December 15, 2020 • 33 mins
Food can be a window into a culture. But it can also be a barrier, especially when it comes to street food. Many can be intimidated to communicate with hawkers who often speak with strong dialects. And many can be turned off by hole-in-the-wall establishments, where there's no fancy décor, and definitely no English menu.
Jamie Barys has made it her mission to remove these barriers, by offering tours that uncover some of the hidden delights of Chinese cuisine. In this episode, she reveals some of her favourite lesser-known dishes, explains the history and legends behind them, and also discusses how she has managed to pivot the focus of her business which, until 2020, had been reliant on tourists from outside of China.
The episode also includes a catch-up interview with Lexie COMSTOCK from Season 01 Episode 20. (https://mosaicofchina.com/season-01-episode-20-lexie-comstock).
Chapters
00:00 - Trailer & Intro
01:18 - Part 1
18:12 - Part 2
25:51 - Outro
28:24 - Catch-Up Interview
Subscribe to the PREMIUM version, see the visuals, and/or follow the full transcript for this episode at https://mosaicofchina.com/season-02-episode-02-jamie-barys.
Join the community on Instagram (https://instagram.com/oscology), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/mosaicofchina), Facebook (https://facebook.com/mosaicofchina) or WeChat (https://mosaicofchina.com/wechat).
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
[Trailer]JB: I got married here. My husband is British.
OF (00:05):
I'm so sorry.
[Intro]OF: Welcome to Mosaic of China, a podcast
about people who are making their mark inChina. I’m your host, Oscar Fuchs.
Thank you very much for all your feedbackfrom last week’s premier episode of the
Season with the Chief Consumer Officer ofL’Oréal China, Stéphane Wilmet. It’s
(00:26):
great to be back, and especially with sucha thoughtful and thought-provoking conversation.
Please join that conversation by followingus on Instagram or Facebook, or by joining
the WeChat group. In all three cases, youcan find us at @mosaicofchina. And a special
thanks to everyone who subscribed to the longerepisodes on Patreon, including Jeremy Bivol,
(00:46):
Vinnie Apicella, Anthony, Peter Arkell, andDavid Rempel.
Today’s chat is with Jamie Barys, who getsintroduced right up front. But before we start,
a quick warning (00:56):
at times Jamie speaks very fast. And I often mirror her energy, and speak
very fast right back. So if English isn’tyour first language, I would definitely recommend
following the transcript of the conversationon https://mosaicofchina.com. And please keep
listening until the end, where I’ll sharedetails of a special discount code available
to listeners of the show.
(01:17):
[Part 1]OF: Jamie, thank you so much. How this came
about was this introduction.[Start of Audio Clip]
Lexie COMSTOCK (01:26):
My friend Jamie Barys, who runs UnTour with her business partner, Kyle.
They basically give you a really awesome tourof the best street food in Shanghai or Beijing.
They also partner, I think, in various othercities across China. And as someone who loves
food, and especially street food, it’s…they just do a really good job. On the tours,
(01:47):
they give you a tonne of really cool informationabout Shanghai, about the food you're eating.
It's not only satisfying for your tummy, butalso for your brain.
[End of Audio Clip]OF: Tell me about your friendship with Lexie,
how do you know her?JB: I have known Lexie since she first moved
to Shanghai. She was interning and neededa place to stay, and somehow got hooked up
(02:08):
with a couple of my friends who had an extrabedroom. And she started her cookie business
in that apartment, using the āyí that Istill use today.
OF (02:15):
No! JB
[āyí] on her website doing her first batchesof cookies. But she is just one of those pure,
wonderful human beings that you just wantto spend all your time around.
Well, before we go into more about your story, why don't you show me the object that
you've brought which, in some way, epitomisesyour life in China.
JB (02:35):
So I wanted to bring a snack, because Chinese food is my life. And the thing about
Chinese food is, it's really hard to findsomething that's portable and really good,
because everything is made fresh in frontof you, and it's best eaten right then.
OF (02:49):
It’s messy, right? JB
a dessert which is called a 老婆饼 [lǎopóbǐng], which is sometimes translated as Sweetheart
Cake or Wife Cake. But it's a very traditionalChinese dessert. A lot of desserts you get
in China are the product of colonialism, butthis is a traditional Chinese dessert that
originated at the end of the Yuan dynasty,so late 1300s, right before the Ming started.
(03:13):
There are so many legends about how this 饼[bǐng] got started, this pastry. One of them
is that there was the wife of a general forthe rebels against the Yuan emperor made them
so that it was easier for the soldiers tohave a quick snack. But then there's a lot
of really romantic stories, and that's whereyou get ‘Sweetheart Cake’ from. Where
this man, his father was really sick, andhis wife ended up selling herself into slavery.
(03:38):
And then he created this cake and sold a lotof them until he could buy her out of slavery.
Or there's another version where he goes toa dimsum house, and he eats this 饼 [bǐng],
and he's like “I know my wife is in thekitchen because this tastes exactly like her
饼 [bǐng]”. And so every Chinese dish,I feel like, has this crazy story behind it.
And also, it's delicious. It's got wintermelon in the middle.
What? OK, I've had all kinds of 饼 [bǐng], and I've never even heard of 老婆饼 [lǎopó
(04:02):
bǐng]. OK, we will now have a commercialbreak, where I will eat one.
JB (04:05):
So I love winter melon, you don't really see it outside of China very often.
OF (04:10):
It's very good. It's so dense. JB
Like, I can't imagine eating the whole thing.
JB (04:14):
No. So usually you would cut it up, kind of like a pie. You would have it with tea
and other sort of pastries and things likethat.
OF (04:21):
When it comes to dessert, you were saying a lot of desserts have this colonial shadow.
What did you mean by that?JB: I mean, what we consider dessert in the
West is not necessarily considered a dessertin China. A lot of times, if you order a sweet
dish at a restaurant, it just comes in themiddle of the meal, it's not going to come
at the end of the meal. Fruit is often consumedat the end of the meal. And you do have some
(04:43):
desserts, but the idea of a dessert culture,really, a lot of that came through the Portuguese
and the British, who colonised Macau and HongKong respectively.
And so do you know the history of the dessert in the West?
JB (04:56):
Yeah, well, a lot of desserts are baked. And baking is not something that was native
to China. You would see things that came alongthe Silk Road from India, where things are
cooked inside sort of a kiln, and that's aflatbread. But actually having an oven is
not something.. Even today, you know, I movedinto the first apartment I've ever lived in,
(05:17):
in China, that has an oven this weekend. AndI've been here 13 years. And so when there
was colonisation, a lot of these things werebrought over. A lot of times they were given
a local twist. So you'll see, you know, evenHong Kong milk tea, that comes from the British.
You would not put dairy products in tea, inChina, typically.
OF (05:35):
Fascinating. JB
And so, when it comes to this particular bǐng, so you were saying the story about
the Yuan dynasty, and of course, the Yuandynasty, they were actually the Mongols, weren’t
they.JB: Right, yeah.
So is there a kind of nationalist element to this bǐng like this was, you know…
JB (05:49):
…“Fed the troops so we could overthrow our foreign conquerors” thing? Definitely.
And you have that with a lot of different…you know, like mooncakes, and things like
that. Supposedly, there were messages snuckinto the mooncakes, that then, people knew
when to rebel… So like, I always say onour tours, whenever we're introducing this,
you know, ‘grains of salt’, there areusually about three different legends behind
(06:11):
every dish. So you never know how accuratethey are. But they're all super fun.
OF (06:16):
Well, you mentioned the tour. So now it's a good juncture for us to talk about what
it is that you do here in China.JB: Yeah. So I am the Chief Eating Officer
of UnTour Food Tours.OF: UnTour Food Tours.
JB (06:27):
Yes, that's correct. OF
So we wanted to show foreigners who are visiting China, how wonderful Chinese cuisine
is. A lot of times there's such a languagebarrier. And just a cultural barrier. People
don't feel comfortable going out and justtrying a lot of these hole-in-the-wall places
that are where some of the best food in Chinacomes from. So we wanted to bridge that gap,
(06:49):
and just showcase how amazing the food ofChina can be. The sheer variety of it, because
so many people have only had Cantonese food.And they think that is ‘Chinese food’,
because you have most of the Chinatowns aroundthe world, Cantonese is the language that
everyone speaks, and most people are fromeither Hong Kong or Guangdong area. It’s
starting to change now, you're getting a lotmore Mandarin in Chinatowns around the world.
