My Baozi Place

Food, for those of you who are in the dark on this subject, is one of the best things on earth. We have all sorts of lovely things to enjoy while we are on this planet, but I'll wager you'll be missing out on life if you don't eat. But it's not just enough to eat, you have to live food. This doesn't mean gorge yourself at every while, although that may be called for on occasion. What's really important is that you seek out good food and when you find it, you make bloody well sure you've et it.
(If you happen to be one of the foolish one's who doubts the existence of such a verb as "et" please refer yourself to Dictionary.com and pay particular attention to the first definition of "et").
And so, after a while of speaking about such boring subjects as life and buses, I think it is about time I inform the world, and yourselves of course, about the sorts of foods I've been enjoying here. This is a monumental task which would force you all to quit reading long before it is accomplished, so today I shall only touch on one of the most common forms of dietary delight in which I indulge.
This particular food happens to be baozi (包子). If you are uncertain what baozi are, please think of those tasty little dumplings called jiaozi (if you are also uncertain what jiaozi are, think dumplings and don't get caught up in definitions). Baozi are like jiaozi in that they are pieces of dough wrapped around some sort of filling, usually meat. Baozi differ however from jiaozi in that they have a thicker bread shell and are usually bigger. I really enjoy both of these sorts of things (my brother might say this is my heritage coming out, all meat and bread).
But baozi must be good--or cheap--if they are to be eaten with any regularity. Enter my special baozi place. There is a small hole-in-the wall type restaurant, not far from where I am staying, which serves up the best baozi and jiaozi I have ever been privileged to eat. I don't think this place has a name, I refer to it as the baozi place as do many other people who eat there. From the Snickers brand basketball calenders on the wall to the grungy chopsticks they offer you, my baozi place is in keeping with everything you might expect of a local Chinese restaurant. It's got fake bamboo floors which have been so covered in grease, you actually have to look hard to realize they aren't real; it's got the back-room which really is nothing more than part of the main room cordoned off by a sliding glass door where the owner's family and close friends grind out the uncooked baozi and jiaozi. He even has a once-brightly colored New Year's poster with its red and gold figures.
The owner, himself, is as unique as his baozi are delicious. He is seen everyday standing outside the entrance to the place with his propane powered stove-top, steaming away a wonderful stack of the bamboo "pans" in which he cooks his delicacies. These bamboo "pans" look like old fashioned film canisters with one of their tops off. The baozi are placed inside these "pans" which are conveniently made so as to stack, and placed on an oven. I think he puts water in the "pans" below the baozi somewhere, but I'm not sure. So you can see the owner standing over his stove-top enveloped in a huge cloud of steam, slowly rotating in whole pagodas of cooking baozi. They smell delicious, like you'd imagine a picnic basket full of meat and chives to smell.
The man's menu is not large, consisting of no more than five or six items on a good day. My personal favorites are his soup-filled baozi and his chive and pork jiaozi. The soup-filled are amazing: somehow he has contrived to make this little pouches of dough hold a good-sized mouthful of soup and a sort of mini-meatball. When you eat one (you cannot simply take a bite, with these it is an all or nothing affair--either you eat the baozi or it eats you) the soup hits you first--some sort of vegetable base--and then comes the meatball... And of course baozi should only be consumed with a healthy dousing of vinegar to give them some zest. I never realized how much I like vinegar until now, but soaked in it, baozi take on a new, more fulfilling life.
The owner never says much more than a few words, sometimes not even this much--I take him to be what somebody at school once told me was a taciturn man. It wouldn't matter if he weren't so quiet though, for his Chinese is not of the common type; I not actually sure if it is Chinese at all. He gets by though, and I have a feeling he is making more money than most. I have never sat by myself at this place, but am always added to somebody else's table--something which in America seems unthinkable, but apparently doesn't bother people here. My apologies for intruding caused more weird looks than my actually presence in between Grandma Chen and her Grandson. It seems inevitable that this sort of communal table practice results in offers to teach me Chinese if I help them with their English. I have so far avoided this, mainly on the principle that I do not have enough time.
But I have almost forgotten the best part of my baozi place: his prices. The owner charges something around 50 cents for a bamboo "pan" of eight or more baozi. As you might have guessed this makes me a regular customer.
I almost dread going back to Duke and the expensive food there which would be sniffed at disdainfully by the street dogs who run wild in Kunming. So until I work up the courage to return,
Phil.