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It's street food time again! And this time it's another of my favourites. In the past you've seen me show 肉夹馍 (ròujiāmó) which is my favourite Chin...

https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/823064642...

This is the menu board for the street food stall called "公安国际锅盔" (Public Security International Guokui). The menu lists various types of guokui with prices ranging from 5 to 20 yuan. The items include original, sweet, meat, preserved vegetable, chicken, "strange flavor," deluxe, beef, mixed fillings, and a super deluxe beef option. The QR codes are for digital payment.

The stall owner is a fast mover. Before I could even raise my phone he had the lump of dough that was prepared already out and was putting the stuffing in. I chose my favourite: 梅干菜 (méigāncài, "preserved mustard greens") so that's what he's folding into it right now.

Once he folds in the filling, the lump of stuffed dough gets rolled out in a long and thin ellipse, getting lightly oiled in the process. Again, this guy moves FAST. Here you see about two seconds into the process. Before I could line up another shot he'd moved on to the next step.

This next step is sticking his hand inside the oven (basically something like a 50 gallon drum lined in concrete shaped in a certain way). These kinds of guokui are made rather like how naan bread is made, and indeed the traditional ovens are made of clay. Modern ovens are more durable, using steel and concrete instead, but the effect is the same: hot stone aggregate that the carefully-made dough sticks to while it gets almost fried on one side while baked on the other.

I mentioned before that he moves quickly, right? I'm sure I did. Again, he had it in and his hand withdrawn before I could line up the shot.

This is what the inside of the oven looks like, the flatbread stuck to the side and the coal in the bottom glowing underneath a fine mesh grille. The dough is still white, and you can see through the thinner parts the dark green of the filling. If you look carefully at the edges, though, you can already see the browning beginning.

These are the tongs used to extract the bread later. He has them positioned for convenience right now, with the head of the tongs just above the flatbread.

Later he will step in and slide the flat lower side of the tongs behind the bread. As it falls off the side, he deftly captures it in the tongs. Again, this is not something I could capture in time.

At a point where the back is thoroughly crisped and the top still light, he takes the flatbread and holds it top-side down in the heat of the coals for a few extra seconds. This is because I asked for it "crisp". (You can have "soft" or "crisp" as options. I love both, but today I ordered "crisp".)

Finally here's the product. There's two here because I actually ordered two, but you can get a feel for the shape and size from this. At this point the flatbread is very surface-crisp with that little bit of sweet the browning adds, while the filling of mustard greens scents the air and in the lower one, makes itself barely visible through the dough.

Though crisp, it's also chewy, giving it a magnificent mix of textures, pairing with the meigancai's dark, earthy flavour in delightful ways.

Yes, I do slightly prefer 肉夹馍, but VERY slightly only. This is another powerhouse of Chinese street food culture.

It's street food time again! And this time it's another of my favourites. In the past you've seen me show 肉夹馍 (ròujiāmó) which is my favourite Chinese street food. It is my favourite, however, by a very slender margin because today's essay will introduce you a very close second.

This is 锅盔 (guōkuī, literally “pot helmet”), a crispy, stuffed flatbread that looks like a little bread helmet (hence the name). It's a very popular street food all around China, and though its source is 陕西 (Shaanxi), local variations are everywhere. This is the Hubei variant (obviously).

I apologize in advance for some of the photo quality, but this man moves QUICKLY and it's hard to keep up with him. I'll try to explain the bits missed from photo to photo in the alt text.

If you're seeing this on Mastodon, you will have to click through to get all the pictures.

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#StreetFood #中国 #陕西 #锅盔 #China #Shaanxi #flatbread

30.4.2025 05:25It's street food time again! And this time it's another of my favourites. In the past you've seen me show 肉夹馍 (ròujiāmó) which is my favourite Chin...
https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/823064642...

I've actually posted pictures of these before, but back then I had only a vague understanding of what they were and what they meant. Since then I've ...

https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/821941180...

This charm's front side features a 符箓 (fú lù, or perhaps "power glyph") at the top, the precise meaning of which is uncertain. (There are literally tens of thousands of fulu, and my sole-small-dictionary of them doesn't happen to include this one.) From context, however, this appears to be an invocation for controlling spirits or nature-the two being largely synonymous in religious Daoism. Underneath it is the text saying "Five Thunder Command," indicating the type of talisman this is.

The flip side of this talisman features the actual invocation. This is presented in four sections, using older character forms that can be challenging to reconcile with modern Chinese. Based on my own knowledge, assistance from a friend, and some work with translation tools, here is my best interpretation:

First, across the top, reading right to left, we find 煞震驱 (Shà zhèn qū), which translates to "Demonic Destruction Expel."

Next, the rightmost column, read top-down, states 道通天地鬼神欽 (Dào tōng tiāndì guǐshén qīn): "The Dao connects Heaven and Earth; ghosts and spirits revere." I'm quite confident in this reading.