(07:10):
But you're still not seeing a lot of veryauthentic Yunnan cuisine, or Sichuan.
OF (07:14):
Yeah, this is obviously where all of this wealth of information comes from. I mean,
how did that arise? What's the story?JB: Yeah so my business partner at the time,
Kyle, he had just left Shanghai and gone toGermany to go to business school. And I was
still in Shanghai writing about food. So Iwas a food writer for a while. So I was working
(07:34):
there, and when he came back, he said “Ireally want to start a business.” And I
said “Well I kinda have this idea of foodtours”. Now at that point, food tours were
still a really young industry, there weren'tthat many around the world. And now you go
to any city, and there's at least three companiesdoing something like that. And so we started
it, December 1 2010, and I went full timewith it in February 2012. So it took about
(07:58):
14 months for it to be able to support bothme and Kyle. And then after that, it just
grew so much. We got in The New York Times,and The Guardian, and all these big papers,
and it just blew up, and we expand a lot.OF: So is Kyle still around in the business?
JB (08:14):
So unfortunately, Kyle got stuck out. And he had been considering leaving China
anyway, his husband had been here for, like20 years. They left when COVID kicked off
in Shanghai, and then ended up getting stuckout. And so they've decided to leave China.
OF (08:33):
And no goodbyes, right? JB
It's hard for me to read into what he is thinking, but at least with you still around,
there's continuity. Like, he knows that it'sgonna be a new phase for this baby moving
on, right?JB: Yeah, we're definitely in a new phase,
not having any foreign tourists. So it's beenan interesting change of pace for us.
Well, let's talk about that then. So, I don't want this podcast to be too COVID-heavy,
(08:57):
but the fact remains that lives are differentafter COVID.
JB (09:00):
Yeah, I would say before COVID, 90% of our our target audience was foreigners who
were visiting China. So we were closed allthrough Feb, and we were able to relaunch
in Shanghai towards the end of March. Butwe have really shifted gears. And, you know,
obviously, all of our marketing and BD isnow focused on the people who are here, the
(09:23):
captive audience that we have. Which is small,but very active, which is great. But once
I got out of quarantine, I realised that everyonejust wanted to booze. So we launched a speakeasy
tour. And it's been super popular. We launchedthat in May, with expats. And so we do a cocktail
mixing class to start. And then we go to oneof our favourite hidden noodle shops. And
(09:48):
then after that, we go to two more speakeasiesand we also get food at another stop. But
I'm pregnant, so I can't drink cocktails atthe moment.
OF (09:56):
Mazel Tov. JB
And I don't know when this is going to be released, it could be months, so that baby
could be talking by the time this comes out.If the baby has already been born, and it
has a name, I'll make sure to include thatat the end of this episode.
JB (10:10):
Oh, great. OF
are the basic conceptual differences betweenstreet food here in China versus elsewhere?
Yeah, so street food, unfortunately, is not as prominent as it once was in China.
When we first started, a lot of our tourswere street food focused. But we've had to
(10:32):
change a lot of that over the years, as nightmarkets have been shut down, and a lot of
our street food vendors have been closed.So we just try and support locally-owned,
family-owned businesses that are kind of…I guess you could call them ‘hole-in-the-walls’
or ‘holes-in-the-wall’. But they're fantastic.And it's where some of the best food is.
OF (10:50):
So tell me about who these people are. People who go to street food, they didn't
really think about actually who they're dealingwith. So who are these people?
JB (10:56):
Oh, I love my vendors. I think that's probably one of the favourite parts of my
job. For our wedding… I got married here,my husband is British and…
OF (11:06):
I’m so sorry. JB
Shanghai, I said “At least half of the foodhas to be from my street food vendors”.
So we had a 拉面 [lāmiàn] vendor, likea pulled noodle, a 小笼包 [xiǎolóngbāo]
vendor. And a 煎饼 [jiānbing] vendor. So,you know, a lot of our… It’s nice introducing
this really cool food, and these people thatare a big part of my life, to my friends and
(11:28):
family at the wedding.OF: Amazing.
JB (11:29):
Yeah. OF
have an offshoot in Beijing.JB: Mmm yes.
OF (11:35):
What is the difference, then, between what you'd say is the street food culture
of Shanghai and Beijing, or is it more orless the same?
JB (11:42):
Yeah, so I mean, on our tours specifically, Beijing and Shanghai, we do a breakfast tour
and a dinner tour. But if you compare ourdinner tours… Beijing, we really focus on
what we call 老北京 [Lǎo Běijīng] cuisine,so Old Beijing food. So we have, like, the
Mongolian-style hotpot, we get these amazing串儿 [Chuàn’er] chicken wings that are
(12:05):
hidden in a 胡同 [Hútòng] in 东城 [Dōngchéng].They're amazing.
OF (12:08):
And I like the way you did your “儿 [Er]” just there.
JB (12:10):
Yeah, you gotta do “串儿 [Chuàn’er]”. Yeah, these these really interesting foods,
donkey burger… Whereas in Shanghai, ournighttime tour, we made a conscious decision
not to focus entirely on Shanghainese cuisine.Going to five different Shanghainese stops
is a lot of Shanghainese food, which can be…a lot of foreigners consider it a little too
(12:30):
sweet, a little too oily. So we actually decidedto focus on the fact that Shanghai is the
economic capital, it's kinda the 'New York’of China, and so you can get amazing food
from all over the country without actuallyleaving the city limits.
OF (12:44):
Well, that is the perfect excuse now for me to ask you about this diversity. So tell
me about Chinese food in general then.JB: Yes, so we have so much fun regional diversity
in Shanghai, because you have these migrantsfrom all over the country, who bring their
local dishes. And so, you know, when you tryand tell foreigners that goat cheese is a
Chinese dish, they’re like “Wait, what?”And you start to explain the geography of
(13:08):
Yunnan, and how up in the north part of Yunnanyou get amazing mushrooms and goat cheese,
and then you go down to the south where it'sclose to Myanmar (or Burma) and Thailand and
things, and you get, like, a tea leaf saladand these really interesting spicy flavours
that are very Southeast Asian to a lot ofpalates, but are actually very Chinese as
well. So we do Yunnan food, we hit up a Ningborestaurant, which has a lot of seafood. We
(13:32):
also, of course, have Sichuan because that'smy favourite. I love Sichuan food.
Sichuan is the one that everyone will know, right, with the famous peppercorns.
JB (13:40):
Yes, the Sichuan peppercorns, yeah. OF
might not have heard of?JB: Well, we do - for people who would like
to try it on our tour, we do not force thison anyone, but if anyone would like to try
- rabbit's head. It is a very popular dishin Chengdu in Sichuan. And it's very spicy.
There's actually… it's interesting, if youlook at where a lot of the rabbit’s heads
(14:01):
come from, a lot of them are from France andItaly, because they eat rabbit meat, but they
don't actually eat the heads. So, like, 70to 80% of the rabbit’s head eaten in China
is imported.OF: I can just imagine opening a case of rabbit’s
heads…JB: Yeah. We keep most of our dishes very
much well within people's comfort zone. Butwe do like to stretch people a little bit
if they're interested. We never force it onanyone. But I think a lot of times people
(14:23):
look at Sichuan food and they think “Oh,the 担担 [dàndàn] noodles”, which are
very famous, or “麻婆豆腐 [mápó dòufu]”which are delicious, and I love them. But
if you delve deep into the snack culture ofSichuan, and try all the different noodles,
you're gonna find so many that are so muchbetter than 担担 [dàndàn], like 宜宾燃面
[Yíbīn ránmiàn] comes from a city 宜宾[Yíbīn], it's called Kindling Noodles. They're
(14:46):
amazing, we eat those on our tour. My favouritetype of noodle from Sichuan is 碗杂面 [wǎnzá
miàn] which is a cowpea. It kinda looks likea chickpea, but like a subtle chickpea. I
eat those all the time.OF: Wow, there's already a lot of noodles
out there that I don't know of, in that case.When you talk about the rabbit head - going
back, because I still can't get that out ofmy head - it’s just the cheek, I guess.
