zhang.dianli

@zhang.dianli@pixelfed.social

Lists of acceptable pronouns are paternalistic. My actual pronouns: 同志 / 同志 / 同志的 Also acceptable (if disappointingly parochial): they/them/their or she/her/hers

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zhang.dianli, to random

Hollowed and carved pear wood sachet for storing little scent pills. This one is shaped rather like a so-called "ginger jar". The purchase came with a trial set of five osmanthus-scented pills.

This is intended to be used as a phone charm, or the like: adding a bit of subtle¹ scent to your immediate environment.

I got it on a whim. I kinda like it. I may get a few more. (They come in a lot of shapes and the pills come in a lot of scents.)

¹ "Subtle" if you don't put it right next to your nostrils. Doing that is ... not advised.

The sachet, opened, next to the bottle of scent pills, similarly opened with a scent pill sitting before its opened mouth.

zhang.dianli, to RPG

Another day, another calabash charm. This one, however, comes with a twist.

It's very similar to the brass one I last posted¹, but this time it's better for my intended purpose. Because this one is intended to be an emergency supply for some important components I bought.

Check the alt texts for the explanation. 😉

¹ https://pixelfed.social/i/web/post/691957907987487814

Here the card is flipped to its other side and the brass charm is opened, standing upright with the lid lying and facing the camera. The cinnabar remains untouched to the left.
From out of left field come three little piles of RPG dice: d4, d6, d8, d10/100, d12, and d20. A tape measure has been stretched out behind it to show just how tiny these dice are. The largest die (either the d20 or the d12) is ~9mm across. Sadly this was just a hair too large to fit into my natural calabash opening (the container I
The aged brass coloured dice in closeup.
The gunmetal coloured dice in closeup.
The aged copper/bronze coloured dice in closeup.
And here is secret revealed. All three dice sets fit into the calabash charm with room to spare. Showing is the brass-coloured set spilling out from the interior. In addition both supplied rings are linked to each other and into the gourd lid on one end and a brass-coloured key ring I had lying around on the other. I now have a calabash charm with three full sets of gaming dice concealed within just in case I wind up somewhere and a surprise RPG breaks out!

zhang.dianli, to China

Daoism and Chinese folk religion are intertwined in very ornate ways to the point it's hard to tease them apart. A case in point is the interaction with the calabash gourd and cinnabar.

The calabash gourd has many meanings in Chinese cultures. The oldest meanings are likely related to fertility and connubial bliss (because the many seeds within it suggested many children). Later it adopted the meaning also of fortune and wealth because of its similarity in sound to those terms. Finally it took on the meaning of health because doctors would transport their medicines inside of them.

And this is where the Daoist part enters the picture. Daoism, in its religious form, is obsessed with making "immortality pills" (recall that pills were frequently stored in the calabash), so calabashes became common symbols of Daoism.

The two things most commonly associated with these pills are quicksilver (mercury) and cinnabar (a mercury compound, but this wasn't known at the time; the colour of cinnabar was always a favoured colour in Chinese culture, up to today). Indeed one of the ways these pills were to be made was to put cinnabar in one part of a calabash and quicksilver in the other and have them "marry" (perpetuating the fertility symbolism).

Which leads us to the subjects of today's little photo-essay: a brass calabash-shaped charm with a surprising interior, and an actual calabash used as a charm ... with a surprising interior as well.

As usual the alt text has the explanations and Mastodon users will have to click through to the Pixelfed post to get all of them.

So why did I get these? I wanted to see if I can use them for those tiny dice I posted a while back¹. Unfortunately the hole in the real calabash was too small to fit all the dice, and the brass one was too tight a fit to be practical.

I'm still looking.

#China #culture #calabash #gourd #charm #cinnabar #Daoism #folklore

¹ https://pixelfed.social/i/web/post/686739369624740628

Here are all the contents broken out: a little card explaining what it is, a triangular emblem I've seen in various forms with various things I've purchased of the Daoist flavour. (I'm too lazy to try to translate it; Daoism has a lot of jargon!) The charm itself with its braided, buttoned cord so it can be used attached to a key ring, and a little satchel of powdered cinnabar. (It's not a very high grade of cinnabar, but it is the real deal.)
The brass calabash charm sitting atop the satchel of cinnabar.
I folded a piece of paper to pour the cinnabar out onto and opened the charm up for display.
This is what the charm looks like once it's been filled with cinnabar. There was more cinnabar than I could fit into the charm, so the vendor didn't cheap out.
And now my closed charm, with the button-down end done up, sits ready and waiting to be used as a key ring charm.
This is the real calabash (small one) done up as a charm. This is the kind of thing typically hung from a car's rear view mirror or from a backpack or a purse. (I kind of like it, so it may go on my purse.) The stopper is a Daoist symbol in its own right which you'll see more clearly in the next picture. A typical Daoist coin is part of the charm's decoration.
Here the charm is opened, the stopper laid out next to it revealing its shape as a strangely stubby and blunt sword, and the coin's other side is revealed. The sword symbolism is not clear to me yet, so I can't explain it to you.