The central column, with its slightly larger characters, reads 雷霆霹靂霆 (Léitíng pīlì tíng): "Thunder, lightning, thunderclap." While I'm confident in this character reading, it's unclear whether this is a continuation of the top three characters or a separate element related to the Five Thunder Command.

Finally, the far-left column reads 法顯陰陽龍虎伏 (Fǎ xiǎn yīnyáng lóng hǔ fú): "The Law manifests Yin and Yang; dragon and tiger submit." Again, I'm reasonably confident in the reading, and the context aligns with the talisman's purpose: commanding spirits to conform to divine law.

This charm is significantly more ornate than the first one. On this side, there are three sections: a top three-column section, a middle horizontal section, and a bottom three-column section again.

The top reads, to my best ability to decipher:

Middle: 五雷號令 (Wǔ Léi Hào Lìng): "Five Thunder Command." This identifies the type of the talisman.

Right: 驱邪降福 (Qū xié jiàng fú): "Expel evil, descend blessing." The charm is more than a protection charm; it's also a blessing charm, intended to ward off evil and bring blessings.

Left: 勅召萬神 (Chì zhào wàn shén): "Imperial command summons myriad spirits." This invokes the Heavenly Emperor in commanding the spirits.

The middle two horizontal lines are a bit of a challenge. The characters are dense and somewhat unclear, rendered in an older style. I'm not particularly certain of this transcription and translation as a result. Still:

Line 1: 霹靂震 (Pīlì zhèn): "Thunderclap, shake/awe" or "Thunderclap, shock." This charm REALLY means what it says.

Line 2: 驅邪輔正出 (Qū xié fǔ zhèng chū): "Drive away evil, assist the righteous, issue forth." This is the line I'm least certain of character-wise, so take this with a huge grain of salt. It seems to fit, but I may be huffing glue here.

The bottom is a mess translation-wise. I'm reasonably confident in the right and left columns:

Right: 精邪速滅 (Jīng xié sù miè): "Essence evil, quickly perish."

Left: 勒召萬神 (Lè zhào wàn shén): "Rein in, Summon myriad spirits."

The middle, however, is a mess that I can't quite make heads or tails of. It seems, perhaps, to be sinocized Sanskrit seed sounds (mantras; there's quite a bit of crossover between Buddhism and esoteric Daoism), and I'm not sure that translation is actually possible.

Another convoluted piece that's hard to break down. Here we start with the middle column. It reads 元陽上帝 (Yuán yáng shàngdì): "Primordial Yang Supreme Deity." Underneath that is a very ornate fulu (which, needless to say, I don't have in my small dictionary of them). So exactly what this charm is for can only be inferred by the invocations that surround it.

Flanking this central column of text are the characters 霄 (xiāo): "heaven" to the right and 霆 (tíng): "thunderclap" to the left, hammering home the "Five Thunder Command" nature of this talisman.

The rightmost column in the smaller characters reads 天都天都震動萬靈 (tiān dōu tiān dōu zhèn dòng wàn líng): "The Heavens in totality shake and move all myriad spirits."

The matching leftmost column reads 電震一震隨令降臨 (diàn zhèn yī zhèn suí lìng jiàng lín): "May lightning swiftly descend by command, dispelling all evil with a single strike!"

I've actually posted pictures of these before, but back then I had only a vague understanding of what they were and what they meant. Since then I've learned a thing or ten, and I can provide far more information.

These are brass charms whose inscriptions are filled with cinnabar/vermilion. They're intended to be hung, and in this case, are most probably intended to be suspended from a car's rear view mirror. (There's a lot of this going on here: people suspending Buddhist and/or Daoist charms from their rear view mirrors.)

In this case, these are Daoist charms of the 令牌 (lìng pái, or idiomatically, perhaps "edict talisman") variety from the 神霄派 (Shénxiāo Pài) school of religious Daoism. Specifically, they are called 五雷號令 (Wǔ Léi Hào Lìng, or "Five Thunder Command") edicts.

There is a lot of ceremony and culture surrounding 五雷號令 charms, which can range from invoking them with priestly authority in long (sometimes months-long!) ceremonies to simply using them as protective charms. They are often carved in wood, stamped on yellow paper, or inscribed into bronze or brass, depending on the purpose, the specific use, and, too, on aesthetics.

The alt text will have more information as usual, including what limited translation and explanation I can provide.

#道教 #神霄派 #令牌 #五雷號令 #Daoism #ShenxiaoSchool #EdictTalisman #FiveThunderCommand

27.4.2025 03:00I've actually posted pictures of these before, but back then I had only a vague understanding of what they were and what they meant. Since then I've ...
https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/821941180...

Today is snack day. Or condiment. Or cooking ingredient. Because this can be all three. 香辣脆 (Xiāng là cuì or "Fragrant, Spicy, Crispy") is a weird...

https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/821245544...