(15:08):
Yes, you eat the cheek. You can eat other parts of it as well.
OF (15:11):
Really? And what, do you see the head in the thing, or it’s already been…
JB (15:13):
No, no no, you get a whole head. OF
Yeah, you get to, like, break into it and get all the meat out. We show you how
to get to all the best morsels.[Silence]
We’re also launching a vegan tour. We're trying to, you know… we offer options for
everyone. So people who don't want rabbit’shead, we also have different things that appeal
(15:35):
to them as well.OF: This is where it's interesting, because
you do have to deal with the food, you haveto deal with your vendors, but then you've
got to deal with your guests. There's a lotof human interactions there, and with humans
comes unpredictability.JB: Mmm.
OF (15:47):
I’m guessing you have a few stories where there have been some tours that have
gone slightly awry. What are the ones thatstick to your mind?
JB (15:54):
I think we're really lucky in that our guests are super self-selecting. So it's people
who are already visiting China, so they'rea little bit more adventurous, and then people
who want to eat local food. So 99% of ourguests are really easy to get along with,
and really just there to learn, and to eat,and to enjoy themselves. You do occasionally
(16:18):
get someone who's been brought along, by aspouse or a family member, who is just not
having it. And they are not interested inlearning anything about Chinese food, and
they can be a bit difficult. I had one guyon a tour who… what did he say? I think
it was… we got to the 小笼包 [xiǎolóngbāo]stop on the tour, and he took a bite of it,
(16:39):
and he was just like “Um, well, that's anacquired taste”. And one of the other guests,
I think, had just had enough, and turned aroundto him goes “An acquired taste? It is literally,
like, a noodle wrapper around pork, like,what do you need to acquire about that? It's
delicious.” And I was like “thank youso much”. But of course, I couldn't say
anything. We do have, you know, the occasionalperson who gets absolutely wasted. We had
(17:06):
a university come on our tour with a bunchof students. And the organiser got so drunk
that we had to cut them off. They loved 白酒[báijiǔ]. And so they drank a lot of it.
And the students had to end up taking himhome. So that doesn't happen very often, people
are usually great.OF: Nice. And finally, why the name? So it's
(17:28):
‘UnTours’, right?JB: Yeah so when Kyle and I first started
the company, all of the tour groups in Chinawere matching hats, umbrellas, you know, big
tour buses. Our groups are really small. It'sdesigned to feel like you're at dinner or
having lunch with a friend, just a friendwho happens to know a lot about Chinese food.
And we want it to be the opposite of that.So an ‘Un-Tour’, yeah.
OF (17:52):
Excellent. Well, thank you so much for that.
JB (17:55):
You’re welcome. OF
is the best?JB: It's impossible. I feel like if you named
a region, I could pick one. But I think thething that I eat the most is 碗杂面 [wǎnzá
miàn].OF: Thank you, we’ll move on now to Part
2.JB: OK.
[Part 2]OF: What is your favourite China related fact?
(18:17):
OK, so this one's about Sichuan peppercorn, Sichuan peppercorn actually gives you paresthesia
in your mouth. So it feels like your tongueand your lips are vibrating, which is cool
in and of itself. But they've actually donestudies to see at what frequency it's vibrating.
And it turns out, it's 50Hz, which is thesame frequency as the Shanghai power grid.
OF (18:38):
That’s a crazy fact. JB
I just love those Sichuan peppercorns. JB
Do you have a favourite word or phrase in Chinese?
JB (18:47):
Yes. So my favourite word or phrase is 吃撑了 [chīchēngle], which… A lot of
times when people want to say that they'refull, they'll say 吃饱了 [chībǎole].
OF (18:55):
Right. JB
working with my vendors and things like that,we oftentimes are doing tastings at a lot
of different places, and if I don't finishwhat they put in front of me, I can offend
them. But I can usually get out of it reallyeasily. Because I used to like “吃饱了，吃饱了
[chībǎole, chībǎole]” and they'd belike "Oh, just have a little more”. And
then I found out about 吃撑了 [chīchēngle],which is like “I have eaten so much, it
(19:16):
is coming out of me” like "I am so full,it is up to my neck. I cannot put anything
else”… And it's not very commonly used,and so they just crack up and they're like
“OK, that's fine”. And so it kinda getsme out of a lot of things where I'm like,
“I literally can't eat anymore. Please stopfeeding me”.
That’s brilliant. JB
吃撑了 [Chīchēngle], OK. JB
I love it. What is your favourite destination within China?
JB (19:40):
Oh, there's so many good places, it’s hard to pick one. But my most favourite place
that I've gone recently would be Ningxia.OF: Oh.
And I went out there with a couple of my girlfriends to wine country. And we had
amazing food, amazing wine, just the mosthospitable people. You know, it's funny because
people are always like "Oh, Shanghainese peopleare so mean” and I'm like “They're not!
(20:02):
They're lovely!” And then you go to Ningxia,and you're like “Oh, maybe in comparison”,
because they're just so welcoming and so friendly.OF: And Ningxia, so I don’t know much about
it, but it is a province up there in the northnear Gansu. And it's quite Muslim up there
is it? Or…JB: Yeah it’s a 回 [Huí] Autonomous Region.
OF (20:19):
Right. If you left China, what would be the thing that you missed the most? And what
would you miss the least?JB: Food. Food, food, food… Sichuan noodles,
碗杂面 [wǎnzá miàn], I just… Thatwould be so hard.
What about anything that you wouldn't miss?
JB (20:33):
That’s tough because I feel like that's a coin that has two sides, whenever it happens.
You know, a lot of times, I’ll take thesubway and get pushed around and jostled around
a little bit, and it's really annoying. Butthen I go to a wet market, and an 85 year
old woman shoves me out of the way becauseI'm standing in front of the daikon radish
that she really wants, and that just ticklesme. So there's things that annoy me in the
(20:55):
moment. But then on the flip side, if youunderstand why it's happening, it just…
you can get over it really easily.OF: Yeah. Is there anything that still surprises
you about life in China?JB: Expats who just have not even remotely
invested in China. And they live here, theylived here for years… So I met a woman,
who had lived here for 13 years, the otherday, she had never tried 煎饼 [jiānbing].
OF (21:20):
What? JB
me change your life, because it is the bestbreakfast food in the world.” But also “Just
what have you been doing for 13 years thatyou've never had the opportunity to try 煎饼
[jiānbing]?” She was such a nice person,so lovely, so great. But…
Yeah. And it just shows you how that first step can be so hard, like, you might have
(21:42):
walked past the 煎饼 [jiānbing] maker,and just thought “Oh it’s so intimidating
to try and ask that person”, like, goodfor her for having been here 13 years, but
then having that first step with you.JB: Yeah.
This is gonna be a hard one for you. What's your favourite place to eat or drink or hang
out?JB: I love the holes-in-the-wall, and the
mom-and-pop owned places. But those are notplaces you can hang out because a lot of times
(22:04):
they don't have AC or heat. And they relyon fast turnover. So the longer you sit at
their table, the less money they're making.So it's not cool to just sit and hang out.
So if I'm going to go hang out somewhere,I would say Heritage by Madison, Austin’s
place, is just the best. I absolutely loveit.
Very good. What about the best or worst purchase you've made in China?
JB (22:27):
It's kind of boring, but I love it. I got a Japanese reverse osmosis water subscription.
I hate the giant plastic…OF: …Dispensers
Water 桶 [tǒng] dispensers in the house. I feel like it's just very distracting. And
I cannot deal with buying lots of plasticwater bottles, I just feel way too guilty
and I think that's horrible for the environment.So we got that installed a couple of years
(22:51):
ago, and it has been fantastic. And then Ialso got SodaStream. I have free-flow bubbly
water in my house. It's so good.OF: Ah, very good. What is your favourite
WeChat sticker?JB: My Beijing guides are really tech savvy.
