The Culture Street

Mr. Yue told us not to go, but Ellen wheedled and cajoled and finally he relented, and off we went to the Culture Street. We came and went.

The fantastic Ming Dynasty commerical strip was ruined by crass commercialism. Ellen's immediate reaction was "West Berlin!"




When we talk about the typical chinese tourist-trap shlock, this is what we mean.



One street snack was flat cakes stuck to a hot, rotating griddle. They would carefully control the cooking by spinning the griddle back and forth, exposing the cake to the hot coals, then twirling them back out before they burned. There were also all manner of shop and stalls serving dumplings, soups, pancakes, snack mixes and everything else.



We would have bought knives, but people have problems carrying them internally on planes on China, even in checked baggage. So we held off. Chinese cleavers are pretty cool, though.



There were plenty of locals set up playing mah jong checkers and this game, which I think is chess.



On the way back to the hotel, we saw people cleaning tea leaves on the street and making 1000-year-old eggs.




We also stumbled on the bridal dress district. Chinese brides traditionally wear red, but more and more are adopting Western-style dress for their weddings.