zhang.dianli, to random

It's time for some oddball snack foods again. One thing I'm always impressed by here is the quality of the packaging. Even the western brands have had to adapt to local styles to sell.

This is one of my favourite package illustrations for a western brand. It has a classic painting look that suits my vibe, and the flavour is indicated both in text ("lion's head meatballs stewed in brown sauce") and by the picture in the round window at the top right. Unfortunately the flavour doesn't live up to the image. It tastes almost, but not quite, completely unlike the namesake. Not bad, but not honest. 4/10
This is a package of "guoba" (which in traditional form is the scrapings from the side of the pan when boiling rice over a fire, but in modern form comes in bewildering varieties of grains and forms). This particular one is a lovely package inspired by Kunqu (the oldest extant form of Chinese opera) and is "Sichuan peppercorn flavour". I really love the package. And while I generally prefer the traditional forms of guoba, this one was tasty, albeit with perhaps a bit more oil than I like. (One of the reasons I like traditional guoba is that it's not often very oily.) This is a solid 8/10 for me.
The back of the guoba package reveals that it's made with rice, vegetable oil soybeans, corn starch, Sichuan peppercorns, salt, and MSG.

zhang.dianli, to random

Talking of "stupid things that I have on my desk", this is the only thing that vies with "Captain Cash and Rocket Lad"¹ for favourite thing on my desk.

I make no bones about really not caring for japanimation. (This is a learned distaste, caused by its icky community. Once I saw certain things held up as positive I couldn't unsee them and it tarnished the whole medium as a result.) And of all the japanimation things, I think I loathe Pokemon the most. Not because it's especially egregious. (I mean it's at least not tentacle porn?) Because it's omnipresent. You can't go anywhere without having them polluting your eyes.

Thankfully I have an SO who agrees.

So when I stumbled over this figurine of the Xenomorph from the Alien franchise merged with Pikachu from Pokemon, I instantly thought of SO and bought it to surprise him with it.

Only...

It was REALLY cute and funny. So I decided it was mine. Now it sits on my desk next to "Captain Cash and Rocket Lad" and I really can't decide which I prefer.

#Pikachu #Alien #Xenomorph #Pikachewyerfaceoff #RubberFigurine

¹ https://pixelfed.social/p/zhang.dianli/690018364709154136

A hard rubber compound (possibly neoprene?), hand-painted figurine of Pikachu from Pokemon as merged with the Xenomorph from the Alien film franchise. This is a closer-up view of the figurine showing more of the facial details.
A hard rubber compound (possibly neoprene?), hand-painted figurine of Pikachu from Pokemon as merged with the Xenomorph from the Alien film franchise. This is a rear view of the figurine.

zhang.dianli, to politics

A little bit of a blast from my past. There was a time when the Chinese admired Donald Trump (to the point that a car company named themselves after him!¹). Then he went more openly insane to the point that even through cultural lenses it was obvious, started spouting a whole bunch of anti-China rhetoric, and generally lost all favour here.

That's when all kinds of interesting things showed up. Trump toilet paper, for example.²

And, given his very public love affair with the lunatic in Pyongyang, these figures who I call "Cashman and Rocket Lad". Which I naturally bought. (They still feature prominently on my desk's shelf at home.)

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpchi
² Yes, I bought some. Yes, I enjoyed using it more than is strictly speaking tasteful.

A picture of a Donald Trump soft vinyl figure. Trump (as "Captain Cash" in my head canon) is in a costume reminiscent of Captain America, with dollar signs instead of stars as iconography.
A picture of a Kim Jong-un soft vinyl figure. Kim (as "Rocket Lad" in my head canon) is in a fairly generic-looking superhero "trunks on the outside" outfit with the radiation emblem on his chest, a cape tied together by bow-tie, and is carrying a rocket.

zhang.dianli, to RPG

Are these practical? Or are they just nerdy flex?

I don't care. I find them delightful!