And I still don't know how to make my ownWeChat stickers, but they have made several
for me. My favourite one that they made is…my husband came to a team building dinner,
(23:13):
and they just took a couple pictures of himand made it into a gif. And it just says in
Chinese underneath it (23:17):
高富帅 [gāo fù shuài]. So like “Tall, rich and handsome.”
I don't send it to people, but I just loveit. And one of our former operations managers,
she just moved back to the States. She gothired to be in a commercial for a Learning
English company. And she was a robot thatkilled people with her laser eyes. She has
(23:38):
this crazy robot wig. It's so great.OF: Wow. What's your go-to song to sing at
KTV?JB: I'm such a bad singer. It is so embarrassing.
It’s ‘Super Bass’, by Nicki Minaj. BecauseI don't actually have to sing, I just get
to rap.OF: I kind of want to see you do that pregnant
right now. Why am I saying that?JB: You’re right, I actually, um, you know,
(24:02):
my friends are like “Oh, we should go toKTV!” And I'm like “Can we do daytime
KTV? Because I'm not gonna drink anyway”.So it'll be, yeah…
OF (24:07):
Yeah, because you really have to do sober KTV, and that's hard.
JB (24:11):
Yeah. OF
related sources of information that you relyon?
So in our office right now, because we've had, you know, so many people stuck out, we
actually have a bunch of empty desks. So I'vehad a couple friends who are journalists who
are actually allowed to work from home buthave children, so they need to be able to
work from a place with no kids either. Sothat's actually been like my recent source.
(24:34):
I'm just like “What's going on in the world,guys? Do I need to know anything?” But the
other thing I've been doing for years is,I have news alerts. So I get emails whenever
something I'm interested in happens. UsuallyI get the weekly roundup. And that's great,
because then you can see coverage about thesame stuff from everything from the New York
Times to the Global Times. Most of my stuffis food-based, that I'm interested in. So,
(24:56):
shocking.OF: Jamie, thank you so much.
Thank you, it’s been a pleasure. OF
in the story behind the bǐng that you gave,which is still here. I've had three bites.
And I'm gonna finish it off on the way hometoday. So the only thing left for me to ask
you is, out of everyone who you know in China,who should I interview for the next season
(25:17):
of Mosaic of China.JB: So I think it would be great if you interviewed
Emma Gao. She is the owner and the winemakerat Silver Heights Vineyard, which is in Ningxia.
And it is a boutique winery that is doingamazing things.
OF (25:31):
Oh that's one of the ones that you mentioned before with your favourite destination, right?
JB (25:35):
Yes, yeah. She's just the most amazing woman and the wine she's making is unbelievable.
And she has great stories.OF: Oh, wow, that's so wonderful. I'm so glad
you mentioned her, I’ve never been to Ningxiaand now is the perfect excuse to go.
Yes. OF
Any time.
[Outro]OF: First things first, here are a few clips
(25:56):
from the PREMIUM version of today’s episode,please go to https://patreon.com/mosaicofchina
to subscribe.[Clip 1]
We got in, I think it was, six hours before the border closed.
OF (26:06):
Ooh. JB
[Clip 2]JB: There’s another name for it, 油炸鬼
[yóuzháguǐ], which is basically a ‘deepfried ghost’.
[Clip 3]JB: It was a couple months before my wedding,
and it got shut down. And I never saw anyof them again.
[Clip 4]JB: He invented 煎饼 [jiānbing], 包子
[bāozi], and landmines. You're like “Well,he wasn't all good”.
(26:27):
[End of Audio Clips]
The happiest updates first, Jamie has indeedgiven birth since she recorded this episode,
I’ve included a photo of new mother andlittle Hamish - both looking gorgeous - on
social media. And the other happy news isthat listeners to this show can include the
code ‘Mosaic10’ when booking any touron https://untourfoodtours.com, and enjoy
(26:51):
a 10% discount. The code is valid until theend of 2021, and also covers the new Koreatown
tour, which includes all the best-kept secretsof Korean restaurants, bars and shops in Shanghai.
The saddest update is with Austin Hu, whopassed away suddenly since we made this recording.
Austin was the person behind Jamie’s favouriteplace to eat or drink or hang out in China,
(27:14):
‘Heritage by Madison’, which was incidentallythe same answer given by by Michael Zee from
Episode 07 of last season. I never met Austin,but I only heard the best things said about
him, so I did want to include this small tribute,especially since I know he and Jamie were
also close.
Lots of other photos there too, includingJamie’s object, the 老婆饼 [lǎopó bǐng],
(27:36):
and the winter melon from which its made;a cup of Hong Kong milk tea, one of the by-products
of the British influence there; photos fromfood tours, as well as one of Jamie and her
co-founder Kyle from the early days; somephotos from the street food served at her
wedding; some of the foods she mentioned fromthe tours in Beijing and Shanghai, including
those rabbit heads; and a whole lot more.
(27:59):
Mosaic of China is me, Oscar Fuchs, with artworkby Denny Newell. Stick around for a shortened
version of my catch-up interview with LexieComstock from Episode 20 of Season 01, and
I’ll see you again next Tuesday for thelast episode of 2020.
[Catch-Up Interview]OF: Lexie!
LC (28:18):
Hello! OF
in front of me.LC: I know, I made it back.
OF (28:31):
Well, what the hell was your Coronavirus story?
LC (28:35):
It was pretty wild. I left for Christmas for an extended time back in the States with
my parents…OF: OK
…And my sister actually. And then Corona happened. And I've been out of China since
then, which is insane. I got back two anda half, three weeks ago now. I did the two
weeks in quarantine.OF: I think you're in this wave that has come
(28:56):
back since September. But it hasn't been immediate,right?
No, a lot of people gave up. I think people were like, “OK, I guess this is a good time
just to move.” Yeah. It was very mentallytaxing to just have the uncertainty of the
flight situation. The rules were changingconstantly… constant anxiety.
OF (29:14):
What about your dog? That's the main thing. LC
friends. And a handful of people took careof him. For the bulk of the time, really like
10 out of the 11 months, was my friend Pei,who did an incredible job with little Mario.
And Mario and I will go see him every weekjust to make sure that Pei gets his Mario
time, because they really bonded. It was reallycute.
(29:35):
Ah. So what was it like to meet him, then, coming back?
LC (29:39):
Incredible. He was so excited. And it was honestly one of the happiest moments of
my life.OF: And then the business. So, Strictly Cookies…
Yeah! OF
I have an amazing team. And they all really stepped up, and credit to them. They just…
they nailed it.OF: Well what it does say to me is this is
a litmus test for you to show that actually,you don't have to be here, you actually could
(30:02):
be overseas, and life would go on with thecompany. So was that, kind of, liberating
for you at the same time?LC: It was. It was funny, because I actually
did better work when I was away. And I don'tthink it was because I was, like, so nervous
that everything was gonna fall apart. I thinkit was… it allowed for a nice separation
that gave good perspective on things. Andas crazy as it was to be living with my family
(30:25):
for six months, it was really nice. Havinglived abroad for 10 years, it felt incredibly
special.OF: I think that's going to be a bit of a
theme to these catch-up interviews that Ido with people who have come back.
Yeah. OF
be seeing Shanghai with new eyes, almost.LC: Absolutely. So, a year and a half ago,
a year ago even, I was very much like “Ineed a plan, I need to know where I'm going
(30:47):
to be in the next month”. Now I'm a lotbetter with uncertainty, and just kind of
going with it, and just letting things unfold.OF: Yes.
It’s really… it's honestly… it's a massive, massive change for me. But I do
think it was a good life lesson. Just, youdon't have a lot of control. And you just
have to kind of make the best of it.OF: Yes, absolutely. I'm nodding fervently,
because I just know that anyone who was morea control freak, now has to be less so.
(31:09):
Oh my gosh, yeah. You really… After the first, like, two months. I was like “OK,
I guess I really have no control over anythinganymore”.
OF (31:16):
Yeah. And the things that you said that you would miss if you left China, you said
the thing you would miss the most was 煎饼[jiānbing].
LC (31:24):
Yeah OF
construction noise.LC: Yep, that still holds.
OF (31:29):
Yeah? LC
I think that was the first thing I ate. Iwoke up early, left quarantine, and got a
煎饼 [jiānbing].OF: That was it. Number one.
