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Published: January 25th 2011
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The next day we had lots planned. We had to get up early to go to the market as it closed around 10am. The market was about 15min scooter / bike ride away at another larger town called TangTuoCun. It was great fun getting to TangTuoCun. James’ uncle had a scooter that he let us borrow. It was a red Chinese pedal bike/scooter hybrid. James roped in his family friend and one of the neighbours to give us all a ride into town.
We went to the market to buy food for lunch and dinner. It was grannies birthday and James was going to cook up a feast. The market was small but it was packed full of the locals. There were all types of meat and veges. After the market we had yum char at a local restaurant near the market. We have been doing yum char all wrong in NZ. We normally eat far too quickly, in this part of china it is a place to go to socialise and drink tea while eating food slowly. More like eating nuts at a bar.
After brunch we went to the dairy to buy drinks, snacks and fireworks. The locals
then took us to the old town square where the market use to be. Apparently part of a big famous Chinese movie was film there. It is currently showing in the theatres now. “Let the bullets fly” starring Chow Young Fat also known in movies such as “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” and “Bullet Proof Monk”.
We planned to have a Chinese hangi for lunch. It took a while to prepare. We went out to the farm to collect some fresh banana leaves and cut down some bamboo to make sticks for roasting marshmallows. It was a great opportunity for me to test out my trademe utility pocket knife that I lugged with me since Christmas. It worked wonderfully. See photos of me cutting stuff like a pro. I managed to cut down a great big long stalk of bamboo, it reminded me of the fighting sticks you see in the kung fu movies. I reinacted the “star wars kid” (do a youtube search if you haven’t seen it).
Once we got the bamboo we cut it down into smaller sticks. My marshmallow roasting stick was a deluxe model, it had a fancy handle. While I was expertly manufacturing
my roasting stick, James prepared the food for the hangi. There was marinated chicken wings, pork spare ribs and two types of kumara, yellow and purple. The meat was wrapped in the banana leaves and then again in tin foil.
The Chinese hangi is a little bit different to the Maori hangi. First you build a oven out of dried mud lumps that you stack together to the form of an igloo. Hannah and I attempted to build one but it collapsed too many times so we gave up and built a great big bon fire to roast marshmallows instead. We left the building of the mud ovens to the locals. Only James was able to build one completely out of mud. The others used a brick bridge to build an opening for the fire wood. Once the ovens were build we burned the abundant bamboo fire wood to heat up the earth. It took about 1 and a half hours of heating before it was ready to use. You can tell when it’s ready when the mud turns red.
When the mud has reached the desired temperature, the ash from the burnt bamboo is carefully removed. A small
area of the roof is caved in and then crushed at the bottom to create a hot base. The food parcel is then placed on top and then more of the hot mud is placed on top and crushed. Lastly the Kumara is place on top and buried with the rest of the crushed heated mud. A layer of dried earth is used covers to the top to help insulate. After 30mins of waiting, cutting bamboo for fire wood and eating melted marshmallows the food was cooked. It was delicious.
While we were in town earlier that morning James forgot to buy a pair of jandals. So we went on another motorbike trip to town. This time it was just the 4 of us. James family friends son lent me his flash new motorbike. It was a Suzuki GSX125. So the 4 of us rode into town again. James rode the crusty red scooter with Macey, while Hannah and I zoomed along in style, all without helmets
After dinner I remembered that we had bought some fireworks at the market. We waited until it got dark then went outside to let them off. I’m sure we woke up the
whole village. We got some magic wands, parachute crackers, 1 metre long sparklers and a multi shot bomb box.
:O
Pete and Hannah
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