The pill-box keychain filled with pill-sized dice is going to be on my person all the time. And for "formal occasions" (like gaming conventions) the pendant filled with them will be around my neck and ready for action.

Oh. That's its use. It contains a full set of gunmetal RPG dice: d4, d6, d8, d10s (one 00-99, the other 0-9), d12, and d20. These are minuscule, as the tape measure in the photo shows, with average spans of 7-8mm.
A faux-bronze fancy sculpted d20-shaped pendant on a long brass chain. What use is this?
Oh. That's its use. It contains a full set of faux-bronze RPG dice: d4, d6, d8, d10s (one 00-99, the other 0-9), d12, and d20. These are minuscule, as the tape measure in the photo shows, with average spans of 7-8mm.

zhang.dianli, to random

Hot Pot: The Main Event

And at last the reason for the meal is made manifest. THIS is what I live for, foodwise. And I only ever eat from the red half. (The white half is for people who are weak at spice.)

Interesting side note.

In Chongqing proper, the half/half broth like this costs about the same at a decent restaurant: about US$ 6-7. But if you get just the red broth in a pan the same size it's only $1. If you can't tolerate spice, you'll pay for it in Chongqing! 🤣

At any rate, I didn't show all items because I can only have ten pics in a post, and I'm too lazy to do a fifth post. Missing from this list are some thinly-sliced beef to go with the mutton, some potato slices, and some spinach. All were equally well-presented.

A telling sign of the danger to come. The red side is basically the same as the white side with added peppers and Sichuan peppercorns and the like. Notice how that's off to a rollicking boil before the white side has even started to fitfully stir? Those with a bit of experience know what's coming now...
Thinly-sliced mutton.
Top to bottom in a left-ward arc: - Black doufu (made from fermented soy beans, giving it a very different mouthfeel and a bit of a smoky flavour). - Sliced lotus root. - "Doupi" (lit. "bean skin"); I don't want to get into explaining that. Google is a thing. - One of the dishes I requested: a kind of mushroom. I don't know the name in Chinese or English, sorry.
Another dish ordered at my behest. They're similar to the white mushrooms used in things like tinned mushrooms in North America, but have the brown top instead. I gain I don't know the name. For someone who loves mushrooms I suck at keeping track of them, don't I?
A nest (made of shredded daikon radish and carrot) of quail eggs.
Hand-made meatballs made from CHOPPED pork, not ground.
Beef tripe. In North America it's garbage or dogfood. Here it was the second-most expensive item of the meal.
Duck blood "doufu". (It's not the latter. It's the former. Congealed duck blood. I don't eat it because, although I really like the flavour, it reacts very badly and very quickly with my stomach and I'd be hungry again very quickly if you get my drift.)
Some thick, glutinous-when-cooked noodles made from sweet potato flour.

zhang.dianli, to random

Hot Pot: The Sides

As much as I love hot pot (it has rapidly become comfort food for me), there are other dishes to eat as well. Here are the dishes that fall into the "other" category.

These little delights are puffy, sticky things made with glutinous rice flour topped with brown sugar and a light dusting of flour laced with a hint of cinnamon.
This is "rice wine", though it's the 0.5%ABV variety, fortified with some tapioca flour to make it a bit thicker.
Fried rice. Not much to say about it beyond the fact they use a very nice grade of rice to make it here.

zhang.dianli, to random

Hot Pot: The Condiment Bar

This place offers a huge condiment bar for making custom dipping sauces. Most places will have a few of these ingredients in small volumes at the table, but here they give you a very large number of them and let you make your own creations. I have a very specific mix I make these days, shown in the last two pictures of this sequence.

The condiment bar showing a bowl of minced garlic and a bowl of pickled peppers (Changsha style, I'd wager) on the lower shelf, and a small bowl of sesame seeds on the upper shelf.
The condiment bar showing a bowl of dried chili flakes and a bowl of oyster sauce on the lower shelf, with the small bowl of sesame seeds and a small bowl of chopped peanuts on the upper.
The condiment bar showing a bowl of soy sauce and a bowl of rice vinegar on the lower shelf. The top shelf has a small (and empty!) bowl of black (heavily fermented) bean sauce and another bowl with a different kind of fermented bean sauce.
The condiment bar showing the rice vinegar bowl and a bowl of sesame paste on the lower shelf, and the fermented bean sauce next to a small bowl of furu, itself next to a small bowl of sugar on the top shelf.
The condiment bar showing the sesame paste bowl next to a bowl of vegetable oil (probably fairly generic corn oil) on the lower shelf and the sugar bowl on the upper.
This is the mix I chose for my meal: sesame seeds, green onions, coriander, soy sauce (a bit), vinegar, sesame paste (a lot!), some of the fermented bean sauce, and furu.
And this is what my mix looks like after I've stirred all the ingredients together. Most things I ate from the hot pot proper took a trip into this bowl to expand on the flavour profile, and to cool it down.

zhang.dianli, to random

Hot Pot: The Venue

I am fortunate enough to live within walking distance of my favourite in the world.