The side contains all the product information. Most importantly the ingredients:

Ingredients: 辣椒 (Làjiāo) Chili peppers, 食用植物油 (Shíyòng zhíwùyóu) Edible vegetable oil, 小麦粉 (Xiǎomài fěn) Wheat flour, 食用玉米淀粉 (Shíyòng yùmǐ diànfěn) Edible corn starch, 复配膨松剂 (Fùpèi péngsōngjì) Compound leavening agent (mix of):

碳酸钙 (Tànsuān gài) Calcium carbonate, 碳酸氢钠 (Tànsuānqīng nà) Sodium bicarbonate
葡萄糖酸-δ-内酯 (Pútáotáng suān-δ-nèizhǐ) Glucono-delta-lactone,
焦磷酸二氢二钠 (Jiāolínsuān èrqīng èr nà) Sodium acid pyrophosphate,
柠檬酸 (Níngméngsuān) Citric acid, 淀粉 (Diànfěn) Starch,
食用盐 (Shíyòng yán) Edible salt, 鸡精调味料 (Jījīng tiáowèi liào) Chicken seasoning,

(continuing) 芝麻 (Zhīma) Sesame, 香辛料 (Xiāngxīnliào) Spices, 小苏打 (Xiǎosūdǎ) Baking soda

Here we have the jar opened and some of the contents poured into the lid for inspection. This is very dry, and very crisp and it will burn like Hell if you're not immune to pepper.

Today is snack day. Or condiment. Or cooking ingredient. Because this can be all three.

香辣脆 (Xiāng là cuì or "Fragrant, Spicy, Crispy") is a weird little thing that can be eaten straight (typically with alcohol, like bar peanuts), or it can be thrown on top of food to give it a bit of bite and crunch, or it can be straight-up used as an ingredient in some dishes.

It's made by making a paste of wheat flour, some leavening, and some sesame, cramming it inside finger chilis, then deep-frying that until its crisp. Personally I eat them like potato chips but that's because I have a cast-iron tongue. And throat. And stomach. And ... ah ... the other end.

This is probably vicious for most North Americans, but in small doses, perhaps mixed with peanuts to cut down the burn, it would be great.

More info in the alt text as usual.

#Chinese #Snack #香辣脆 #FragrantSpicyCrispy

25.4.2025 04:56Today is snack day. Or condiment. Or cooking ingredient. Because this can be all three. 香辣脆 (Xiāng là cuì or "Fragrant, Spicy, Crispy") is a weird...
https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/821245544...

So here's a bit more of my divination stuff. I should stress that I don't think divination tools have any predictive validity. I am, however, fascin...

https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/820881790...

This is the more usual form of Yijing dice. In this case the dice are made of zinc coated with bronze. The d6 and one of the d8s is inked in blue, the other d8 is inked in red.

This form of Yijing dice puts the *name* of the trigram on each face which makes it harder for beginners to use, and even harder than that for people who can't read Chinese to use. (The fact that the trigrams have names along with the hexagrams of the Yijing often comes as a surprise to people who start to dig deeper into it.)

This is a more modern take on Yijing dice. The dice are plastic d8 and d6 blanks that have hard stickers, it seems, on each face. The stickers are rounded a bit so the dice actually roll really well. Unfortunately the writing on the dice is white and the sides are very colourful; on several faces the white does not stand out well as a result, a problem exacerbated by the fact that the surfaces are very glossy. This makes them a bit hard to read.

On the other hand, these dice are labelled with the name of the trigram, the actual trigram diagram, and the ordinal number 1-8. This allows these dice to be used with several different interpretation tools, giving you flexibility in looking things up.

There does not appear to be any meaning to which colours are associated with which numbers beyond "this looked cool" or something. (MAYBE it has something to do with Wuxing classification, but I'm not sure. The fact there are five colours, however, instead of eight, is telling.)

So here's a bit more of my divination stuff. I should stress that I don't think divination tools have any predictive validity. I am, however, fascinated with them as a way of breaking out of thought ruts; of forcing myself to look at things from a different perspective.

This, again, is based on the 易经 (Yìjīng or I-Ching or Book of Changes or Classic of Changes or ...) divination techniques. Over the history of the Yijing the tools used to divine from it have changed with changes in technology and style from the now-lost original yarrow stalk approach (very slow and meditative), to the coins approach (faster, but still ritualistic), to the new yarrow stalk approach (back to very slow), to bamboo slips (effectively like cards), to tiles, to actual cards, to even dice.

And these are obviously the dice.

There are a pair of eight-sided dice in each set, and a six-sided die. The eight-sided dice have on each face a trigram: the pair together form a hexagram. The role of the six-sided die...

