Nanjing haggis
Between one thing and another I have not had a moment to spare, which is why you have not yet heard about the success with which our search for haggis was finally crowned. Exhaustive research fails to find haggis in Beijing or Shanghai, but after a couple of false leads in Nanjing, our next destination, we eventually find an old blog post whose author suggests it is sometimes to be found in a certain pub there. Y makes a phone call, and we are in luck: the owner has just returned from Scotland, bringing new haggis stocks in his luggage. We triumphantly book a table and two portions of haggis, despite the fact that when Y searched the web for information in Chinese about the great chieftain o' the pudding race, the first hit had been a disgruntled Chinese diner describing it as 'the most disgusting foodstuff he had ever eaten'.
Finnegan's Wake is a pub hidden in a warren of a shopping district. Swing open the elegant Chinese doors and you are in a welcoming, comfortable Irish pub - or Scottish, perhaps, since a smiling, balding Scotsman is welcoming you with a facetious remark. We stand and chat of Nanjing, and haggis (I bravely recite the first couple of verses of the Ode to the Haggis), and hotels, and whisky - we order two shots of the latter, it being traditional for the occasion - and ask them to get our haggis ready. Meantime Ian, the garrulous Scot - one of the owners, though not the one who has recently returned with haggis - takes us upstairs to see the very plush and comfortable whisky bar, with big soft seats and cabinets full of all kinds of fine whiskies, rare and vintage whiskies, whiskies that can no longer be bought, whiskies that are thousands of pounds a bottle. We go back downstairs. Yueting pronounces the whisky a success, and they bring our haggis. Ian has managed to dig up a copy of the Collected Works, so I give a couple more verses of the Ode. The haggis, to say nothing of the neeps and tatties, are just as one could wish, and Y is a convert.
It is a quiet night - it is still the new year season and everyone is away - and we are the only customers in. Ian has come back with a guitar, promises us an old Scottish song, and strikes up 'Auld lang syne'. For a moment I feel a twinge of disappointment that he is about to sing such an old chestnut; and then he starts, and sings it as I have never heard it before. It is understated, melancholy, nostalgic, soulful, beautiful. He sings all the verses, and I wish there were more. Afterwards I find in Ian's book the lyrics to 'A man's a man for a' that', and wishing I could play the guitar, give a nevertheless not totally discreditable rendition, and we toast Rabbie Burns in the dregs of our whisky. So in the end we got our Burns Night after all, and the best of all possible Burns Nights it was, too.
*
For Y the journey is over: he can return to the cramped dormitory, shared with three other students, at Nanjing University, where he is about to graduate in physics. After a couple of days of sightseeing together I take a cup o' (tea-flavoured) kindness, my leave of Nanjing, and flight for Hong Kong, for the final leg of my adventure.
Finnegan's Wake is a pub hidden in a warren of a shopping district. Swing open the elegant Chinese doors and you are in a welcoming, comfortable Irish pub - or Scottish, perhaps, since a smiling, balding Scotsman is welcoming you with a facetious remark. We stand and chat of Nanjing, and haggis (I bravely recite the first couple of verses of the Ode to the Haggis), and hotels, and whisky - we order two shots of the latter, it being traditional for the occasion - and ask them to get our haggis ready. Meantime Ian, the garrulous Scot - one of the owners, though not the one who has recently returned with haggis - takes us upstairs to see the very plush and comfortable whisky bar, with big soft seats and cabinets full of all kinds of fine whiskies, rare and vintage whiskies, whiskies that can no longer be bought, whiskies that are thousands of pounds a bottle. We go back downstairs. Yueting pronounces the whisky a success, and they bring our haggis. Ian has managed to dig up a copy of the Collected Works, so I give a couple more verses of the Ode. The haggis, to say nothing of the neeps and tatties, are just as one could wish, and Y is a convert.
It is a quiet night - it is still the new year season and everyone is away - and we are the only customers in. Ian has come back with a guitar, promises us an old Scottish song, and strikes up 'Auld lang syne'. For a moment I feel a twinge of disappointment that he is about to sing such an old chestnut; and then he starts, and sings it as I have never heard it before. It is understated, melancholy, nostalgic, soulful, beautiful. He sings all the verses, and I wish there were more. Afterwards I find in Ian's book the lyrics to 'A man's a man for a' that', and wishing I could play the guitar, give a nevertheless not totally discreditable rendition, and we toast Rabbie Burns in the dregs of our whisky. So in the end we got our Burns Night after all, and the best of all possible Burns Nights it was, too.
*
For Y the journey is over: he can return to the cramped dormitory, shared with three other students, at Nanjing University, where he is about to graduate in physics. After a couple of days of sightseeing together I take a cup o' (tea-flavoured) kindness, my leave of Nanjing, and flight for Hong Kong, for the final leg of my adventure.