LC (31:38):
Number one, for sure. I love 煎饼 [jiānbing]. OF
this update at the same time as the episodeof Jamie Barys…
Yay! OF
for Season 2.LC: Yes.
OF (31:50):
So have you been in touch with Jamie? LC
so I saw her the other day, she just had ababy. OF: Yes, she did.
LC (31:58):
Little Hamish. Honestly, seeing her, seeing my friends… I still haven't seen… I mean,
I really just got out of quarantine a weekago.
OF (32:04):
Yes. You’re fresh out. LC
to go to Cages. My friend, I have a friendDalton. I haven't seen him yet and I feel
like he'd be down. Maybe I'll just send himthis podcast, and say “Wait till the end.
I’m inviting you to Cages.” Yeah.OF: Nice.
[Trailer]JB: I got married here. My husband is British.
OF (00:05):
I'm so sorry.
[Intro]OF: Welcome to Mosaic of China, a podcast
about people who are making their mark inChina. I’m your host, Oscar Fuchs.
Thank you very much for all your feedbackfrom last week’s premier episode of the
Season with the Chief Consumer Officer ofL’Oréal China, Stéphane Wilmet. It’s
(00:26):
great to be back, and especially with sucha thoughtful and thought-provoking conversation.
Please join that conversation by followingus on Instagram or Facebook, or by joining
the WeChat group. In all three cases, youcan find us at @mosaicofchina. And a special
thanks to everyone who subscribed to the longerepisodes on Patreon, including Jeremy Bivol,
(00:46):
Vinnie Apicella, Anthony, Peter Arkell, andDavid Rempel.
Today’s chat is with Jamie Barys, who getsintroduced right up front. But before we start,
a quick warning (00:56):
at times Jamie speaks very fast. And I often mirror her energy, and speak
very fast right back. So if English isn’tyour first language, I would definitely recommend
following the transcript of the conversationon https://mosaicofchina.com. And please keep
listening until the end, where I’ll sharedetails of a special discount code available
to listeners of the show.
(01:17):
[Part 1]OF: Jamie, thank you so much. How this came
about was this introduction.[Start of Audio Clip]
Lexie COMSTOCK (01:26):
My friend Jamie Barys, who runs UnTour with her business partner, Kyle.
They basically give you a really awesome tourof the best street food in Shanghai or Beijing.
They also partner, I think, in various othercities across China. And as someone who loves
food, and especially street food, it’s…they just do a really good job. On the tours,
(01:47):
they give you a tonne of really cool informationabout Shanghai, about the food you're eating.
It's not only satisfying for your tummy, butalso for your brain.
[End of Audio Clip]OF: Tell me about your friendship with Lexie,
how do you know her?JB: I have known Lexie since she first moved
to Shanghai. She was interning and neededa place to stay, and somehow got hooked up
(02:08):
with a couple of my friends who had an extrabedroom. And she started her cookie business
in that apartment, using the āyí that Istill use today.
OF (02:15):
No! JB
[āyí] on her website doing her first batchesof cookies. But she is just one of those pure,
wonderful human beings that you just wantto spend all your time around.
Well, before we go into more about your story, why don't you show me the object that
you've brought which, in some way, epitomisesyour life in China.
JB (02:35):
So I wanted to bring a snack, because Chinese food is my life. And the thing about
Chinese food is, it's really hard to findsomething that's portable and really good,
because everything is made fresh in frontof you, and it's best eaten right then.
OF (02:49):
It’s messy, right? JB
a dessert which is called a 老婆饼 [lǎopóbǐng], which is sometimes translated as Sweetheart
Cake or Wife Cake. But it's a very traditionalChinese dessert. A lot of desserts you get
in China are the product of colonialism, butthis is a traditional Chinese dessert that
originated at the end of the Yuan dynasty,so late 1300s, right before the Ming started.
(03:13):
There are so many legends about how this 饼[bǐng] got started, this pastry. One of them
is that there was the wife of a general forthe rebels against the Yuan emperor made them
so that it was easier for the soldiers tohave a quick snack. But then there's a lot
of really romantic stories, and that's whereyou get ‘Sweetheart Cake’ from. Where
this man, his father was really sick, andhis wife ended up selling herself into slavery.
(03:38):
And then he created this cake and sold a lotof them until he could buy her out of slavery.
Or there's another version where he goes toa dimsum house, and he eats this 饼 [bǐng],
and he's like “I know my wife is in thekitchen because this tastes exactly like her
饼 [bǐng]”. And so every Chinese dish,I feel like, has this crazy story behind it.
And also, it's delicious. It's got wintermelon in the middle.
What? OK, I've had all kinds of 饼 [bǐng], and I've never even heard of 老婆饼 [lǎopó
(04:02):
bǐng]. OK, we will now have a commercialbreak, where I will eat one.
JB (04:05):
So I love winter melon, you don't really see it outside of China very often.
OF (04:10):
It's very good. It's so dense. JB
Like, I can't imagine eating the whole thing.
JB (04:14):
No. So usually you would cut it up, kind of like a pie. You would have it with tea
and other sort of pastries and things likethat.
OF (04:21):
When it comes to dessert, you were saying a lot of desserts have this colonial shadow.
What did you mean by that?JB: I mean, what we consider dessert in the
West is not necessarily considered a dessertin China. A lot of times, if you order a sweet
dish at a restaurant, it just comes in themiddle of the meal, it's not going to come
at the end of the meal. Fruit is often consumedat the end of the meal. And you do have some
(04:43):
desserts, but the idea of a dessert culture,really, a lot of that came through the Portuguese
and the British, who colonised Macau and HongKong respectively.
And so do you know the history of the dessert in the West?
JB (04:56):
Yeah, well, a lot of desserts are baked. And baking is not something that was native
to China. You would see things that came alongthe Silk Road from India, where things are
cooked inside sort of a kiln, and that's aflatbread. But actually having an oven is
not something.. Even today, you know, I movedinto the first apartment I've ever lived in,
(05:17):
in China, that has an oven this weekend. AndI've been here 13 years. And so when there
was colonisation, a lot of these things werebrought over. A lot of times they were given
a local twist. So you'll see, you know, evenHong Kong milk tea, that comes from the British.
You would not put dairy products in tea, inChina, typically.
OF (05:35):
Fascinating. JB
And so, when it comes to this particular bǐng, so you were saying the story about
the Yuan dynasty, and of course, the Yuandynasty, they were actually the Mongols, weren’t
they.JB: Right, yeah.
So is there a kind of nationalist element to this bǐng like this was, you know…
JB (05:49):
…“Fed the troops so we could overthrow our foreign conquerors” thing? Definitely.
And you have that with a lot of different…you know, like mooncakes, and things like
that. Supposedly, there were messages snuckinto the mooncakes, that then, people knew
when to rebel… So like, I always say onour tours, whenever we're introducing this,
you know, ‘grains of salt’, there areusually about three different legends behind
(06:11):
every dish. So you never know how accuratethey are. But they're all super fun.
OF (06:16):
Well, you mentioned the tour. So now it's a good juncture for us to talk about what
it is that you do here in China.JB: Yeah. So I am the Chief Eating Officer
of UnTour Food Tours.OF: UnTour Food Tours.
JB (06:27):
Yes, that's correct. OF
So we wanted to show foreigners who are visiting China, how wonderful Chinese cuisine
is. A lot of times there's such a languagebarrier. And just a cultural barrier. People
don't feel comfortable going out and justtrying a lot of these hole-in-the-wall places
that are where some of the best food in Chinacomes from. So we wanted to bridge that gap,
(06:49):
and just showcase how amazing the food ofChina can be. The sheer variety of it, because
so many people have only had Cantonese food.And they think that is ‘Chinese food’,
because you have most of the Chinatowns aroundthe world, Cantonese is the language that
everyone speaks, and most people are fromeither Hong Kong or Guangdong area. It’s
starting to change now, you're getting a lotmore Mandarin in Chinatowns around the world.
(07:10):
But you're still not seeing a lot of veryauthentic Yunnan cuisine, or Sichuan.