Well here is where the "moving lines" of the Yijing come into play. See the traditional divination forms (yarrow stalks and coins) generate line by line *and* provide for fixed lines and "moving" lines: lines that flip. So when you generate a hexagram, anywhere from 0 to 6 lines will flip, giving you TWO hexagrams to look up and interpret.

Well, the die is a way of generating one of them. The lines, numbered 1-6 from bottom to top, are counted from the six-sided die roll and that line is flipped, *always* giving you a moving line (but only one). So if you're using dice to consult the Yijing, you always have two hexagrams that are mildly different from each other to look up. (This puts them above slips and cards for variety.)

More details, as usual, in the alt text.

(P.S. Stay tuned for a solo RP supplement based on the Yijing. I'm working on that for publication.)

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#易经 #Yijing #I-Ching #BookOfChanges #dice #divination

24.4.2025 04:51So here's a bit more of my divination stuff. I should stress that I don't think divination tools have any predictive validity. I am, however, fascin...
https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/820881790...

This is a 口弦 (kǒu xián or south-east Asian jaw harp) of the 傈僳族 (Lìsù Zú or Lisu People) of 云南 (Yúnnán). This particular one is a functional instrume...

https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/819468069...

This is the kouxian slipped inside its protective case. The individual blades of the jaw harp can be seen in the slit carved into the top, while the rope that binds them together can be seen coming out the bottom, connecting to the pouch and corresponding tassels. Seen edge-on, four brass blades can be worked out.

To play the instrument you slip out the blades and fan them out. I've fanned them out wider than you'd usually use to play the instrument to show how each blade is made.

Each blade is a free reed painstakingly cut into a piece of brass sheet. The edges are bent inward at the narrow end to form a bit of mouth protection, while the outside end is the striker, You press the frame against your lips with your mouth open and strike the striker to get the reed vibrating. The sound's pitch can be altered by shaping the mouth or breathing (very lightly) in and out. There are multiple blades to get multiple bass pitches.

In this case my kouxian has four rounded-end blades. Others will have squared-end blades. There is no real difference in sound between these; it's more a case of æsthetics. These instruments tend to come with two, three (most common), four, or even five blades to give a broader range of sounds.

This is mostly played extemporaneously, in effect "noodling around" as a form of self-expression. The instrument is literally thousands of years old (though the original ones were made from carefully cut bamboo, not brass).

This is a 口弦 (kǒu xián or south-east Asian jaw harp) of the 傈僳族 (Lìsù Zú or Lisu People) of 云南 (Yúnnán). This particular one is a functional instrument, but gussied up for decorative/tourist purposes with a colourfully painted bamboo shell, colourful woven pouch (in this case just stuffed with batting, but more traditionally would contain medicinal herbs), and long tassels.

As is usual, more information on each picture can be found in the alt text.

A demonstration of the instrument can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs7qn1j11nI

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#中国 #云南省 #傈僳族 #口弦 #乐器 #China #Yunnan #LisuPeople #JawHarp #MusicalInstrument

20.4.2025 07:13This is a 口弦 (kǒu xián or south-east Asian jaw harp) of the 傈僳族 (Lìsù Zú or Lisu People) of 云南 (Yúnnán). This particular one is a functional instrume...
https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/819468069...

This is street food at its finest. 肉夹馍 (ròujiāmó), sometimes called (but never by me!) the "Chinese hamburger", is comfort/fast food from 陕西 (Shǎnxī ...

https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/818355522...

This is an overview of the little motor cart as the vendor starts on my order. I'm having the bog-standard "five flower fatty meat" version (because it's the best) and here we see the "mo" (dry-fried flatbread) stack in the foreground, the frying surface to the right, and just peeking in the pots with the various fillings available on the right.

The man worked fast. By the time I got my phone out he'd already chopped up my veg choice (coriander, pepper, and chives) and had inserted the meat chunks, ready to mince that into the veg.

In the background, to the left, you can see a little hint of the HUGE collection of street food carts where I got this.

Here is a more detailed look at the mincing process (along with some of the prospective ingredients for various versions of the dish). By this point the dish is almost ready to insert into the "mo", with the meat and veg fairly evenly blended.

This guy only uses the one knife. Some vendors go even faster by using two knives. It sounds like machine gun fire when they do.

Now the minced product is inserted into the sliced mo. Not shown is the step where he then drizzles some of the marinade over the meat and veg blend as a final step.

And here we have the final product, presented and ready to eat. The flavour is indescribably complex. You have the intense umami of the meat itself paired with the complex spices and the added little twist of soy sauce. The fat gives it all a nice coating that aids in the mouthfeel while the veg and the various different types of muscle tissue give the chew some interesting texture.

