#tianjin

OP: Tianjin's streets truly have everything

Chinese hanfu photoshoot by 阿卫也叫猪小卫, recreating a 泥人张/Niren Zhang figure.

泥人张/Niren Zhang (Clay Figure Zhang) is a famous folk art from Tianjin, China that originated during the Qing dynasty. The images of Niren Zhang vary from palace maids in costume, historic figures, religious figures, and modern figures to local customs. This Niren Zhang figure depicts Xiren, Baoyu's chief maid in the classic Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber.

Tianjin Zhongshuge, Tianjin, China,

Finally the series begins! Let's start with some food pics

Since some of the restaurants I went to were the same ones as last year, I'm going to skip over those, but the one thing I cannot skip is a good old Tianjin breakfast of youtiao/油条 (in Tianjin they are called guozi/馃子), jianbingguozi/煎饼果子, and doufunao/豆腐脑 (the savoury version):

To clear up some confusion over the naming, all desserts made of dough used to be called guozi/馃子 (饣being the Simplified food radical, 飠is the Traditional version of the same radical), but now the character 馃 is gradually replaced with 果 in common usage, so when you see 果 being used to refer to anything made of dough, it's probably actually 馃. Also nowadays the word guozi/馃子 generally refers exclusively to youtiao. This also applies to jianbingguozi/煎饼果子, which should be written as 煎饼馃子, because the classic version of jianbingguozi has a guozi or youtiao folded inside the jianbing. This version here in the picture has guobier/果篦儿 inside, which is also fried dough but in thin crispy sheets, so the 果 here is also the same as 馃. Guobier is called baocui/薄脆 outside of Tianjin.

And then the not-authentic version of the Tianjin guobacai/锅巴菜 (in Tianjin dialect this is pronounced gabacai/嘎巴菜). It's not authentic because I don't like cilantro lol. In essence though this is basically savoury doufunao with jianbing strips instead of tofu, kind of analogous to the German frittatensuppe. Both jianbingguozi and guobacai are variations that stemmed from the Shandong jianbing.

Left: a Tianjin dessert named gaogan/糕干, a cake made of steamed rice flour and various dried fruits/sweet red bean paste.

Right: zongzi/粽子, just in time for Duanwu Festival/端午节 (aka Dragon Boat Festival/龙舟节). The color of the string tells you what the filling is, but in general zongzi in northern China are sweet and are served as a dessert. In other regions (mostly southern China) zongzi may be salty or savoury and may contain meats like cured ham, and these zongzi can be served as a part of a meal.

And here's some home cooking. This is dalumian/打卤面, or noodles served with a sauce and fresh vegetables, here the sauce is a savoury sauce simmered with meat, eggs, mushrooms, other veggies. In Tianjin dalumian can also be called laomian/捞面, and may be eaten on birthdays since long noodles symbolize longevity. There's also other stir fried dishes on the side here.

And some plans for the 2025 China series:

This time the series will be mostly museum pictures, so the food posts will be more spaced out in between posts about exhibitions. Organization wise, the 2024 China series was mostly organized in a chronological order, but this time I'm going to mix things up a bit to even out the pacing a little and give myself a breather (some posts are way more time consuming to research and write than others). I went to Shanghai and then Beijing this year, but I'll begin with Beijing since I didn't finish going through the Ancient China exhibition of the National Museum of China last year.

For now, the general plan will be:

National Museum of China/中国国家博物馆 (Ancient China exhibition/古代中国展)

The Palace Museum/故宫博物院 (architecture, the Rejoicing in Woods and Springs/乐林泉展 exhibition, the Ceramics Gallery/陶瓷馆, the All Beings Thrive in Harmony/万物和生展 paintings exhibition, the Treasure Gallery/珍宝馆, and the Gallery of Clocks/钟表馆)

Yonghe Temple/雍和宫

Prince Kung's Palace Museum/恭王府博物馆 (mostly architecture and scenery)

Chinese Archaeological Museum/中国考古博物馆

China Maritime Museum/中国航海博物馆 (in Shanghai)

The posts about food and scenery will be placed in between all of these museum posts

Our first stop in Tianjin, after finishing our errands, was the Porcelain House, a building covered entirely in ceramics and porcelain pieces. The street outside was packed with people, so crowded it was hard to walk without someone stepping on your shoes. Luckily, the sky stayed overcast all day. It looked like rain might come at any moment, but it never did, leaving the air cool and heavy instead of hot and sticky. It's like a small mercy when you’re surrounded by a sea of strangers.

Street vendors lined both sides of the road, selling all kinds of snacks. One cart caught my eye; it was selling something that looked like ice cream, except the “ice cream” was actually sticky rice packed into a cone. I decided to try one.

The first thing I noticed was the warmth. It wasn’t cold at all. The taste was mild too, barely sweet. For someone like me who loves desserts that really taste sweet, it was a bit of a disappointment.

After walking around for a bit longer, we went to drop off our luggage at the place we’d booked before taking the metro to Jingyuan Garden, the former residence of China’s last emperor. The garden was quiet and elegant, the kind of place that still holds traces of old stories in its walls. Across the street stood an elementary school that has been around for more than a century, its gates filled with the laughter of children while history slept quietly just opposite them.