This is no exaggeration. This is literally my favourite place to eat, and I've been to a lot of restaurants in a lot of cities in a lot of countries.

Yesterday, out of the blue, SO invited me out to lunch at my favourite place, so I decided I'd show the place in a bit more detail than I have in the past.

This is the first post of four planned, showing the facilities of the place. Further posts will show off the condiment bar, the side dishes, and finally the main event itself.

Another view of the restaurant showing the large common area. Not shown are the private rooms that you can book for banquets. (Hint: look up.)
A good hot pot restaurant should have its kitchen area visible to the clients. Prep of all the ingredients happens here and if you're ashamed of your prep, perhaps you shouldn't be running a hot pot restaurant...
Another view of the prep area in the kitchen. It shows supreme confidence that they make it so wide open that anybody can view.
The menus are battered iPads. Very convenient to use.

zhang.dianli, to SoloRoleplaying

The topic of solo RP comes up quite often in my Mastodon feed, and when it does it's always in the context of "which (digital) tools do you use to facilitate your solo play?"

I hate computers. I hate them with the kind of passion people usually reserve for war criminals. (Of course the fact I consider most software to be a literal crime against humanity helps stoke that fury.) I like to keep computers out of my entertainment. Thus it is that my solo RP set is almost purely analogue.

When I solo RP this is my kit. A bamboo box. Within it the dice I need for the game being played, a (fountain) pen, a(n eternal) pencil and eraser. A fancy-schmancy notebook (that is Frankensteined together from various pieces), some little illustrations that I use for inspiration (taped/glued into the notebook when they're used), and a selection of fancy bookmarks.

I journal in a style I've used since middle school that some software kiddie reinvented and gave the name "Bullet Journal" to because that crowd has no sense of history. (Kind of like the "story game" crowd, in that regard.) And currently, in this C&S game I'm soloing (as you can see from the printed Solitude rules set), the only digital element is that the rules for the game are in my phone because I can't afford to buy the rules and have them shipped to China.

This changes this summer, however, as I have guests coming from Canada and I've asked them to pick up the rules. And that box is likely just the right size to hold those as well! Then my solo RP will be analogue only!

image/jpeg

zhang.dianli, to random

It's been an age and a half since I've bought enamel pins, but when I saw these I had to have them. Both colours each of both forms. (Yes, the indicator slides.)

Woe betide the person who talks to me if the heart/lightning bolt is at the far left red 😠 position!

zhang.dianli, to random

Internally-etched crystal balls (and other shapes) are everywhere here. You can find them in temple (Buddhist and Daoist both) souvenir shops, in souvenir shops in general for those not in ball form (for some reason crystal balls are used only in 风水(fēng shui)/religious contexts, less commonly as souvenir decorations) and they come in sizes ranging from 30cm+ (which are HORRENDOUSLY expensive!), down to 4cm or less.

I shared a pic recently of a 10cm crystal ball with Buddhist iconography in it, and here now are two 4cm crystal balls (again with Buddhist iconography).

Now here's a dirty little secret. Small crystal balls (10cm or less) are DIRT CHEAP. The 10cm ball I shared earlier can be purchased for about $6 and these two balls (not the stands, those I had from earlier) I picked up for about $0.50. Not each: total. Including shipping.

Which is why I laugh so hard when I see a supplier on Etsy selling 4cm crystal balls with identical etching for almost twenty bucks a pop. For $20 I can get a 20cm ball if I look carefully enough.

#CrystalBall #Buddhist #FengShui

Detail photo of one of the two 4cm crystal balls. The emblem seems to be the so-called "six syllable mantra" (om mani padme hum) if I'm seeing it correctly.
Detail photo of the other of the two 4cm crystal balls. This emblem is a very common decoration but I can't get a clear explanation of what it means. I do very much like it, however, which is why I also have a 10cm version of it.

zhang.dianli, to buddhism

I've had this thing for well over a decade (maybe 15 years?) and I can't believe that I haven't taken a picture of it until now.

