Sports and food

Most of you probably know that I love sports and food a lot and that I could easily write a whole story about each one of them. Time wise it seems necessary to fit them both into one, and last week I found the perfect occasion: food poison.
Although food seems very important (and delicious) here in Asia, it still doesn't overrule the priority over sports for me. In the Netherlands dinner is being planned around training sessions, and that is not very different here. On Tuesdays there’s rugby practice, Wednesdays have kung fu practice, Thursdays come with another rugby session and Friday is the day for some more kung fu. I’ll readily admit I skip trainings, but usually dinner turns out to be around 6pm (before practice) or around 11pm (after practice).

After browsing the list of offered sports, kung fu sounded like a typical Asian or even Hong Kong sport to try and experience. There are many types of kung fu in China, and this student sports club practices three, being Tai Chi, Shaolin and Wing Chun. With Ip Man and Bruce Lee having major connections to this city, it might be one of the best places to try this type of martial arts, and Shaolin is also hard to find in the Western world, so either of those would be my pick.
It was obvious that both styles are very different from what I’d learnt before (judo or systema). It is very explicit and you practice mostly by yourself. Shaolin – from the cool Shaolin monks - has a lot of leg bending, difficult stances and moves over the floor quite a bit. If you've practiced long enough they might let you practice with one of the many painful looking weapons. Wing Chun has a lot of short arm movements, bare hands or a stick, and lets you practice with each other and focuses more on the practical use. Although I do like a challenge every now and then, practicing with others was just way more fun in my eyes, so I mostly practiced that style. Being in this sports club was interesting on so many levels. Seeing how it was thought, how it was practiced, what the styles focus on, how the reasoning behind moves can be, how a martial arts club is ran in comparison to my trusted club in Groningen and of course to learn some moves myself.

In the meantime, while I was getting settled at the office and was desperate for some physical activity, a colleague introduced me to the sport of rugby. It was not the first sport I would think of doing, but the people seemed very nice and it was quite fun to do. Convincing myself that rugby was a very HK thing because of the colonial history with the Britain and that I wasn't going to find a more typical HK sport besides Wing Chun, I decided to go with the flow and keep playing. This was one of the best decisions of my entire stay. What fun I've had playing with these girls.
At first they seemed a bit timid in their play, and small and light of posture of course, but they were really friendly and welcomed me into the group. I soon realized it’s about not wanting to hurt their friends. Three weeks after joining the Hong Kong University club, the coach (aka the colleague who invited me) let me play my first match and my teammates were much fiercer now. The tackling and pushing was much more heartfelt than during practice. The running was much faster and the team play looked very good to me. Maybe I was just being confused, what they say is a very natural thing if you've just started playing, or because I was doing scrums and line-outs almost all the time (because that’s what you do as prop). What I realized though, was that you really need your teammates to accomplish anything on the rugby pitch and that my fellow ‘unicorns’ were much tougher than I had seen before.
Once off the pitch everyone turned all cute and cuddly again, did group hugs and made ‘family portraits’ with the fellow teammates. Apologies for possibly inflicted harm were made and bruises became trophies of courage. They made for memories of giving your all for your teammates. Other than just playing a fun game, and meeting up for drinks or food, it’s really nice to feel like you belong, and that’s the feeling these girls give me. The cohesion in this group is amazingly strong, and it feels incredible to be part of it.

Unfortunately though, a week came in which sporting wasn't really an option energy wise. After some raw chicken – ironically, cooked by myself – I got food poison and it was natural to think about food. What would still be okay to eat and what is used in what cuisine? In any case I really wanted to stay put in the lab to run my experiment, and I was going to find a way to make it happen.

Indian food is known for its tomato based curries, thalis, dal, lamb, flat breads and for its many spices. It’s delicious but generally quite spicy food. Thai food also has some good curries, but the variety is big in this cuisine. It uses more coconut, more lemon grass, basil, pineapple, lime and fish. Still, it uses quite some spices. Malaysian food uses a lot of fruit. Malaysians put them in desserts, aperitifs and even in curries. They also use lemon grass, coconut and therefor their cuisine looks a bit like the Thai in that respect. The Indonesian cuisine seems the only one using peanut sauce (which I didn't know I missed ‘till I smelled it again). It also involves some lime, baked banana, beans and green leaves, but this is really not a very common cuisine to eat in Hong Kong so I didn't get a good view of that. What exactly distinguishes Cambodian and Vietnamese food is not completely clear yet to me. They use a lot of fish, and the Vietnamese seem incredible in combining flavours. Like the Thai they have some food wrapped into leaves, but it is the only cuisine in which I've had lotus stems, and that salad was truly magnificent. Tied for my first place for best food experience with that Vietnamese restaurant is a Korean one. Their typical items are kimchee and stone pot dishes and they are also amazing at combining flavours. Each ingredient by itself looks mildly interesting, but combined they look fantastic and taste even better. That leads me to the Japanese cuisine. The miso soup is nice, but what surprised me most was the sushi, or rather the maki (rolls) and gunkan maki (go look it up). Besides using many fishes and shellfish I've never tried before, they’re also experts at combining flavours. Combined with their skill in combining textures and colours they make eating a festivity by itself. Favourites are octopus balls (texture oddly reminds of bitterballen), soft shell crab with avocado and fois gras with mango.
That leaves me with the Chinese cuisine, but this is one that should be divided into provinces. Gladly for you, I haven’t had the chance to try most of them and I’ll stick to Sichuan, Yunnan and Cantonese. Sichuan is famous for its spiciness and their Sichuan pepper that gives a nice tingle to your tongue. Yunnan is a cuisine I hope to try in the next few weeks and should be using more cheese and maybe yak milk. What else it’s about will probably differ from what minority the cooks are from. Cantonese food is mainly pork and fried. Sometimes they use goose or tofu as well, but preferably fried and in combination with pork. Besides politeness I figured that that’s one of the few big differences between China and Japan. In Japan the food is very fresh, in China you fry your food and make sure it’s well done. A lesson I hope I've learned by now.

So in my days of despair my housemates, colleagues and friends were all being very considerate and gave tips on what to eat. Spicy food or big meals were a no go, but banana, toast, bland soup or apple were said to be okay. Eating lots of fruit and trying out different flavours of toast kept it interesting and luckily after only a few days I was ready for some nice and spicy curry again!

I could write another page about my birthday here and what people thought about the Dutch food I was sent, but for now that some items were accepted better than others. Thank you all for sending me all these messages and kind thoughts. It means a lot to know there is a warm home waiting for me when I get back. For now though I’ll be rounding up my work at the office, continue saying goodbye to my HK friends and prepare for my oncoming trip to Kunming, Vientiane, Bangkok and Phuket. I know phone reception and internet might be limited on the way, but that won’t keep me away. I’ll be ready to be amazed with more new experiences!