockets of goodness. Primarily a kind of spinach, the filling is salty, but not to the same degree as those yuck ones I showed you before. There are chives for flavour and teeny tiny little cubes of tofu for nourishment. The vegetables are moist, but not saucy and leave the bread light and unsoaked.

If I had to pick a work to describe these, it would be humble. You can get great pork baozi or horrible pork baozi, and the quality of the bread will always change, but these vegetable ones are the same no matter where you go. Some say the taste is acquired, and I know myself that I cannot eat them for breakfast, but if you have never tried them before I would encourage you to give them a shot.

And now, for the grand finale of all baozi! The pièce de résistance of the dumpling experience... 豆沙包子 - dòushābāozi - Red bean paste dumplings. These are the only kind of sweet dumplings you can really get, but oh man, how sweet they are. 


To begin with, the texture is something akin to smooth peanut butter. It has that super thick effect of sticking to the roof of your mouth and coating your teeth and tongue in a layer of awesomeness. When it's fresh and hot, the paste is perfect to compliment the bread. The heat keeps the paste thinner and more manageable, and the fresh bread is always soft and almost bouncy in your mouth. When you chew it, the two elements don't really fully combine as they do with the saucy meat buns. In those, the bread absorbs the sauce and a lot of the mouth work is already done for you. These, instead, become a really full and chewy experience which are incredibly satisying to swallow.


The bean paste is sweet, but not too sweet, and allows for appreciation of the actual red bean flavour. I find these baozi are perfect for breakfast when my mouth and I haven't quite woken up yet. Interestingly (and yet unsurprisingly) these also go brilliantly with a cup of tea or coffee.

This is a great example of what my face looks like when I bite into a big fresh dumpling, image courtesy of Hanna.

Phew!!! This took a lot longer than I thought it would and now it's way past my bed time. To sum up, I guess I want to say that dumplings are one of the greatest culinary experiences of China, and that this list is by no means exhaustive. Dumplings, like all Chinese food, are best when shared, and best consumed when fresh. They are also cheap and perfect on the run, an ideal combination for hungry travellers. You can try and make them at home, of course, but good luck! They are deceptively complex creations and the technique takes years to master... Better to just come to China and enjoy 4 of them for 5 kuai!