This is a crystal ball that has two layers of some weird form of laser etching inside it: one, in the background, is some form of Tibetan Buddhist emblem and the other is a spiral of written Tibetan (I think?) that is likely either part of the Heart Sutra or some other major work of Tibetan Buddhist scripture. (I don't read Tibetan and have no idea how to even start decoding this.)

It's one of my favourite things. I just love the look and the vibe it brings.

zhang.dianli, to RPG

What's that? New ? And a new ?

Of course.

← the added tag needed because somehow those crap games on computers took over the "RPG" moniker even though they're not

I'm an addict.

It's quite sizable. The new dice are oversized compared to most gaming dice but there's plenty of room left over even once I've put them in.
The first glimpse of said new dice. The dice are made of what looks like filigree brass on a resin core, but I'm uncertain what the core is actually made of. If it's resin it's a VERY dense resin. But what else could it be? Glass? Stone? It's hard to tell.
The new dice fully-exposed and with the velvet bag that was supplied with them. I far prefer the dragon-eye bag.

zhang.dianli, to Battlemaps

A while back I had the sombre duty of reporting on 2024!¹ Little did I know that I would be needing to rename it to WUHAN SNOWPOCALYPSE 2024(A) because yesterday and today has given us WUHAN SNOWPOCALYPSE 2024(B)!

Unlike the first snowpocalypse, which happened in the middle of a national holiday and was thus something more suited to the kind of "we're all in this together" vibe that made surviving it easier, this snowpocalypse was far less a social event and far more an abject disaster.²

Further, the nature of the was radically different. Those experienced in how snow usually works will note strangeness in this , like it wasn't actually snow at all. Those who experienced it will also note that the snow merely falling (as in not whipped up by wind) onto bare flesh actually stung a little bit, like someone dropping sewing needles on your outstretched hand from a 2m height. And, too, how often can you hear snowfall. Through closed windows.

To say this was unusual snowfall is to put it mildly.

Most places actually closed their doors yesterday because the snow was so overwhelming. It was difficult to walk and harder to drive and every attempt to clean it up was met with cleared roads and sidewalks being covered within minutes with snow that felt more like sand at the beach underfoot.

More details can be found in the alt text, as usual.

¹ https://pixelfed.social/i/web/post/661136102228011316

² As with the previous snowpocalypse report, this one is presented with tongue firmly in cheek.

Every flat surface (cars, road, etc.) is covered with snow ... but leaves are not. Trees are free of snow. This is weird.
The pebbled texture was not caused by sand or rain or such. It was forming
The next day the community roads were still covered in snow with a narrow walkway carved out of underlying ice.

zhang.dianli, to playingcards

It has been an age and a half since I uploaded any kind of , or . So I decided to share a set I picked up yesterday.

The cards are a routine deck: 52 cards (French suit), two jokers (black and red), and a "certificate of authenticity". (I'll get into that later.)

The cards are made of PVC with a light texture which makes them waterproof and nearly indestructible. The ace of spades is a very colourful design, while the face cards are the very standard images we've all come to know and love. The jokers are simple illustrations of a seated fool with an owl(?) perched on his feet, differentiated by size (black is smaller) and by the colour of the text that reads "JOKER".

PVC cards, especially the textured ones, are quite slippy in comparison to those made from card stock, so it takes a couple of minutes to acclimatize when you're unfamiliar with them. (Be prepared to have them spray out of your hands when shuffling until you get the feel.)

So what's the "certificate of authenticity" about?

The cards are made with gold foil inside the PVC, and apparently, despite gold foil being cheap like borscht (ask any crafter friends!) there's apparently enough fraud around this that they actually have a report number you can look up on a government cite to check the bona fides.

The card back is termed "彩金 游龙戏凤" (cǎi jīn yóu lóng xì fèng) on the site I bought the cards from, but I'm not actually sure what it means. The first two characters can mean a lot of things but the literal translation is likely best: "coloured gold". The rest is ... less clear. Literally it means "swimming Dragon playing with Phoenix" but ... ugh. This is probably some weird idiom or other. [A quick hit on Baike](https://baike.baidu.com/item/游龙戏凤/17640) says that it's an idiom with a historical allusion, but isn't clear on what its intended meaning is. [There are a lot of entries](https://baike.baidu.com/item/游龙戏凤/11102037) however, too many to look up.

zhang.dianli, to tea

I occasionally like a nice #tisane (yes, I'm one of those snobs who says that it's not #tea if it's not the leaf of camellia sinensis). I recently got a couple of tisanes that are of the family of "八宝茶" (bā bǎo chá or "eight-treasure tea").¹ These are generally considered "medicinal" teas, but I drink them as beverages when I want something hot and soothing without the caffeine.