This is street food at its finest. 肉夹馍 (ròujiāmó), sometimes called (but never by me!) the "Chinese hamburger", is comfort/fast food from 陕西 (Shǎnxī or Shaanxi) province that has spread all over China. As with hamburgers the constituent ingredients can vary, but in general include:

1. Stewed fatty meat (usually pork), braised in a broth with dozens (!) of spices for many hours (often over a day). The meat is usually cooked skin-on to provide a variety of textures in the final product. Spices include star anise, Sichuan peppercorns, and licorice root as essentials, along with soy sauce and dozens of other spice mixes (each vendor has their own recipe).

2. Assorted vegetables, usually green peppers, coriander, and chives these days.

3. A particular variety of flatbread made in the same way as steamed buns (so rolled), but flattened and baked or fried instead of steamed.

This is one of the world's oldest sandwiches, with all the basic ingredients (minus the chilies obviously) in place by c.256 B.C., though naturally there have been innovations and variations over the centuries since. (That being said, today's version would be recognized by anybody from 2200 years ago as being of the same type.)

This is expensive, though.

9RMB, or about US$1.25. (For reference, a basic McDonald's hamburger—which is less food and FAR less flavour—is about 11RMB.) But you get what you pay for.

More information on specifics in the alt text of each photo.

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#StreetFood #China

17.4.2025 05:32This is street food at its finest. 肉夹馍 (ròujiāmó), sometimes called (but never by me!) the "Chinese hamburger", is comfort/fast food from 陕西 (Shǎnxī ...
https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/818355522...

So I needed a tea for my office. The water supply there is kinda crap, and I don't want to start messing around with bringing my own water filtration...

https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/814392823...

The stage is set with my double-walled glass and basket set to one side, the tea on a piece of paper that has some decorative stamps (because I'm a hopeless nerd), the bag for my bamboo scroll of The Classic of Tea, and the scroll itself. The covering cloth is black this time. (I rotate through four colours when doing these photo shoots.)

This is a detail shot of the tea looking straight down at it, showing its colour and shape in contrast to the white paper backdrop. (This is also a better look at the decorative stamps, consisting of a blend of dragon and feng motifs as well as traditional tea motifs.)

The tea during the wash. The scents coming from it are the usual grassy smells you get from fresh green, with a bit of a nutty note along with, weirdly, a slightly fishy scent.

The fishy scent washed away clean, however, so I'm chalking that up to just an oddity of this particular tea.

Now the tea is properly brewing and in the time it took to pour, cover, and get my phone ready for the photo, it already has the "bingo point" colour. I'm afraid this particular brew is going to turn out overbrewed.

As predicted, the time it took to get everything ready for taking a photo took the tea over the edge, and now that telltale hint of orange from an overbrewed green is showing.

This isn't disastrous. Just be aware when messing with teas like this that it's VERY easy to overbrew them. It's a "blink and it's too late" kind of thing.

That being said, the taste is good. It's rich and complex, as would be expected from a Xinyang maojian, and it has that dark note that I need to be able to power past the gross water at work.

Mission accomplished.

So I needed a tea for my office. The water supply there is kinda crap, and I don't want to start messing around with bringing my own water filtration, etc. My colleagues think I'm weird enough as it is….

This tea hits the spot. It's a 毛尖茶 (máojiān chá, a grade of tea made from tips that still have the fine hairs on them) from …

Yeah, this gets complicated.

The tea itself is grown in 河南信阳 (Xinyang, Henan), one of the most famous regions of tea growth—especially for maojian teas—though for some reason it was packaged in 湖南省益阳市 (Yiyang, Hunan). It was picked, according to records, on February 6, 2025, making it the last flush of winter tea. Winter teas tend to be heavier-flavoured teas without the light notes of spring teas or the complex aromas of autumn teas. This means it's cheaper, naturally, but it's also suited to poor quality water: the stronger, darker flavour is perfect for cutting through the water's unpleasant mouthfeel and taste.

OK, maybe it wasn't all that complicated.

Note that as a winter tea it's not the premium grade, but this is still a high-grade tippy tea. It lacks the buds of the truly top-grade teas, but it is all tippy leaves and processed very well. It is a respectable tea, not Salada-grade garbage.

As usual more information is in the alt text and Mastodon users will have to click through to see all the photos.

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#茶 #毛尖茶 #河南信阳 #tea #MaojianTea #XinyangHenan

@ZDL@ZDL@mstdn.social

6.4.2025 07:06So I needed a tea for my office. The water supply there is kinda crap, and I don't want to start messing around with bringing my own water filtration...
https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/814392823...

So, I've got two tea presentations ready to go, but because I'm too lazy to do all the writing today, I'll be holding off on those until I upload one ...

https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/814132258...

The back label contains the required information for all food products in China. The important bits translate to:

Product Name: Sichuan Old Cellar Liquor
Aroma Type: Strong Aroma
Ingredients: Water, Sorghum, Rice, Sticky Rice, Wheat, Corn, Jiuqu (the starter)
Production Date and Batch Number: See Bottle Cap (2022/03/20 it turns out: that is the date of brewing, likely).
Place of Origin: Deyang, Mianzhu, Sichuan
Address: Gao Feng Village, Fuxin Town, Mianzhu City

It then adds the following cute warning: Excessive drinking is harmful to your health.

