First things first

3 September 2010, con’t
Shanghai, China

First things first

First things first: dumplings.

I was walking down Nanjing Xi Lu, which had been described to me as “Shanghai’s Rodeo Drive,” and true to the point, there was a building fashioned like a six-story piece of YSL luggage. A bit further down, another building was wearing what seemed to me a Gucci flapper dress. Not too much further down, however, there was an old Chinese lady looking very content sitting on a small plastic stool and eating dumplings. Across the sidewalk I spotted the dumpling stand of their provenance, and I ordered some for my first taste of China.

I ordered 8 dumplings. They could only be ordered in multiples of 4, and 4 is an unlucky number in Greater China. For instance, some apartment buildings here do not have a fourth floor, particularly if they are meant for ex-pats who overlap with Taiwanese and Hong Kongese, both of whom are more traditional – and superstitious – than their Mainland brethren. Anyway, as far as the dumpling orders were concerned, I wondered if playing on the avoidance of four was a good marketing trick to assure bigger orders. Then they rang in 7 kuai – about $1 – instead of 3.5 kuai.

Ouch! My first bite unleashed a cascade of boiling water onto my tongue. For a minute, I reeled and completely forgot I was in China.

I had not realized they were the kind of dumplings with a splash of boiling water inside, but, apart from that scarring sensation, they were unquestionably sent from the heavens. I carefully pierced the remaining dumplings with my chopsticks to release the flaming broth into my plate. After finishing them, I rounded People’s Square and thought of them as a new lover: How long until I could see them again? How could I possibly shorten the time we would be apart? What would our next meeting be like?