Snow in Xining

An overnight snowfall earlier this week turned Swinging Xining into a snow wonderland. Briefly...

Two days later the sun and human activity has melted the snow away, except for small patches of dirty brown in the city's nooks.

Is the Water Snake shedding her skin?

crusty snow underfoot is fun to walk through

xining's twin towers, home of teachers and missionaries

I've lost my momo!

If Austin Powers came to Swinging Xining, he could get his mojo back with a plate of these juicy and plump dumplings, called momos in Tibetan.

Lovingly stuffed by young Khampa boys in the kitchen of The Black Tent, these mashed potato dough pillows have kept us going in the culinary dark hole of Swinging Xining.

Despite a family of cheeky rats living in the rafters, the occasional guest appearance of my mojo-extinguishing Khampa-ex with his Bert Reynolds sidekick, and the owners' obsession with Phurbu T Namgyal (his CD is on repeat, repeat, repeat) this Yushu-owned Tibetan eatery is a veritable Friday-night treat. 

Here is a photographic ode to Xining's finest momos.

some tangkas need to be veiled like a young bride

lobsang, tastier than his potato momos

even the ceiling is beautiful at the black tent

Lobasang's older brother and now main man at the black tent

every table gets a pot of tea, in 3D. 

paying their respects

Loopy New Year

With 5,000 years of history, you'd think China would come up with a more sophisticated way of celebrating Lunar New Year.

Something beautiful. Something creative.

But the Lunar witches have the following three ingredients in their Chinese New Year cauldron:

1. sulphurous, dangerous, ear-splitting, pointless firecrackers. don't stop till you drop, sonny boy. they were banned in China until 2005.
2. Presents that range from cartons of teeth-rotting sweet milk to the liver-rotting shiny cases of rice wine.
did i mention eggs? 
3. Celine Dion singing in Chinese on the CCTV new year gala variety show!

in Hong Kong Chinese New year is rung in with flower shows, lion dances, and temple fairs. 

"You're wasted," I said to a very drunken Chinese man in Aili bakery. "I'm wasted," he parroted swaying ever so slightly as I bought my sliced wholewheat loaf. 

"Have you been at the baijiu (rice wine)?" I asked in Chinese. 

"Yes of course," he smiled. "All Chinese men must drink at New Year."

Indeed they must!

Here are some shots of the debris on my campus, the morning after. I'll leave you to guess which one is Celine's fault.

Exiting my apartment building

The entrance to my mansion

Cultural hegemony

Practicing depth of field. Empty firecracker crap

A nice tree. More depth of field practice. Pretty good if I say so myself.

A university building with smelly toilets

haunted university. pocket shot.

collateral damage

Swinging Xining

You've heard of the Swinging Sixties. Well they have nothing on Xining: the city of swingers. And Hui Muslims. Yes there are more mosques in this city than you can waggle a white skullcap at but in the meantime here are some white, black and pink shots of the swinging city. All snaps were taken on a Samsung child's smartphone with the snazzy little Vignette app for Android (available here for free).

Xining pretending to be Paris: Thoughtful man on bench, Qi Yi Lu, Swinging Xining

Swinging Xining cares for nature

Swinging Xining embraces alien cyclists

Kumbum Monastery: a teaser for the next post...