The first is "红豆薏米茶养生茶花茶" (hóngdòu yìmǐ chá yǎngshēng chá huāchá or "Healthy Red Bean and Job's Tears Tisane") containing "大麦、红豆、薏苡仁、赤小豆、芡实、栀子、苦荞、橘皮" (dàmài, hóngdòu, yìyǐ rén, chìxiǎodòu, qiànshí, zhī zi, kǔ qiáo, jú pí or "barley, red bean, coix seed, red adzuki bean, gorgon fruit, gardenia, tartary buckwheat, orange peel"). This is a bit confusing to me because I was always under the impression that "red bean" and "adzuki bean" were the same thing, so I'm guessing that they're distinguishing between cultivars of the same bean.²

The second is "红糖姜茶" (hóngtáng jiāngchá or "Brown Sugar Ginger Tisane") containing "红糖、红枣、姜丝、枸杞、重瓣红玫瑰、桂圆、红枣、大麦" (hóngtáng 、 hóngzǎo 、 jiāngsī 、 gǒuqǐ 、 zhòng bàn hóngméiguī 、 guìyuán 、 hóngzǎo 、 dàmài or "brown sugar, red dates, shredded ginger, goji berries, double petal red roses, longan, red dates, barley").

The first one has a fairly robust flavour of toasted grains with hints of other things. (The orange peel is the strongest of the secondary flavours.) It's rather a nice brew. The second one is OK, but weaker and threadier in the flavour and disappointingly you can't get much of the ginger flavour.

@tea

¹ Yes, in Chinese the word 茶, usually translated as "tea", covers basically all infused or decocted drinks. I don't care. Chinese is not English and vice versa. "Tea" is camellia sinensis.

² The thing they're calling "red bean" is ormosia hosiei while the thing they're calling "red adzuki bean" is phaseolus calcaratus ... and I have no idea if this is meaningful.

A detail of one of the tea bags containing the "Healthy Red Bean and Job's Tears Tisane". It is, unfortunately, a plastic tea bag; in future steepings I will be cutting the bag open and using the contents directly in my cup.
The colour of the liquor while steeping (very close to the end). I hate to describe it this way, but the liquor is absolutely urine yellow. There's no other colour to compare it to: a very deep yellow.
Detail shot of the post-steeping tea bag with a clearer view than pre-steeping of the contents.
The unopened package of the "Brown Sugar Ginger Tisane". It's a plain brown paper bag (plasticized on the inside) with an even deeper red label with all the usual information: brand, artistic photo of the product, etc.
A detail of one of the tea bags containing the "Brown Sugar Ginger Tisane". It is, unfortunately, a plastic tea bag; in future steepings I will be cutting the bag open and using the contents directly in my cup.
The colour of the liquor while steeping (very close to the end). This liquor is also yellow, but a far paler yellow that doesn't bring bodily wastes to mind.
Detail shot of the post-steeping tea bag with a clearer view than pre-steeping of the contents.

zhang.dianli, to chinese

It's time again.

The first three photos are an speciality: meigan cai¹ griddle cake, loosely translated. Usually, as far as I know, breakfast street food in the places of origin, here it's been modified to be more a snack food like potato chips. It was surprisingly good. It's not as good as the street food version, but a whole lot easier to get.

The second is the Chinese version of pork rinds. Basically it's lightly marinated pork belly that was sliced crossways and deep-fried until everything (including the fat layers) was crisp. Again this is actually quite often available as street food (and really delicious when fresh) though usually not made quite as dry as the packaged variety.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meigan_cai

Back of package for the meigan cai griddle cakes, this side having the ingredients list, production data, and other such information..
The griddle cakes come two to an interior package. This photo shows an unopened internal package and an opened one with one cake fractured open to show its contents, the other still whole.
Front view of package for the pork rinds, again a typical package (this time in yellow) with idealized photos of the product and the usual labelling.
Rear view of package for the pork rinds with ingredients list, production data, and other such information.
The pork rinds on display in a bowl next to the opened package.

zhang.dianli, to writing

In addition to my love of things , I'm also deeply fascinated with , especially in the form of . When I was young I was always imagining the kind of person who magically figured out that you could make black marks on stone, or cuts in wood, or whatever you liked translate to words. What a genius she must have been! (Yes, in my imagination it was always a woman.) People often claim that agriculture was the of . I disagree. It was permanence and precision in that is the foundation of civilization. Writing, in short.

