#reverb12 Day 9: Your favourite book?
What was the best book you read in 2012, and why? (And by "Why?" I mean: Why did you read it? And why was it your favourite? Although these answers could be one and the same...!)
At first I thought this prompt would be about my favorite book ever, but favorite book of 2012 is tougher since nothing was so good that it would make an overall list of my favorites.
I posted about what I read the first half of the year here, and I'll do a similar post for the second half, although I haven't been as good about keeping track.
I would pick Lost on Planet China, The Strange and True Story of One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation, or How He Became Comfortable Eating Live Squid, by J. Martin Troost.
Second place this year is probably The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.
I read Lost on Planet China because I was soaking up books about China before our trip. I loved Seven Years in Tibet (by Heinrich Harrer), and I liked The Man Who Loved China (by Simon Winchester). But actually, I think even without the trip, it would have been an enjoyable book. He had a million funny stories about his observations of life in China. I like travel writing in general, and this struck me as the best kind of it.
His anecdotes and observations were so well-chosen and hilarious, and it was even better when we saw some of it live.
The split pants, for example. Many Chinese toddlers wear pants that are just like normal pants, but where a crotch seam would go, instead, the fabric is open. And there's no diaper underneath. So yes, you see baby @ss as the kids walk. And you see way too much when they sit down. It's shocking. But I at least knew what it was because of the book. A couple photos below.
I would like to read some of his other books, because his writing style was right up my alley.
Anyway, here's an excerpt from the Amazon.com review (with my commentary below the numbered points):
Maarten Troost's Travel Tips for China
1. Food can be classified as meat, poultry, grain, fish, fruit, vegetable and Chinese. Embrace the Chinese. If you love it, it will love you back. True, you may find yourself perplexed by what resides on your plate. You may even be appalled. The Chinese have an expression: We eat everything with four legs except the table, and anything with two legs except the person. They mean it too. And so you may find yourself in a restaurant in Guangzhou contemplating the spicy cow veins; or the yak dumplings in Lhasa, or the grilled frog in Shanghai, or the donkey hotpot in the Hexi Corridor, or the live squid on the island of Putuoshan. And you may not know, exactly, what it is you’re supposed to do. Should you pluck at this with your chopsticks? The meal may seem so very strange. True, you may be comfortable eating a cow, or a pig, or a chicken, yet when confronted with a yak or a swan or a cat, you do not reflexively think of sauces and marinades. The Chinese do however. And so you should eat whatever skips across your table. It is here where you can experience the complexity of China. And you will be rewarded. Very often, it is exceptionally good. And when it is not, it is undoubtedly interesting. And really, when traveling what more can one ask for. So go on. Eat as the locals do. However, should you find yourself confronted with a heaping platter of Cattle Penis with Garlic, you’re on your own.
I say: this was a little easier for me as a vegetarian. Meats are scarier. But we did eat with the locals. We abandoned any fear of street food, and we were the only westerners in a vast majority of places we ate.
2. To really see China, go to the market. Any market will do. This is where China lives and breathes. It is here where you will find the sights, sounds and smells of China. And it is in a Chinese market where you will experience epic bargaining. The Chinese excel at bargaining. They live and breathe it. It is an art; it is a sport. It is, above all, nothing personal. If you do not parry back and forth, you will be regarded as a chump, a walking ATM machine, a carcass to be picked over. And so as you peruse the cabbage or consider the silk, be prepared to bargain. The objective, of course, is to obtain the Chinese price. You will, however, never actually receive the Chinese price. It is the holy grail for laowais--or foreigners--in China. Your status as a laowai is determined by how proximate your haggling gets you to the mythical Chinese price. But you will never obtain the Chinese price. Accept this. But if you’re very, very good, and you bargain long and hard, and if you are lucky and catch your interlocutor on an off day, you may, just may, receive the special price. Consider yourself fortunate.
I say: Bargaining was hard when I approached it as a lawyer. Thinking about half the stated price would be the going rate, which seems to be the general rule for lawsuits. Turns out, in China, it's about 10%. Took us a while to learn that. But the Chinese price is probably about 1%.
3. Travelers are often told to get off the beaten path, to take the road less traveled, to march to a different drum. You don't need to do this in China. The road well-traveled is a very fine road. The French Concession in Shanghai is splendid. The Forbidden City is a wonder of the world. So too the Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an. Indeed, the Chinese say so themselves. There is much to be seen in places that are often seen. And yet... China is not merely a country. It is not a place defined by sights. It is a world upon itself, a different planet even. And to see it--to feel it--means leaving that well-traveled road. And China is an excellent place for wandering. From the monasteries of Tibet to the rainforests of Yunnan Province and onward through the deserts of Xinjiang to the frozen tundra of Heilongjiang Province, China offers a vast kaleidoscope of people and terrain unlike anywhere else on Earth. This may seem intimidating to the China traveler. Will there be picture menus in the Taklamakan Desert? (No.) Is Visa accepted in Inner Mongolia? (Not likely.) Still, one should move beyond the Great Wall. And if you can manage to cross six lanes of traffic in Beijing, you can manage the slow train to Kunming.
I say: We hit all those highlights he mentions, but it's so true, that it was so much more than the sights. It was an experience, a lifestyle, and in many ways, hubby and I are both surprised at how much we miss it. Like we'll be somewhere with a long line, and we wish it was just a Chinese mob so we could swarm forward. The subway, the crowds, the bargaining, the confusion, the food, the size.
4. Hell is a line in China. You are so forewarned.
I say: see above. Insanely frustrating in ways, insanely amusing in others. Trying to get tickets into a temple one day in Shanghai, we were in a Chinese mob of women who were all at least 60. And they were pushy and shouting and so angry it seemed. I was so unprepared for it, eventually I gave exact change for our two tickets to a big German guy and asked him to just buy ours when he got up there. The funniest thing, when we left the temple an hour or so later, the ticket booth had absolutely no one waiting. Turns out we'd arrived at the exact wrong moment I guess.
5. Manners are important in China. How can this be, you wonder? You have, for instance, experienced a line in China. Your ribs have been pummeled. You have been trampled upon by grandmothers who are not more than four feet tall. You have learned, simply by queuing in the airport taxi line, what it is like to eat bitter, an evocative Chinese expression that conveys suffering. This does not seem upon first impression to be a country overly concerned with prim etiquette. But it is. True, hawking enormous, gelatinous loogies is perfectly acceptable in China. And a good belch is fine as well. And picking your teeth after dinner is a sign of urbane sophistication. But this does not mean that manners are not taken seriously in China. It’s just that they are different in China. And so feel free to spit and burp, but do not even think of holding your chopsticks with your left hand. You will be regarded as an ill-mannered rube. So watch your manners in China. But learn them first.
I say: ah, the loogies. We were completely floored by it. Hawking them up everywhere. When I say everywhere, you probably imagine I mean on the streets. No, I mean everywhere, including on the floor of the Shanghai Museum (China's equivalent to the Louvre), in restaurants, and yes, even on the floor of our airplane back to Chicago. It was insane. But then it took me days before I found out that it was rude to point with my chopsticks, which I'd done again and again until that point. Oh well, live and learn.
I've never been to China but the thought of the loogies is disgusting. Nose picking is prominent in some of the places I've visited. Full on finger up the nose digging around!
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