Beyond the Gate

 Just beyond our campus gate is a three-quarter mile stretch of road, lined on both sides with vendors. Oh, the road continues many miles but at the three-quarter mile marks where the nearest grocery store is to Heilongjiang East College; for us, the nearest destination where we can purchase a 340 gram jar of Skippy peanut butter. Smoke pours about into the streets from hand-crafted temporary grills; a variety of fresh meat and animal parts aligned on prepared skewers, all geared up to be purchased and devoured. Strewn blankets and merchandise perfectly aligned, beside them squat their sellers. Their faces, worn from life, their hands blotched with dirt and dust from setting up their fruit and vegetables day after day. Some take naps in their nearby vehicles, most busying themselves away at their cell phones. Occasional glances upward and some shouts of “Er kui! Er kui!" Shoppers {and we the foreigners} pass by, and back to the cell phones they go.

A personal favorite smell of China. A waft of summer, yet autumn. Crisp, sweet and delicious. To the right a man squats with what appears to be his own personal chimney, but upon further inspection one can see individual pockets in the iron structure. With giant gloves, he withdraws one to reveal a charred ear of corn, splotches of black and brown, its aroma sweet and tempting; an aroma that can make any woman [this woman] weak at the knees.

You can be walking, inspecting, and simply in awe of all the sights to see. Vendors after vendors of precious grapes, carts of apples, seat cushions and pirated DVD’s [most likely of exceedingly low quality]. A temporary heaven and feelings of bliss and the warm fuzzy thought of “I love China” prances across your mind. Recuperating from being weak at the knees, the feeling bolts upward toward the stomach only a mere number of steps away. You get hit, and by then, it’s too late; a breath of two-week-old excrements and bile. Your lungs do all they can to remain stable as you wish for the upcoming few seconds of your life to pass as quickly as they possibly can. “I’m gunna vom”, screams your mind. You spot the source, a street vendor a few meters ahead, plopping white cubes into a boiling, bubbling pot of something. 

Plop, plop, plop.

How could something that appears so harmless cause your internals to temporarily freeze, and your pace to quicken? Your lungs took part of the wall of what the Chinese call “stinky tofu”. These vendors provide dinner to passer-bys, and sometimes a quick treat on the way home from work. Cantaloupe on a stick, slices of watermelon, fried sweet-potato chips, grilled pancake looking things…and those fried cubes.

I am all about trying new things, but stinky tofu is where my stomach draws the line.

Our first "Dinner on the Street": grilled corn and "egg pancake burrito" with potato slivers & lettuce