Crabs and polish
(Deep fried crabs on a stick: Shanghai, China)
Whilst in Shanghai on the search for food (incidentally one of our major pastimes) we happened upon a stall of deep fried goods. They had a golden crispy selection of small animals on sticks, little crunchy crabs, prawns and other crusty crustaceans. Ying made an excellent choice of a three crab stick and the seller plunged it back into the bubbling oil to freshen it up. It was handed over in a small tray because it was hot as flaming lava, so after paying a small fee we trotted off into the night bazaar with our glistening booty. I strongly recommend the sweet crunchy snack, but perhaps one greasy stick between two is enough.
Speaking of glistening, I was attacked by a boot polisher just outside the hotel as we left that morning. I was wearing a pair of boots, arguably in need of shining, but I’m particular about the polish I use on them, so a show shine in the street is not for me. Armed with a variety of tubes, cloths and brushes, he bent down to take a closer look at the scuffed leather exclaiming, “polish polish” the entire time. Each time I moved my feet away, accompanied by protestations in the negative, he would chase my feet round until the exchange came to an impasse. Regardless of my constant cries of “bu yao” (don’t want) he smeared my boot with a cloudy brown polish, to my utter horror.
Now it was stalemate. I had to decide whether to stay and try to convince him to remove the polish without having to pay for an unwanted service, or just to run away and wipe my shoe myself, thus driving home the unheeded message, “bu yao”. After a few seconds of further exchange where (having gotten over the initial surprise at the man’s audacity) I began to realise it was a case of run or full polish. We ran.
As an aside, the picture above was taken in front of a tea house in the night bazaar. That might explain the enromus teapot pouring a cup of giant tea in the background.
I remember that teapot!