(It's not always all about the health, dammit! 😆)

I poured a shot and set it next to the bottle. The shot is a double. (A double of 52%ABV, yes. OOOOH! SCARY!) Nothing else really to add here.

$And here's a closeup of the shot. The glass itself is a fairly standard double-sized shot glass. It has a very thick bottom (to help keeping it upright) with a flaring rim. The liquid fills about 3/4 of the glass, and even with the flaring rim and the short amount of time post-pour that this photo was taken some "angel's tears" or "legs" are starting to form. The liquor itself is flawlessly transparent, with no visible impurities beyond a bubble or two left over from the pour. It reflects ambient light nicely, and refracts it nicely as well. Sitting there, it's filling the space (next to a wide open window!) with a floral sweet scent with interesting notes of pineapple and banana. And anise? Something sharp and spicy for certain. Immediately after taking this photo I tossed back the shot and was pleasantly surprised at how smooth it was. Given that this was only the three-year cellar process (in the enormous clay jars) this is astonishingly smooth. I've had older liquors that were harsher than this. The master distiller certainly knew what he was doing when brewing and distilling this hooch. And at just a bit over 12RMB (US$2 at the time, though that won't last long now that the world has gone a bit dumber) this is an incredible find.$

So, I've got two tea presentations ready to go, but because I'm too lazy to do all the writing today, I'll be holding off on those until I upload one of them tomorrow.

Today instead I present some booze.

Because when I'm not enjoy the sweet brew of Camelia sinensis I'm getting my brain damaged by sweet, sweet ethanol.

(OK, I'm not quite as much a lush as I make myself out to be. I rarely have more than two shots a week, sometimes three.)

Today's hooch is a 52%ABV 浓香 (nóngxiāng or "strong scented") 白酒 (báijiǔ or "liver? I hardly know'er!") from Sichuan. This is a multigrain one with sorghum (of course!), but also rice, sticky rice, wheat, and maize. The 大曲 (dàqū or "fermentation starter") is likely made of wheat and barley infested with the right microbes: a complex of bacterial and fungal spores. The production technique is of the 老窖 (lǎojiào or "old cellar") variety where the fermented and distilled product is stored in huge pottery jars buried in clay pits for up to three years before bottling (or further aging directly in clay in the case of very expensive booze).

This particular example is made in 四川德阳绵竹 (Mianzhu, Deyang, Sichuan), a region (justly) famed for its alcoholic beverage production. I got it for a steal as a loss leader from the distillery; they really put their best foot forward for this one; consult the alt text for details.

As usual alt text has description and details. As UNusual, Mastodon users don't have to click through. All the pictures are visible.

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#白酒 #四川 #浓香 #老窖 #baijiu #Sichuan #StrongScented #OldCellar

@ZDL@mstdn.social

5.4.2025 13:50So, I've got two tea presentations ready to go, but because I'm too lazy to do all the writing today, I'll be holding off on those until I upload one ...
https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/814132258...

It's spring time and thus flowers time. Things are brightening up around me so time to start sharing flower pictures. Today's offerings are some Kwa...

https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/810763053...

Close-up of two fully open Kwanzan cherry blossoms, a vibrant shade of pink, with multiple layers of delicate petals. The center of the blossoms shows tiny, darker details. Fresh, bright green leaves surround the blooms on a brown branch. The picture is taken angled upward, with an out-of-focus background that includes more distant leaves, and the side of a modern building as well as a bit of the overcast sky.

A close-up shot of a blossoming magnolia tree, its bare branches filled with vibrant pink flowers in various stages of bloom. In the foreground, slightly out of focus, a large, partially opened flower dominates the view, its smooth petals showcasing a gradient of pink hues. Other blossoms, some still tightly budded, dot the branches, creating a dense floral display. Behind the tree is a glimpse of a modern building with dark windows and green foliage at its base, offering some depth to the photo.

A branch of a Japanese Flowering Plum, showcasing a pair of its elegant white flowers with pink centers. Coppery-red foliage adds a vibrant contrast. The two solitary blossoms are framed by an urban background with a modern building to the left and a patch of sky to the right, along with some parked cars and distant trees.

It's spring time and thus flowers time. Things are brightening up around me so time to start sharing flower pictures.

Today's offerings are some Kwanzan cherry blossoms, some tulip magnolias, and some Japanese flowering plums. These are all popular trees in grounds around Wuhan, and the business park I'm in uses them extensively, along with others. (They're actually very careful to ensure that there are blooming trees most times outside of winter.)

Some more details in alt text.