OF (07:14):
Yeah, this is obviously where all of this wealth of information comes from. I mean,
how did that arise? What's the story?JB: Yeah so my business partner at the time,
Kyle, he had just left Shanghai and gone toGermany to go to business school. And I was
still in Shanghai writing about food. So Iwas a food writer for a while. So I was working
(07:34):
there, and when he came back, he said “Ireally want to start a business.” And I
said “Well I kinda have this idea of foodtours”. Now at that point, food tours were
still a really young industry, there weren'tthat many around the world. And now you go
to any city, and there's at least three companiesdoing something like that. And so we started
it, December 1 2010, and I went full timewith it in February 2012. So it took about
(07:58):
14 months for it to be able to support bothme and Kyle. And then after that, it just
grew so much. We got in The New York Times,and The Guardian, and all these big papers,
and it just blew up, and we expand a lot.OF: So is Kyle still around in the business?
JB (08:14):
So unfortunately, Kyle got stuck out. And he had been considering leaving China
anyway, his husband had been here for, like20 years. They left when COVID kicked off
in Shanghai, and then ended up getting stuckout. And so they've decided to leave China.
OF (08:33):
And no goodbyes, right? JB
It's hard for me to read into what he is thinking, but at least with you still around,
there's continuity. Like, he knows that it'sgonna be a new phase for this baby moving
on, right?JB: Yeah, we're definitely in a new phase,
not having any foreign tourists. So it's beenan interesting change of pace for us.
Well, let's talk about that then. So, I don't want this podcast to be too COVID-heavy,
(08:57):
but the fact remains that lives are differentafter COVID.
JB (09:00):
Yeah, I would say before COVID, 90% of our our target audience was foreigners who
were visiting China. So we were closed allthrough Feb, and we were able to relaunch
in Shanghai towards the end of March. Butwe have really shifted gears. And, you know,
obviously, all of our marketing and BD isnow focused on the people who are here, the
(09:23):
captive audience that we have. Which is small,but very active, which is great. But once
I got out of quarantine, I realised that everyonejust wanted to booze. So we launched a speakeasy
tour. And it's been super popular. We launchedthat in May, with expats. And so we do a cocktail
mixing class to start. And then we go to oneof our favourite hidden noodle shops. And
(09:48):
then after that, we go to two more speakeasiesand we also get food at another stop. But
I'm pregnant, so I can't drink cocktails atthe moment.
OF (09:56):
Mazel Tov. JB
And I don't know when this is going to be released, it could be months, so that baby
could be talking by the time this comes out.If the baby has already been born, and it
has a name, I'll make sure to include thatat the end of this episode.
JB (10:10):
Oh, great. OF
are the basic conceptual differences betweenstreet food here in China versus elsewhere?
Yeah, so street food, unfortunately, is not as prominent as it once was in China.
When we first started, a lot of our tourswere street food focused. But we've had to
(10:32):
change a lot of that over the years, as nightmarkets have been shut down, and a lot of
our street food vendors have been closed.So we just try and support locally-owned,
family-owned businesses that are kind of…I guess you could call them ‘hole-in-the-walls’
or ‘holes-in-the-wall’. But they're fantastic.And it's where some of the best food is.
OF (10:50):
So tell me about who these people are. People who go to street food, they didn't
really think about actually who they're dealingwith. So who are these people?
JB (10:56):
Oh, I love my vendors. I think that's probably one of the favourite parts of my
job. For our wedding… I got married here,my husband is British and…
OF (11:06):
I’m so sorry. JB
Shanghai, I said “At least half of the foodhas to be from my street food vendors”.
So we had a 拉面 [lāmiàn] vendor, likea pulled noodle, a 小笼包 [xiǎolóngbāo]
vendor. And a 煎饼 [jiānbing] vendor. So,you know, a lot of our… It’s nice introducing
this really cool food, and these people thatare a big part of my life, to my friends and
(11:28):
family at the wedding.OF: Amazing.
JB (11:29):
Yeah. OF
have an offshoot in Beijing.JB: Mmm yes.
OF (11:35):
What is the difference, then, between what you'd say is the street food culture
of Shanghai and Beijing, or is it more orless the same?
JB (11:42):
Yeah, so I mean, on our tours specifically, Beijing and Shanghai, we do a breakfast tour
and a dinner tour. But if you compare ourdinner tours… Beijing, we really focus on
what we call 老北京 [Lǎo Běijīng] cuisine,so Old Beijing food. So we have, like, the
Mongolian-style hotpot, we get these amazing串儿 [Chuàn’er] chicken wings that are
(12:05):
hidden in a 胡同 [Hútòng] in 东城 [Dōngchéng].They're amazing.
OF (12:08):
And I like the way you did your “儿 [Er]” just there.
JB (12:10):
Yeah, you gotta do “串儿 [Chuàn’er]”. Yeah, these these really interesting foods,
donkey burger… Whereas in Shanghai, ournighttime tour, we made a conscious decision
not to focus entirely on Shanghainese cuisine.Going to five different Shanghainese stops
is a lot of Shanghainese food, which can be…a lot of foreigners consider it a little too
(12:30):
sweet, a little too oily. So we actually decidedto focus on the fact that Shanghai is the
economic capital, it's kinda the 'New York’of China, and so you can get amazing food
from all over the country without actuallyleaving the city limits.
OF (12:44):
Well, that is the perfect excuse now for me to ask you about this diversity. So tell
me about Chinese food in general then.JB: Yes, so we have so much fun regional diversity
in Shanghai, because you have these migrantsfrom all over the country, who bring their
local dishes. And so, you know, when you tryand tell foreigners that goat cheese is a
Chinese dish, they’re like “Wait, what?”And you start to explain the geography of
(13:08):
Yunnan, and how up in the north part of Yunnanyou get amazing mushrooms and goat cheese,
and then you go down to the south where it'sclose to Myanmar (or Burma) and Thailand and
things, and you get, like, a tea leaf saladand these really interesting spicy flavours
that are very Southeast Asian to a lot ofpalates, but are actually very Chinese as
well. So we do Yunnan food, we hit up a Ningborestaurant, which has a lot of seafood. We
(13:32):
also, of course, have Sichuan because that'smy favourite. I love Sichuan food.
Sichuan is the one that everyone will know, right, with the famous peppercorns.
JB (13:40):
Yes, the Sichuan peppercorns, yeah. OF
might not have heard of?JB: Well, we do - for people who would like
to try it on our tour, we do not force thison anyone, but if anyone would like to try
- rabbit's head. It is a very popular dishin Chengdu in Sichuan. And it's very spicy.
There's actually… it's interesting, if youlook at where a lot of the rabbit’s heads
(14:01):
come from, a lot of them are from France andItaly, because they eat rabbit meat, but they
don't actually eat the heads. So, like, 70to 80% of the rabbit’s head eaten in China
is imported.OF: I can just imagine opening a case of rabbit’s
heads…JB: Yeah. We keep most of our dishes very
much well within people's comfort zone. Butwe do like to stretch people a little bit
if they're interested. We never force it onanyone. But I think a lot of times people
(14:23):
look at Sichuan food and they think “Oh,the 担担 [dàndàn] noodles”, which are
very famous, or “麻婆豆腐 [mápó dòufu]”which are delicious, and I love them. But
if you delve deep into the snack culture ofSichuan, and try all the different noodles,
you're gonna find so many that are so muchbetter than 担担 [dàndàn], like 宜宾燃面
[Yíbīn ránmiàn] comes from a city 宜宾[Yíbīn], it's called Kindling Noodles. They're
(14:46):
amazing, we eat those on our tour. My favouritetype of noodle from Sichuan is 碗杂面 [wǎnzá
miàn] which is a cowpea. It kinda looks likea chickpea, but like a subtle chickpea. I
eat those all the time.OF: Wow, there's already a lot of noodles
out there that I don't know of, in that case.When you talk about the rabbit head - going
back, because I still can't get that out ofmy head - it’s just the cheek, I guess.
(15:08):
Yes, you eat the cheek. You can eat other parts of it as well.
