When much of the world thinks of Chinese food, do bread, dairy and dessert often come to mind? I’m not even referring to ingredients or dishes from hundreds or thousands of years ago, or Chinese restaurant kitchens adapted to local tastes.
My introduction to 馒头 (mántou), steamed wheat bread originally from northern China, is actually one of my fondest food memories. In 2004 I visited Singapore with my dad, and a couple of natives invited us to try chili crab. Not only was the crab delicious – but it was equally fun to sop up the chili sauce with fried mantou.
It’s easy to satisfy salty and umami cravings in China, but what if wanted to grab me somethin’ sweet?
From having lived all over Shenzhen, China – a city built by and on internal migration – I had come to get familiar with menus from regional Chinese cuisines. However, based on those experiences, there seemed to be no better way to conclude a meal drowned in reused cooking oil and loaded with MSG than by getting served A) sliced tomatoes covered in granulated sugar, B) caramelized potatoes that will singe your mouth or C) durian anything.
Or, occasionally, there was choice D) fried (金炸 jīnzhà) mantou with 炼奶 (liànnǎi), or sweetened condensedmilk.
Have you tried this combo before? If you’re really looking to overdo it, order it with can of root beer.
Before starting to read books (this is ongoing), I chose maps. That’s right, I can point out where all of the worlds Guineas are (what a novelty). In fact, I participated in a couple of state geography bees (harsh reality?), but am still lamenting over not applying for a spot on Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Contestants who were sent to place buzzers on the then-newly independent CIS states were perpetually bingung, rather, confused (sorry, haven’t written something in Indonesian for a while).
A predilection for cartographic creations has helped make flights seem less long, especially when the only movie offerings are Drop Dead Fred or The Room. Having a pen makes it even more pleasant, as I get to gerrymander US states or Cypriot regions to the toot of my own horn (note: haven’t done this yet). Remember when Iran was upset about National Geographic magazine calling it the Arabian Gulf instead of the Persian Gulf? I don’t have a problem with the complaint, but just as thought-provoking, if less well-known, is that (Western) airlines generally used to added a suffix to their names in order to be able to fly to both China and Taiwan. The Dutch airline KLM for example stayed that way on flights to the mainland, but was called KLM Asia to the latter.
This will probably be a thread I’ll continually update, once I’m able to find the Delta inflight magazine that showed Kampuchea instead of Cambodia, or the one where Xian, China is listed as the more archaic Chang’an. Until those encounters happen, take a peek at the oddities, sometimes controversial, sometimes just …odd. -ities:
The red lines stand for code-share flights, in other words not those actually operated by China Southern (airline code CZ), but a lot happens when you’ve been abroad for about a year. Minneapolis relocates to Canada, south Florida travels back to 1995 and Maori Island becomes a misnomer.
China Southern Airlines (CZ) Nationalism
Juicy stuff here. The Senkaku Islands(or as China calls them, the D/Tiaoyu Islands) AND the South China archipelago, (not to mention Taiwan- but that’s a been there, done that), are clearly in attendance on this page of the China Southern route map. Might as well add “Africa” and the Solomon Islands to that map too…
El Al Route Map
El Al (LY), an Israeli/whatever airline, understandably can’t just overfly certain countries. Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran (would you ever guess???) Thus, their long-haul routes become that much more long-haul. Say, when flying from Tel Aviv to Johannesburg, they have stay right over the Red Sea, and on their Bangkok route, well, ouch. But this recent news of potential Dubai-Tel Aviv flights might be the black swan moment in their route map’s history…
Etihad, Abu Dhabi AUH- Jakarta CGK “World Map”
Etihad (EY) of the United Arab Emirates went a bit overboard. I was flying from Abu Dhabi to Jakarta, but they generously wanted to impress me with their knowledge of world geography. Because what’s going on in Brasilia is directly going to affect my flight over the Bay of Bengal. Good thing they don’t have any domestic routes.
China Airlines, TPE-HNL
If you squint well enough, you can see…the ocean. Taipei-Honolulu, another route I’m not sure why I took.
East/West Seas, Asiana In-flight Map
This one’s got two-in-the-hand! The West Sea is what the Korean Peninsula terms the Yellow Sea, nothing too offensive. But the East Sea. Well, in another never-ending spat with Japan, the Koreas can’t possibly agree with the Sea of Japan, so they just used their/an imagination. By the way, the Sea of Japan has some delicious Echizen crab…
Maybe all airlines should just take a page from Oman Air’s book, and only label the origin and destination points:
Oman Air, Bangkok BKK to Muscat MCT, 2019
Have you noticed anything “nuanced” on airline route/in-flight maps?