#flowers #cherry #plum #magnolia #spring

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@ZDL@ZDL@mstdn.social

27.3.2025 06:42It's spring time and thus flowers time. Things are brightening up around me so time to start sharing flower pictures. Today's offerings are some Kwa...
https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/810763053...

So I've grown weary of Wuhan's weather mocking me with sunny weeks but gloomy weekends that prevent me from taking good photos of tea. Today I'm going...

https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/808546994...

This little keychain is a 求签筒 (lot casting cylinder) stripped down to its bare essence: a milled brass tube, narrowing a little at the middle and flaring out mildly at each end to invoke the feeling of a piece of bamboo. I've set it on a 5mm grid so you can see that it's about 3.5cm tall and 1.5cm wide. Inscribed on this side is a large, complex piece of calligraphic text I have no hope of decoding. (If anybody in the audience can transliterate and translate it, I will put this translation here along with credit.) The keychain itself a small piece of dark brown knotwork with plastic decorations meant to resemble agate beads, gold and lapis lazuli decorations, and even turquoise beads with golden "hats". It's very cheap material, but the appearance is decent for the price.

The other side of the brass tube reveals more text. There are four characters across the top I can't make out, plus a large character that I am guessing (educatedly) has the ancient seal script form of the character 签 (meaning "fortune").

To show how the system works, I've unscrewed the business end and taken out four metal strips with a T-shaped base. The lid I opened has a little slit milled into it that is large enough, with some shaking, to get one of these four strips to come out, but not enough to get two. The T base stops the slip from falling out all the way. The strips are labelled, left to right, 上上签、上签、中签、下签 which, as stated in the main text, refer to "very good/good/mediocre/bad fortune" respectively. The strips are stamped stainless steel, it appears, and are about 3mm wide, with the T holding them inside when deployed about 5mm. They're maybe 1mm thick.

And here we have the assembled system deployed. I've shaken it until the reading has come out (in this case 上上签, so I got a good fortune!). This little keychain is basically the barest essence of the full 求签筒 system used in temples.

This picture begins the second batch of divination tools I'm presenting. This is one of many 易经 tools I've got (several of which are in the photo essay today) and my most recent purchase in the family. Portrayed are 64 metal slips each about 3.5×1.5cm in size, and about 1.5mm thick. Each end has some decorative work rounding it off and one end has a hole for stringing which I've used a cheap fake-leather thong to run through just to hold them together as a single mass. (You do not use them with the string, I just strung them together for ease of transportation.) Also in the picture are a fan-fold reference card, a mustard-coloured staple-bound reference book, and a black cotton bag. While the slips did come with a bag, I found that bag too large so I substituted this smaller bag in its place.

The side of the reference card facing up shows all of the hexagrams in the middle, along with their names, in an 8×8 grid in the binary counting order. This binary counting order is called 先天次序 (xiān tiān cì xù) and dates back to the 11th century, traditionally attributed to 邵雍 (Shao Yong), a Song Dynasty scholar. (So yes, China has been using a binary counting system for about a thousand years already.)

The circle around this square is the 文王卦序 (Wén Wáng guà xù). or King Wen sequence and is an enduring mystery of the Yijing. While some features are obvious (hexagrams are paired across the circle with their opposites), other features of the ordering are inobvious, possibly ordering by philosophical concepts, numerology, or even just some mnemonic device that hasn't survived to the modern age.

Rounding out the reference on this side are:

1. Details of trigram arrangement and meaning— 伏羲八卦 (fú xī bā guà), named after the legendary Fuxi, and which is the origin and foundation of Chinese philosophical concepts of Yin and Yang, cyclic change, and a few other things.

2. Mnemonic poems for trigrams (top right) and hexagrams (bottom left and right) to help remember them.

Here we have a pair of the metal slips in extreme close-up (or as close-up as my phone allows). On the left, we see the front face of slip 34, with the characters 第三十四卦 ("34th hexagram") in the rightmost column and 雷天大壮 (the name of the hexagram, "Thunder Over Heaven: Great Strength") in the leftmost. On the right, we instead see what I believe is the meaning of the 33rd hexagram, expressed in a pair of six-character antithetical couplets: in the rightmost column, 守旧去恶之象 ("a symbol of preserving tradition and removing evil"), and in the leftmost column, 掘井无泉之意 ("the idea of digging a well without finding a spring").

This picture now replaces the metal slips with some Yijing *cards*. These are slightly larger than standard western poker cards, and naturally there's 64 of them instead of 54. In the foreground is the front of hexagram 64 showing the hexagram itself, a brief summary of each line's name, and a general overview of the hexagram's name and meaning. To the left of this is the back of a card (in this case of hexagram 72) showing detailed line-by-line reading. The rest of the deck is above it, slid back to reveal the number of cards but no detail for any but the topmost.

The Yijing reference book from earlier pictures is opened here to show what such a book looks like in pure Chinese. This book has the same stuff that's on the card, but also adds the traditional commentaries you find (Ten Wings) that really explain the meanings better than the raw text.

