The Hong Kong Street Scene, with a focus on fried dough
My husband has a co-worker from Hong Kong named Edmond. Edmond has assured my husband that my intense interest in the different forms and flavors of fried dough is not only proper, but extremely educational and highly culturally sensitive. He congratulates me on the speed of my assimilation and encourages me to explore additional forms of fried dough. Thanks Edmond!
I have found two forms of fried dough: the long, thin, salty fried dough, which is light and crisp, and the shorter, denser, slightly sweet fried dough. As a long time connoisseur of fried breads, I believe that the Chinese fried dough is probably derived from the same root culinary tradition that gave rise to Navajo Fry Bread. I bow in amazement at the tenacity of the earliest Americans, trudging across the frigid wastes of the top of the world with their jugs of oil and their deep fryers. The dedication of humans to preserving culture in the face of overwhelming privation is amazing!
The purveyors of fried dough are part of what make Hong Kong such an extremely lively city. So many of the world's great cities shut down the streets at night. Downtown Chicago clears out when businesses close. People going to cultural events or eating out drive into parking garages and whisk into buildings without ever setting foot on the street. A few cities have some street life: Manhattan is pretty hopping in the uptown area, and it has a lot in common with Hong Kong in other ways as well. But no place is as active as Hong Kong at night. I am in an area called Wan Chai, but I think it's pretty typical of Hong Kong Island. The days seem to start rather slowly, but they wind down equally as slowly. The streets are absolutely thronged with people, and stores of all kinds stay open until late in the night. There are lots of young people everywhere in punky hairstyles, staring intently at cell phone displays as they and their hordes move along the street, half on and half off the sidewalk. Every twenty feet someone thrusts advertising leaflets at passers-by, and music blares. Restaurants abound, many of which sell food out front or over counters from stalls built onto the side of larger buildings. Business and housing mixes in the streets of Wan Chai, storefronts below and apartments above. If you look up, you will see laundry and small gardens leaning precariously out of windows, livening up the industrial concrete housing blocks.
I'm only here for one more day, after which I will return to Seattle, mundane life, and the stale, soggy excuse for fried dough one finds in the United States. I will gaze at it with dull pity, and remember the oleaginous pleasures of Hong Kong.
I have found two forms of fried dough: the long, thin, salty fried dough, which is light and crisp, and the shorter, denser, slightly sweet fried dough. As a long time connoisseur of fried breads, I believe that the Chinese fried dough is probably derived from the same root culinary tradition that gave rise to Navajo Fry Bread. I bow in amazement at the tenacity of the earliest Americans, trudging across the frigid wastes of the top of the world with their jugs of oil and their deep fryers. The dedication of humans to preserving culture in the face of overwhelming privation is amazing!
The purveyors of fried dough are part of what make Hong Kong such an extremely lively city. So many of the world's great cities shut down the streets at night. Downtown Chicago clears out when businesses close. People going to cultural events or eating out drive into parking garages and whisk into buildings without ever setting foot on the street. A few cities have some street life: Manhattan is pretty hopping in the uptown area, and it has a lot in common with Hong Kong in other ways as well. But no place is as active as Hong Kong at night. I am in an area called Wan Chai, but I think it's pretty typical of Hong Kong Island. The days seem to start rather slowly, but they wind down equally as slowly. The streets are absolutely thronged with people, and stores of all kinds stay open until late in the night. There are lots of young people everywhere in punky hairstyles, staring intently at cell phone displays as they and their hordes move along the street, half on and half off the sidewalk. Every twenty feet someone thrusts advertising leaflets at passers-by, and music blares. Restaurants abound, many of which sell food out front or over counters from stalls built onto the side of larger buildings. Business and housing mixes in the streets of Wan Chai, storefronts below and apartments above. If you look up, you will see laundry and small gardens leaning precariously out of windows, livening up the industrial concrete housing blocks.
I'm only here for one more day, after which I will return to Seattle, mundane life, and the stale, soggy excuse for fried dough one finds in the United States. I will gaze at it with dull pity, and remember the oleaginous pleasures of Hong Kong.