Asia Update #3 - Shanghai, China

I am in China right now. Flew into Shanghai on Sunday. Spent Monday training the folks from our Shanghai and Beijing offices. Then we went out as a team for dinner…

I must say, that dinner was an experience. First was the menu, which you could basically call a zoo. Maybe Zoo isn't the right term - perhaps Pet Shop would be more appropriate. There is a large room lined with tanks and cages. You walk around and choose the animal which you would eat for dinner. Most cases you point and an attendant catches it for you. In some cases, they give you the net and you have a go at it. And some you just reach in and grab. All types of fish, shellfish, reptiles, frogs, snails, and poultry were present. I've been to pet stores in the states with less of a selection as they had here.

Here is a picture of Ming Zhang and Paul Lai from our China sales team choosing a crab for our dinner. The tanks behind the guy in blue contain various fish, shrimp, and sharks. Right in front of Ming (the one holding the crab) are various mollusks. There was a second row of tanks, plus also some side areas containing other items (veggies, cooked poultry, live poultry, etc.). Many of the animals in the tanks were of types I had never seen before, so could not name. There was even a shark which barely fit into the tank it was in (it was probably a good 5 feet long).

Here are some more tanks, containing various reptiles. To the left side (just out of the picture) were venomous snakes, including cobras and vipers. The cages you can just see on the right side contain various live poultry.

I let the folks from our China sales team place the food order. This seems to be the way to go in most of the places I visit, given that the menus aren't legible to me. So far, it hasn't been a bad decision to give them the control, given that I haven't gotten sick yet. Tonight's dinner almost made me regret giving them the control, given that I did eat a few new and unusual things. Most notably were…

• Cucumber drink - basically cucumbers squeezed hard enough to make a fluid. Very green looking (like moss or pond scum) - kind of gross if you just go by looks. But tastes like cucumber, so not nearly as exciting as it looked.
• Some sort of high-proof rice liquor. Truthfully, once the drink gets up above 50 proof or so, I can't tell the difference in flavors. Seems that every country likes to try to get the guest of honor smashed before the night is out, and these folks sure tried. Thankfully, I drank enough to keep them hapy, but not so much that I got smashed.
• Snake soup - yes, they ordered a snake. Non-venomous, probably a good 4 feet long. The soup tastes just like an egg-drop soup you'd find in the States. The snake tasted like chicken (no joke). I had heard that snakes were eaten in China, and was actually looking forward to trying it. Most of you know that I used to keep snakes as pets, so I was wondering if I would have misgiving about eating a snake. Nope. Even went for seconds.
• Snake skin salad - they wouldn't tell me what this was until I tried it. I thought it was some sort of sea food. But it turned out to be the skin of the snake flaked into small pieces.
• Snake blood - they placed a small cup of red fluid in front of me, which they explained was the snake's blood. Of course, as guest of honor, only I received this. I did try it to be polite - didn't really taste too bad. But I must say that the thought of drinking snake blood didn't really appeal to me much. I guess this is supposed to have some medical benefits in eastern medicines.
• Snake gall bladder. Here's another one with various eastern medicinal benefits and another which only the guest of honor receives. First I got to see the gall bladder au natural, then they crushed it and mixed it into a wine. Thankfully the wine masks whatever the taste would be. I heard that this was supposed to have some benefits towards my sexual prowess or something like that, though I think I am too western to be willing to fully try it out… Just tasted it, but didn't finish it.

After dinner, a couple of the guys from the office took me sightseeing. Went to an area by the river called Wai Tan. Definitely was the happening place to go and hang out. Quite crowded, but the buildings in the area made quite a view. Here's a picture from it...

Not much else nearly as exciting as that dinner happened. Now I am off to Changchun and Sungyan (I didn't even know where these cities were until last week) for a day each before heading down to Beijing for the weekend. Should be exciting to see the Great Wall, Forbidden City, and other Beijing favorites.