User Comments - bodawei

Posted on: Inside the Baozi Business

'bong[o] van' .. an ancestor of the Tarago for those too young to remember.

Posted on: Inside the Baozi Business

There is no law against eating guotie in Australia. :) But I haven't seen any for sale; but then I am more likely to be looking for pig's ear. No reflection on guotie, it is wonderful food. In my experience guotie is breakfast food so you are less likely to see it on sale at regular restaurants that focus on lunch and dinner.

Truth is I generally avoid Chinese restaurants in Australia. Particularly when accompanying Chinese friends. I took one friend visiting from the mainland to Chinatown and made the mistake of asking him if he liked the food. 'No.' He said. [Brief pause in conversation and slight embarrassment.] With another visiting friend I thought I'd be more cautious and suggested looking at a couple of Chinese restaurants and she just said 'let's go to Pizza Hut'.

Posted on: Inside the Baozi Business

Hi svik

Thanks for your explanation of pot-sticker and excuse my irreverent rant on the subject with RJ, we are having a not so private joke about Aust v US terminology. I too used to enjoy fried jiaozi, just never heard them referred to as guo tie. Cheers.

Posted on: Inside the Baozi Business

Hi RJ

I can picture you there on the edge of your seat, tongue firmly in cheek. ::)

I actually didn't know they were fried jiaozi; I thought fried jiaozi were fried jiaozi. I thought guo tie were guo tie, and being less than expert on this, the only ones I actually ate (when I ate gluten) were not jiaozi at all, they were mantou fried on a flat plate, beautiful and sweet where they got slightly burnt. That was in country Sichuan.

This pot-sticker word didn't come to Australia and personally that makes me happy. I agree that some Chinese words are a little hard to pronounce, but I'm going hard-line; I reckon force those Americans to use the right word or starve. Pot-sticker seems to be one of the least useful words of all time - I mean we survive in Australia without it. :)

Posted on: Inside the Baozi Business

Baba (and Pretzl) - nice one. :)

I gather that you are both showing compassion to ChinesePod .. they can't help themselves. Recidivists. I like jokey headlines in the main, if they're clever or even just plain funny. This one veers towards the clever end. I had visions of looking inside a baozi, which is not such a smart thing to do.

Posted on: Inside the Baozi Business

I agree with you that the show title is misleading to some extent - but this is the sub-editor's revenge. Newspapers often have jokey headlines that conceal the real content - ChinesePod is following a long tradition.

Posted on: What's in a name?

I didn't know that .. one variation of Dawei to stay away from? :)

Posted on: Inside the Baozi Business

包子 was my first meal in mainland China. I thought I had somehow gone to heaven.

Actually I think 菜包子 should be treated with caution - the 肉包子 are always safer (sorry vegetarians.) You can get some very weird tasting vegetable fillings. It's like the difference between a red wine made from a single grape variety and one made from two or three. If you don't like that one variety of stuffing you are .. stuffed.

Posted on: Inside the Baozi Business

Any show discussing food is going to get my vote - enjoyed it a lot.  

There is a regional perspective to this - I found some of the comments odd presumably because of the difference between Shanghai and the rest of the country. (I acknowledge reference to the 'north' for comarison, but really the country is broken into a dozen regions at least when it comes to food; really many more than this when it comes down to it.)  馒头 is not really used as an over-arching term like this where I live, despite the dictionary definition. 馒头 where I live refers to bread of a certain SHAPE.  But I have come across it being used more generally, in 山东 Shandong for example.   

So disappointed I didn't hear reference to 馄饨 húntún (wonton), at least after half the show.  Apologies if it came up later.  I recommend these as the BEST breakfast in Shanghai - go to a place where you watch them being made, and then cooked for you.   

‘Pot-sticker' - can anyone give us some history on this word - Jason's comment made me think that English-speakers should know what this means more so than 锅贴 - I puzzled over this ‘Pot-sticker' word written in English books about China. Is it a word used in the US for some related food product?  Or is it just a direct translation of the Chinese commonly used by Americans?  And why?  Why wouldn't you just use the Chinese?  I have never quite come to grips with this word.  :)  Also I was puzzled by someone (David?) saying that a 锅贴 was 'like' a 'fried 饺子'. 

It would be interesting to hear from different people what constitutes a regular breakfast in different parts of the country.  

But - all in all a great program, thanks.  

Posted on: Discussing Basketball Teams

I like this:

"The use of 'geilivable' in People's Daily, for example, is OK, so long as people see it as 'geilivable'," the official said. ???

I also find the subject interesting but in my experience the English side of the fun is too sophisticated - I don't know any Chinese people who would really 'get it' in all cases. Not to say it won't appeal to some, but it would be a very elite group. So .. the government has made this ruling that reacts to something that is probably quite benign; won't be the first or last time.