The reference CARD is reversed as well and this contains more charts and diagrams, explanatory texts and technique descriptions, mnemonic devices, etc. Among these include the King Wen arrangement of the trigrams (which I really don't understand), some breakdowns of how the trigrams are to be used, tabular form at the bottom left and an interesting diagram that shows the division of trigrams into 2, 4, and 8 groups at the top right (that is mostly occluded by the card deck), along with the so-called River Diagrams immediately under the card deck.

I will not be explaining the River Diagrams (河圖洛書, Hétú Luòshū) to you. I would prefer to keep my sanity intact. These diagrams are the kind of things that make seasoned students of the Yijing go bald by hair-tearing. As one wise-ass put it to me: "Think of them as Heaven’s math homework, delivered via turtle shells and dragon-horses."

I'm not going to go into them. You can't make me.

We're in the closing stretch. Still the Yijing, still a reference card as well, but this time it's a different POCKET reference. Indeed TWO of them. But lets go from foreground to background.

In the immediate foreground are a set of Yijing dice. Two eight-sided dice marked by the *name* of each trigram (not the trigram itself), one inked red, the other blue, are paired with a six-sided die for generating the a moving line for divination. You throw the dice, red die being the bottom trigram, blue being the top, and the six-sider telling you which line switches. Right behind them, are three Yijing coins for the coin consulting method.

The dice and coins are arranged around a plasticized (I did that) pocket reference card that gives half of the hexagrams (8 across, 4 down) indexed by some way I can't work out. The flip side is the other half.

Behind it is another pocket-sized fanfold reference that contains much of the information (except for the massive King Wen diagram and binary counting diagram) found on the other card. It also contains explanations of trigrams, moving lines, mirrored hexagrams, etc.

Of particular interest is the diagram under the Fuxi arrangement of trigrams we previously saw. This is the table that was occluded by the card deck in the previous picture (and why I didn't bother trying to figure out how to move that deck and still have a decent picture). This table starts from the bottom with 8 columns, numbered right to left from 1 to 8, merged together in white labelled "太极". One line up the row is labelled “Two Polarities" (i.e. Yin and Yang) with 1-4 coloured red and labelled internally "yang", and 5-8 coloured black and labelled "yin". The next line up is split into four alternating pairs and labelled "Four ... Strengths? (maybe)"—literally it says four elephants—and in the top it has the "Eight Trigrams"

I don't pretend to understand that chart. Yet.

And we're at the end. I've just flipped the plasticized card over to show the rest of the hexagrams and turned the second reference card around. It continues with summaries of the features of the Yijing. Complete with the ...

*sigh*

... River Diagrams.

I'm not going to explain them here either. Sorry. Can't explain what causes mild brain trauma each time I try to work them out!

So I've grown weary of Wuhan's weather mocking me with sunny weeks but gloomy weekends that prevent me from taking good photos of tea. Today I'm going to instead offer pictures of divination systems, containing two major schools of divination: 求签筒 (qiú qiān tǒng or "fortune-seeking cylinder", sometimes called "casting lots') and the venerable 易经 (Yìjīng or "Book of Changes", a.k.a. I-Ching).

The 签筒 are typically bamboo cups with 100 inscribed bamboo slips with a number. You shake the cup until one slip falls out, that slip being your fortune. The number is a key to a fortune, read like astrology readings (i.e. vague and nigh-universal in application) which you can read yourself or get a priest to interpret. These can be found in Buddhist and Daoist temples (the latter often having 64 slips instead to index into the 易经 instead). The slips also have one of four general, overall ratings on them: 上上签，上签，中签，下签 meaning very good, good, average, or bad fortune respectively for a quick consultation. This will become important as you will see in the alt text.

The second part contains little metal imprints of the 易经, the third containing 易经 cards, the fourth containing photos of 易经 dice and coins. All of the 易经 materials are placed alongside extra printed material for full impact.

The 易经 is taken very seriously in China; it is the oldest systematic work of philosophy (albeit an unusually opaque one since the oral culture that spawned it and informed it is long lost and can only be pieced together in snippets). It is within its pages and system of hexagrams that you can find the roots of Daoism, of Confucianism, and also a deep influence on Chinese (and sinosphere in general) Buddhism. Which is why there are so many ways it is used (of which today's photo-essay is a small sampling!).

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Details in alt text, as usual, and Mastodon users will have to click through to see all photos.

#求签筒 #易经 #CastingLots #Yijing #IChing #ChineseCulture

@ZDL@mstdn.social

21.3.2025 03:57So I've grown weary of Wuhan's weather mocking me with sunny weeks but gloomy weekends that prevent me from taking good photos of tea. Today I'm going...
https://pxlfd.ca/p/ZDL/808546994...

zdl@pxlfd.ca

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