Kung Pao Chicken with Olives?

by Iva Skoch on

One of the great joys of traveling is undoubtedly the food one gets to sample. That applies not only to the local specialties. When traveling, I always like to taste how different cultures handle cuisines that are exotic to them. For example, how often do you see mayonaise on those fries that came with your burger? That’s how you’ll normally get them in Europe.

Chinese or Thai cuisines are my favorite ‘culture barometers,’ since they taste completely different everywhere: each culture injects a bit of their own taste into it. In Prague, for example, you will be hard-pressed to find a Chinese restaurant that does not automatically serve their dishes with parsley, cucumber and tomato (the two Czech staple vegetables) on the side. In the US, on the other hand, you almost always get the convenient ¨soup, eggroll or salad¨ choice with your Chinese meals. I certainly did not see that anywhere in China.

Today on the Costa Brava in Spain, I actually saw Kung-Pao chicken garnished with lettuce and olives. Part of the Spanish-Chinese diet, I imagine?

Word for the Travel Wise (09/06/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

One of these days when I stash away enough money to travel and do it BIG I’m going to do a tour of countries that have some of my favorite gem stones and jewelry. While I don’t own a large collection of stones or jewelry, I do try to pick up at least one piece every time I travel abroad. My future list includes the Baltics for Amber, Dominican Republic for Larimar and Hotan, a city in southern Xinjiang, China, for Jade. Hotan was once the major transport center of the southern route of the Silk Road.

Today’s word is a Uyghur word used in China:

känt – village

Uyghur (pronounced ooygOOr) is spoken in China and Kazakhstan, but is the official language of China’s Xinjiang province. It is a language spoken by some 10 million people in all of Central Asia. China’s Uyghur people are one of the 56 official nationalities in the country. Start at the Wikipedia first and work your way to this Uyghur music and dance songs online page. New Uyghur films are also available for purchase if you like to learn by listening and watching. Try linking up with Uyghur speakers through MyLanguageExchange online. Lonely Planet’s Central Asia phrasebook has a decent Uyghur section worth purchasing the book for if going to this area of the Silk Road.

Past Mandarin / Cantonese words: zhu ni hao yun, guo nian ha, mu di di, hao, xiang zi, zai jian, léui yàu

Shanghai Neck-Licks

by Adrienne Wilson on

I’ve heard of French kissing and Kama Sutra, but the Shanghai neck-lick is new-new news to me and apparently to some of the residents in Shanghai as well. Now how’s that possible? The folks over at Shanghaiist discovered the maneuver and how it’s performed in a story from the LA Weekly about attending a punk rock show. Uh-huh. From what I gather Shanghai neck-licks involve a fair amount of groping and a massive amount of saliva across the neck all compliments of a drunken punk rocker.

Right— Shanghaiist was so intrigued by the use of this urban slang and phrase involving their city name they decided to take it a wee-bit further and created this nifty Shanghai language lesson. If you found the Shanghai neck-lick somewhat vulgar you may want to stop here. I repeat – you may wish to stop reading here, do not pass GO, and do not click on the language link. If you believe you can handle their list of very naughty Shanghaii terms like Shanghai Meat-bun, Shanghai Surprise and Shanghailarious; then proceed.

Word for the Travel Wise (08/24/06)

by Adrienne Wilson on

Since I’ve gone through the first half of the year pointing out Mandarin words I’m switching it up to go through the rest of the year with Cantonese. I started with Mandarin as I was told it is the more widely spoken of the two, but there are still hundreds of thousands of Cantonese speakers out there. I feel I need to recognize some of their words to the best of my ability. Today we start with an easy one.

Today’s word is a Cantonese word used in China:

léui yàu – travel

Cantonese is mainly spoken in southern Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and by Chinese minorities in Southeast Asia. Check out Wiki for a pretty extensive historical look at the lingo. Cantonese Online – A Tribute is a colorful site packed with info which offers a variety of free resources to learning to this spectacular language. If you’d like to learn some street slang as seen in popular Hong Kong movies there is a book for purchase on this site here. Last but not least scope out or pick up the LP pocket-sized guide to keep you talking on the go!

Past Mandarin words: zhu ni hao yun, guo nian ha, mu di di, hao, xiang zi, zai jian

High Tech Himlayas

by Erik Olsen on

If you don’t know the name Xeni Jardin, then you probably don’t spend much time reading blogs…not the best ones anyway. She’s been all over the place in the last few years, penning pieces for Wired, Boing Boing, etc. She’s also got a few gigs on NPR and this one on traveling to the Himalayas is definitely worth a listen.

Entitled Hacking the Himalayas, she takes us on a tour of this high-elevation nation and talks about how technology is changing the culture and way of life there. Filled with history and color and vibrant sound, it is superb, as fine an example of multi-media journalism as I’ve seen in a while (there are lovely photos and print versions as well). I would love to see more pieces like this, stories about the transformative powers of technology around the world in far-off places.