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Life in China The Northern and the Southern Chinese
Life in China The Northern and the Southern Chinese | The Northern and the Southern Chinese |
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| China | |
| Saturday, 09 June 2007 | |
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There are six of us in our dormitory. Three from Southern China, two from the North-East, and myself. I am from a province of which part is "north" and part is "south". Normally, people divide China by the Yangtze River . South of the Yangtze River is "south", and north of the Yangtze River is "north". But according to the climates, our geography book told us to divide China by the Huai River. Both the Yangtze River and the Huai River go across my province, but my hometown is north of both rivers, so after all, I am a "Northern Chinese" I think. "We Southern Chinese use cai to accompany fan, but you Northern Chinese use fan to accompany cai." Feiyan from Fujian province (the province opposite Taiwan) told me this during lunch. Cai means dishes - either meat or vegetables, either fried or stewed or steamed. fan are things like rice, noodles, steamed buns and different types of "bing"s. Bing, made of wheat flour, normally translates to bread. We have different "bing"s in China of different shapes and thicknesses; some are similar to Nan-bread and Pitta-bread. "Look, they serve you cai in very big portions here, but fan in very small portions." Feiyan continued to explain her point. I was glad she mentioned it, as I had been wondering why I seemed to eat less here. I wasn't really eating less, I knew, but because they serve dishes in very big potions, I could hardly ever finish one dish at one meal. I am a big eater; almost everyone here can prove this. But since I came to Beijing, I don't feel I am a big eater any more. Not if I couldn't even finish my dishes at most of my meals. "We go to buy lamb or beef for hotpot, we would get a kilo or half a kilo a time, but you Northern Chinese would get 10 or 15 kilos a time, then you go back home, one family, one hotpot, all the meat gone! At those occasions, you don't even bother to prepare any fan, do you?" Feiyan is right, the more north it is, the bigger everything comes in. The biggest dinner table I have ever seen in my entire life was a table set up by a family in the North-East (a place borders to Inner-Mongolia), they laid about thirty dishes on that huge table to welcome two guests. And they drank rice wine in the large glasses that you would normally use for beer. It was interesting to hear someone comparing the eating habits of the Northern and Southern Chinese. I think the dialects are also interesting to compare. As Mandarin is based on the North dialect, northern Chinese dialects are not difficult to be understood by the whole China, but Southern Chinese's dialects are all very different. I couldn't understand either Feiyan or FangFang whenever they spoke their local dialects to their families on the phone, not even a single phrase, they sound totally like foreign languages to me. And I asked Feiyan if she could understand FangFang, her answer really surprised me – "no, I can't." "But you are from each other's neighbouring provinces?" "Even someone from my neighbouring city would be impossible for me to understand. Dialects are all very different in the South…" Here we are! I am so glad that we were all taught Mandarin at schools, otherwise… MeiMei www.meimei.co.uk |
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