OF (15:11):
Really? And what, do you see the head in the thing, or it’s already been…
JB (15:13):
No, no no, you get a whole head. OF
Yeah, you get to, like, break into it and get all the meat out. We show you how
to get to all the best morsels.[Silence]
We’re also launching a vegan tour. We're trying to, you know… we offer options for
everyone. So people who don't want rabbit’shead, we also have different things that appeal
(15:35):
to them as well.OF: This is where it's interesting, because
you do have to deal with the food, you haveto deal with your vendors, but then you've
got to deal with your guests. There's a lotof human interactions there, and with humans
comes unpredictability.JB: Mmm.
OF (15:47):
I’m guessing you have a few stories where there have been some tours that have
gone slightly awry. What are the ones thatstick to your mind?
JB (15:54):
I think we're really lucky in that our guests are super self-selecting. So it's people
who are already visiting China, so they'rea little bit more adventurous, and then people
who want to eat local food. So 99% of ourguests are really easy to get along with,
and really just there to learn, and to eat,and to enjoy themselves. You do occasionally
(16:18):
get someone who's been brought along, by aspouse or a family member, who is just not
having it. And they are not interested inlearning anything about Chinese food, and
they can be a bit difficult. I had one guyon a tour who… what did he say? I think
it was… we got to the 小笼包 [xiǎolóngbāo]stop on the tour, and he took a bite of it,
(16:39):
and he was just like “Um, well, that's anacquired taste”. And one of the other guests,
I think, had just had enough, and turned aroundto him goes “An acquired taste? It is literally,
like, a noodle wrapper around pork, like,what do you need to acquire about that? It's
delicious.” And I was like “thank youso much”. But of course, I couldn't say
anything. We do have, you know, the occasionalperson who gets absolutely wasted. We had
(17:06):
a university come on our tour with a bunchof students. And the organiser got so drunk
that we had to cut them off. They loved 白酒[báijiǔ]. And so they drank a lot of it.
And the students had to end up taking himhome. So that doesn't happen very often, people
are usually great.OF: Nice. And finally, why the name? So it's
(17:28):
‘UnTours’, right?JB: Yeah so when Kyle and I first started
the company, all of the tour groups in Chinawere matching hats, umbrellas, you know, big
tour buses. Our groups are really small. It'sdesigned to feel like you're at dinner or
having lunch with a friend, just a friendwho happens to know a lot about Chinese food.
And we want it to be the opposite of that.So an ‘Un-Tour’, yeah.
OF (17:52):
Excellent. Well, thank you so much for that.
JB (17:55):
You’re welcome. OF
is the best?JB: It's impossible. I feel like if you named
a region, I could pick one. But I think thething that I eat the most is 碗杂面 [wǎnzá
miàn].OF: Thank you, we’ll move on now to Part
2.JB: OK.
[Part 2]OF: What is your favourite China related fact?
(18:17):
OK, so this one's about Sichuan peppercorn, Sichuan peppercorn actually gives you paresthesia
in your mouth. So it feels like your tongueand your lips are vibrating, which is cool
in and of itself. But they've actually donestudies to see at what frequency it's vibrating.
And it turns out, it's 50Hz, which is thesame frequency as the Shanghai power grid.
OF (18:38):
That’s a crazy fact. JB
I just love those Sichuan peppercorns. JB
Do you have a favourite word or phrase in Chinese?
JB (18:47):
Yes. So my favourite word or phrase is 吃撑了 [chīchēngle], which… A lot of
times when people want to say that they'refull, they'll say 吃饱了 [chībǎole].
OF (18:55):
Right. JB
working with my vendors and things like that,we oftentimes are doing tastings at a lot
of different places, and if I don't finishwhat they put in front of me, I can offend
them. But I can usually get out of it reallyeasily. Because I used to like “吃饱了，吃饱了
[chībǎole, chībǎole]” and they'd belike "Oh, just have a little more”. And
then I found out about 吃撑了 [chīchēngle],which is like “I have eaten so much, it
(19:16):
is coming out of me” like "I am so full,it is up to my neck. I cannot put anything
else”… And it's not very commonly used,and so they just crack up and they're like
“OK, that's fine”. And so it kinda getsme out of a lot of things where I'm like,
“I literally can't eat anymore. Please stopfeeding me”.
That’s brilliant. JB
吃撑了 [Chīchēngle], OK. JB
I love it. What is your favourite destination within China?
JB (19:40):
Oh, there's so many good places, it’s hard to pick one. But my most favourite place
that I've gone recently would be Ningxia.OF: Oh.
And I went out there with a couple of my girlfriends to wine country. And we had
amazing food, amazing wine, just the mosthospitable people. You know, it's funny because
people are always like "Oh, Shanghainese peopleare so mean” and I'm like “They're not!
(20:02):
They're lovely!” And then you go to Ningxia,and you're like “Oh, maybe in comparison”,
because they're just so welcoming and so friendly.OF: And Ningxia, so I don’t know much about
it, but it is a province up there in the northnear Gansu. And it's quite Muslim up there
is it? Or…JB: Yeah it’s a 回 [Huí] Autonomous Region.
OF (20:19):
Right. If you left China, what would be the thing that you missed the most? And what
would you miss the least?JB: Food. Food, food, food… Sichuan noodles,
碗杂面 [wǎnzá miàn], I just… Thatwould be so hard.
What about anything that you wouldn't miss?
JB (20:33):
That’s tough because I feel like that's a coin that has two sides, whenever it happens.
You know, a lot of times, I’ll take thesubway and get pushed around and jostled around
a little bit, and it's really annoying. Butthen I go to a wet market, and an 85 year
old woman shoves me out of the way becauseI'm standing in front of the daikon radish
that she really wants, and that just ticklesme. So there's things that annoy me in the
(20:55):
moment. But then on the flip side, if youunderstand why it's happening, it just…
you can get over it really easily.OF: Yeah. Is there anything that still surprises
you about life in China?JB: Expats who just have not even remotely
invested in China. And they live here, theylived here for years… So I met a woman,
who had lived here for 13 years, the otherday, she had never tried 煎饼 [jiānbing].
OF (21:20):
What? JB
me change your life, because it is the bestbreakfast food in the world.” But also “Just
what have you been doing for 13 years thatyou've never had the opportunity to try 煎饼
[jiānbing]?” She was such a nice person,so lovely, so great. But…
Yeah. And it just shows you how that first step can be so hard, like, you might have
(21:42):
walked past the 煎饼 [jiānbing] maker,and just thought “Oh it’s so intimidating
to try and ask that person”, like, goodfor her for having been here 13 years, but
then having that first step with you.JB: Yeah.
This is gonna be a hard one for you. What's your favourite place to eat or drink or hang
out?JB: I love the holes-in-the-wall, and the
mom-and-pop owned places. But those are notplaces you can hang out because a lot of times
(22:04):
they don't have AC or heat. And they relyon fast turnover. So the longer you sit at
their table, the less money they're making.So it's not cool to just sit and hang out.
So if I'm going to go hang out somewhere,I would say Heritage by Madison, Austin’s
place, is just the best. I absolutely loveit.
Very good. What about the best or worst purchase you've made in China?
JB (22:27):
It's kind of boring, but I love it. I got a Japanese reverse osmosis water subscription.
I hate the giant plastic…OF: …Dispensers
Water 桶 [tǒng] dispensers in the house. I feel like it's just very distracting. And
I cannot deal with buying lots of plasticwater bottles, I just feel way too guilty
and I think that's horrible for the environment.So we got that installed a couple of years
(22:51):
ago, and it has been fantastic. And then Ialso got SodaStream. I have free-flow bubbly
water in my house. It's so good.OF: Ah, very good. What is your favourite
WeChat sticker?JB: My Beijing guides are really tech savvy.
And I still don't know how to make my ownWeChat stickers, but they have made several
for me. My favourite one that they made is…my husband came to a team building dinner,
(23:13):
and they just took a couple pictures of himand made it into a gif. And it just says in
Chinese underneath it (23:17):
高富帅 [gāo fù shuài]. So like “Tall, rich and handsome.”
I don't send it to people, but I just loveit. And one of our former operations managers,
she just moved back to the States. She gothired to be in a commercial for a Learning
English company. And she was a robot thatkilled people with her laser eyes. She has
(23:38):
this crazy robot wig. It's so great.OF: Wow. What's your go-to song to sing at
KTV?JB: I'm such a bad singer. It is so embarrassing.