This is why I collect interesting forms of writing (like the bamboo slips I've shared in the past) as well as interesting or beautiful tools of writing. Today's little photo-essay is about the latter.

This is a so-called "eternal pencil". I have several of them, but this one I got because it's just so beautiful as well as practical. Details in the alt text as usual.

(Mastodon users will have to click through to see all the photos.)

Opening the box and removing the sponge protective layer reveals a decorative fake-vellum sheet over the actual contents. The fake vellum is inscribed with this Chinese idiom: 腹有诗书气自华 (fù yǒu shī shū qì zì huá, meaning literally roughly "having a belly full of poetry and books makes one's breath shine" and more idiomatically "being a student of letters and poems makes one's mark") Through the translucent vellum can be made out the shape of the included pencil and its two replacement heads.
The contents on display, flipped the other way to have the pencil pointing down, show the nice elegant design of the parts. The pencil is made of purple sandalwood and has a little brass plate embedded on the top that reads "eternal pencil" again.
The little brass plate on the purple sandalwood pencil is shown in closer detail, revealing both what the plate says more clearly and the very nice wood of the pencil body.
Pencil and replacement heads removed from the box.

zhang.dianli, to dice

What can I say? I'm obsessed with , almost as much as I am with . () have been such a huge part of my life since 1977 that, naturally, I have a good, healthy appreciation for quality dice. But more than that, I'm fascinated by randomness and the various tools humans have used for thousands of years both to generate, and often simultaneously tame, stochastic processes.

Hence cards and dice.

As usual Mastodon viewers will have to click through to see all the pictures.

This little beauty is a die made from red sandalwood with brass inlaid pips. I haven't tested it for balance and randomness yet (having only received it a bit over an hour ago, along with several others), but cursory tests have shown no immediately obvious bias and a very nice roll. Currently showing faces 4-6.
Roll 3D6 for damage. Or with these babies,
Early Chinese dice were not, oddly enough, cubical. The absolute earliest were, like almost everywhere, some form of knuckle bone. Later they instead threw flattened bone or stick with each side painted or marked differently. When actual dice showed up, well, some of the earliest are like this reconstruction in weathered brass: a D18. Describing this in words is difficult: imagine three octagons whose edges are extended to form squares. Now have them intersect each other at right angles. You wind up with a die that has 18 large, square faces and 8 small triangular faces. The triangular faces are unmarked, the square ones are numbered (in seal script, in this case). One view of the die in question.
Early Chinese dice were not, oddly enough, cubical. The absolute earliest were, like almost everywhere, some form of knuckle bone. Later they instead threw flattened bone or stick with each side painted or marked differently. When actual dice showed up, well, some of the earliest are like this reconstruction in weathered brass: a D18. Describing this in words is difficult: imagine three octagons whose edges are extended to form squares. Now have them intersect each other at right angles. You wind up with a die that has 18 large, square faces and 8 small triangular faces. The triangular faces are unmarked, the square ones are numbered (in seal script, in this case). The opposite flipped view of the die in question.
Rounding this purchase of dice out are a pair of brass d10s as a percentile pair: one numbered 0-9, the other 00-90. This was done to free up the copper percentiles I have set aside for playing Chivalry & Sorcery to reintegrate them with an all-copper set so my C&S set now has a percentile pair in brass and a single d10 in gunmetal.

zhang.dianli, to random

Just a little #snack to tide you over. These are …

deep breath

... "Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences Spicy Potato Chips Drama Snacks Snacks Shredded Potato Chips Potato Chips Internet Celebrity Shredded Potatoes" according to the translated Taobao blurb.

In short they're #PotatoChips. Canadians would be reminded of #OldDutch #barbecue chips, only with a bit more pepper and a smattering of other spices that would seem a bit exotic. This is because the actual flavour is 糊辣 (húlà) which is a #Yunnan style of spicing as opposed to the more famous (infamous?) #Sichuan 麻辣 (málà) "hot and tingling" style with Sichuan peppercorns.

These are very high quality potato chips, better than any of the big brands like Lays or Oishi or the like which are commonly found here. I'm definitely getting more when these five bags are finished.

And I'll be trying their mala flavour as well side by side.

zhang.dianli, to random

#Wuhan #Snowpocalypse2024: #Aftermath¹

As I reported earlier, on February 4th, 2024 Wuhan was struck by #MotherNature (that bitch!) with a two-part #IceStorm followed by a thick (for here) blanket of #HeavySnow. And while #Wuhanren faced the disaster with their usual aplomb and resilience, giving Mother Nature the finger and insisting on going out and having fun, there was serious trouble lurking underneath the mantle of white.

Even the pictures I took pre-thaw on the 7th showed the degree of the disaster this was for local trees, with fallen boughs, many already dragged off of roadways, roofs, and even electrical wires by city workers, cut up into convenient sized chunks and piled neatly for later retrieval.

By the time the thaw began, yesterday, it was clear that no plant from tree sized to large shrub sized was unscathed by the weather. But the plant life of Wuhan is as sturdy and rebellious as are its citizens. As I left my home to perform an errand I found the trees striking back, shoving a raised middle finger into the face of Mother Nature!

I apologize for the quality of these photos, but they were taken in haste while I was carrying heavy objects. In addition it was mostly playing out well over my head, making it hard to get decent photos with a mere phone. Still, what they portray, I think, will make you proud of Wuhanese trees and their stalwart streak of resistance in the face of a seemingly-overwhelming assault by Mother Nature and the dying gasp of her General Winter!

(Mastadon users will have to click through to see all the pictures, but they're only missing a single one this time.)

¹ As mentioned in the earlier Snowpocalypse post, the tone of this report is firmly tongue in cheek.

The first sign of the trees' striking back: springtime flowers. These were not there yesterday. They showed up within the last 24 hours, just in time for the first day of spring tomorrow! This is a better shot of the trees producing these flowers. Still not great, but clearer. If you look, you can see some of the vestiges of General Winter's assault on the trees in the form of little clumps of icy snow still sticking around in shaded parts of the tree.
Magnolia trees took the brunt of General Winter's assault, and many of the younger trees, strangely, were first to fall. The giant elders among the magnolias knew enough to use each other for support, their branches entwined with each other, thus saving them from the fate of the younger trees. Still, even with two limbs ripped off, the gory ends naked in the air, the younger magnolias are standing proudly, looking forward to their battle scars as they age.
Some trees are evergreen and produce flowers right about now, like the ones I first shared. Others, like these, are evergreen but push out a bunch of berries for birds to eat and spread the seeds of before blossoming. Still others, like plum trees (not depicted), go barren in winter, then push out blossoms before leaves in spring. The wiles of trees in their struggle for life are amazingly diverse.
Even larger shrubs did not escape unscathed by General Winter's attack, but they're bouncing back, growing little defiant fists of new leaves to wave in the air at Mother Nature.

zhang.dianli, to random

WUHAN SNOWPOCALYPSE 2024!¹

2024-02-04 to 2024-02-07

Thoughts and Prayers

The horror of SNOWPOCALYPSE began with an ice storm on 2024-02-03. In the late morning the ice buildup had led to several very large boughs on nearby trees breaking and plummeting to earth. A short respite of melting was overcome by a second round of ice buildup in the afternoon, but by then all the boughs that were going to break had broken.

Until the snowfall started that evening.

The pictures here show the horrifying outcome! Details in alt text.

#Wuhan #Snowpocalypse #2024 #DumbJoke

¹ N.B. The tone may be a little bit of a joke.

The mix of ice storm and snowfall put several electrical feeds to buildings at risk. I saw a bunch of workmen staring at this one as they tried to figure out how to get rid of it without a) electrocuting themselves and b) breaking the already-strained cables.
Despite the best efforts of compound workers, the roads were still constantly iced and snowed-in.
Buildings had every flat surface, no matter how small, covered with snow. Some of these overhangs broke off just under the mass of it.
Despite the best efforts of compound workers, the roads were still constantly iced and snowed-in.
Despite the best efforts of compound workers, the roads were still constantly iced and snowed-in.
Despite the best efforts of compound workers, the roads were still constantly iced and snowed-in.
Finally, on the 7th, the thaw had begun, revealing the damage done by the SNOWPOCALYPSE! Many branches got cut off by workmen to avoid other, even worse damage.
Finally, on the 7th, the thaw had begun, revealing the damage done by the SNOWPOCALYPSE! Many branches got cut off by workmen to avoid other, even worse damage.
Finally, on the 7th, the thaw had begun, revealing the damage done by the SNOWPOCALYPSE! Many branches got cut off by workmen to avoid other, even worse damage.

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