It’s ‘Super Bass’, by Nicki Minaj. BecauseI don't actually have to sing, I just get
to rap.OF: I kind of want to see you do that pregnant
right now. Why am I saying that?JB: You’re right, I actually, um, you know,
(24:02):
my friends are like “Oh, we should go toKTV!” And I'm like “Can we do daytime
KTV? Because I'm not gonna drink anyway”.So it'll be, yeah…
OF (24:07):
Yeah, because you really have to do sober KTV, and that's hard.
JB (24:11):
Yeah. OF
related sources of information that you relyon?
So in our office right now, because we've had, you know, so many people stuck out, we
actually have a bunch of empty desks. So I'vehad a couple friends who are journalists who
are actually allowed to work from home buthave children, so they need to be able to
work from a place with no kids either. Sothat's actually been like my recent source.
(24:34):
I'm just like “What's going on in the world,guys? Do I need to know anything?” But the
other thing I've been doing for years is,I have news alerts. So I get emails whenever
something I'm interested in happens. UsuallyI get the weekly roundup. And that's great,
because then you can see coverage about thesame stuff from everything from the New York
Times to the Global Times. Most of my stuffis food-based, that I'm interested in. So,
(24:56):
shocking.OF: Jamie, thank you so much.
Thank you, it’s been a pleasure. OF
in the story behind the bǐng that you gave,which is still here. I've had three bites.
And I'm gonna finish it off on the way hometoday. So the only thing left for me to ask
you is, out of everyone who you know in China,who should I interview for the next season
(25:17):
of Mosaic of China.JB: So I think it would be great if you interviewed
Emma Gao. She is the owner and the winemakerat Silver Heights Vineyard, which is in Ningxia.
And it is a boutique winery that is doingamazing things.
OF (25:31):
Oh that's one of the ones that you mentioned before with your favourite destination, right?
JB (25:35):
Yes, yeah. She's just the most amazing woman and the wine she's making is unbelievable.
And she has great stories.OF: Oh, wow, that's so wonderful. I'm so glad
you mentioned her, I’ve never been to Ningxiaand now is the perfect excuse to go.
Yes. OF
Any time.
[Outro]OF: First things first, here are a few clips
(25:56):
from the PREMIUM version of today’s episode,please go to https://patreon.com/mosaicofchina
to subscribe.[Clip 1]
We got in, I think it was, six hours before the border closed.
OF (26:06):
Ooh. JB
[Clip 2]JB: There’s another name for it, 油炸鬼
[yóuzháguǐ], which is basically a ‘deepfried ghost’.
[Clip 3]JB: It was a couple months before my wedding,
and it got shut down. And I never saw anyof them again.
[Clip 4]JB: He invented 煎饼 [jiānbing], 包子
[bāozi], and landmines. You're like “Well,he wasn't all good”.
(26:27):
[End of Audio Clips]
The happiest updates first, Jamie has indeedgiven birth since she recorded this episode,
I’ve included a photo of new mother andlittle Hamish - both looking gorgeous - on
social media. And the other happy news isthat listeners to this show can include the
code ‘Mosaic10’ when booking any touron https://untourfoodtours.com, and enjoy
(26:51):
a 10% discount. The code is valid until theend of 2021, and also covers the new Koreatown
tour, which includes all the best-kept secretsof Korean restaurants, bars and shops in Shanghai.
The saddest update is with Austin Hu, whopassed away suddenly since we made this recording.
Austin was the person behind Jamie’s favouriteplace to eat or drink or hang out in China,
(27:14):
‘Heritage by Madison’, which was incidentallythe same answer given by by Michael Zee from
Episode 07 of last season. I never met Austin,but I only heard the best things said about
him, so I did want to include this small tribute,especially since I know he and Jamie were
also close.
Lots of other photos there too, includingJamie’s object, the 老婆饼 [lǎopó bǐng],
(27:36):
and the winter melon from which its made;a cup of Hong Kong milk tea, one of the by-products
of the British influence there; photos fromfood tours, as well as one of Jamie and her
co-founder Kyle from the early days; somephotos from the street food served at her
wedding; some of the foods she mentioned fromthe tours in Beijing and Shanghai, including
those rabbit heads; and a whole lot more.
(27:59):
Mosaic of China is me, Oscar Fuchs, with artworkby Denny Newell. Stick around for a shortened
version of my catch-up interview with LexieComstock from Episode 20 of Season 01, and
I’ll see you again next Tuesday for thelast episode of 2020.
[Catch-Up Interview]OF: Lexie!
LC (28:18):
Hello! OF
in front of me.LC: I know, I made it back.
OF (28:31):
Well, what the hell was your Coronavirus story?
LC (28:35):
It was pretty wild. I left for Christmas for an extended time back in the States with
my parents…OF: OK
…And my sister actually. And then Corona happened. And I've been out of China since
then, which is insane. I got back two anda half, three weeks ago now. I did the two
weeks in quarantine.OF: I think you're in this wave that has come
(28:56):
back since September. But it hasn't been immediate,right?
No, a lot of people gave up. I think people were like, “OK, I guess this is a good time
just to move.” Yeah. It was very mentallytaxing to just have the uncertainty of the
flight situation. The rules were changingconstantly… constant anxiety.
OF (29:14):
What about your dog? That's the main thing. LC
friends. And a handful of people took careof him. For the bulk of the time, really like
10 out of the 11 months, was my friend Pei,who did an incredible job with little Mario.
And Mario and I will go see him every weekjust to make sure that Pei gets his Mario
time, because they really bonded. It was reallycute.
(29:35):
Ah. So what was it like to meet him, then, coming back?
LC (29:39):
Incredible. He was so excited. And it was honestly one of the happiest moments of
my life.OF: And then the business. So, Strictly Cookies…
Yeah! OF
I have an amazing team. And they all really stepped up, and credit to them. They just…
they nailed it.OF: Well what it does say to me is this is
a litmus test for you to show that actually,you don't have to be here, you actually could
(30:02):
be overseas, and life would go on with thecompany. So was that, kind of, liberating
for you at the same time?LC: It was. It was funny, because I actually
did better work when I was away. And I don'tthink it was because I was, like, so nervous
that everything was gonna fall apart. I thinkit was… it allowed for a nice separation
that gave good perspective on things. Andas crazy as it was to be living with my family
(30:25):
for six months, it was really nice. Havinglived abroad for 10 years, it felt incredibly
special.OF: I think that's going to be a bit of a
theme to these catch-up interviews that Ido with people who have come back.
Yeah. OF
be seeing Shanghai with new eyes, almost.LC: Absolutely. So, a year and a half ago,
a year ago even, I was very much like “Ineed a plan, I need to know where I'm going
(30:47):
to be in the next month”. Now I'm a lotbetter with uncertainty, and just kind of
going with it, and just letting things unfold.OF: Yes.
It’s really… it's honestly… it's a massive, massive change for me. But I do
think it was a good life lesson. Just, youdon't have a lot of control. And you just
have to kind of make the best of it.OF: Yes, absolutely. I'm nodding fervently,
because I just know that anyone who was morea control freak, now has to be less so.
(31:09):
Oh my gosh, yeah. You really… After the first, like, two months. I was like “OK,
I guess I really have no control over anythinganymore”.
OF (31:16):
Yeah. And the things that you said that you would miss if you left China, you said
the thing you would miss the most was 煎饼[jiānbing].
LC (31:24):
Yeah OF
construction noise.LC: Yep, that still holds.
OF (31:29):
Yeah? LC
I think that was the first thing I ate. Iwoke up early, left quarantine, and got a
煎饼 [jiānbing].OF: That was it. Number one.
LC (31:38):
Number one, for sure. I love 煎饼 [jiānbing]. OF
this update at the same time as the episodeof Jamie Barys…
Yay! OF
for Season 2.LC: Yes.
OF (31:50):
So have you been in touch with Jamie? LC
so I saw her the other day, she just had ababy. OF: Yes, she did.
LC (31:58):
Little Hamish. Honestly, seeing her, seeing my friends… I still haven't seen… I mean,
I really just got out of quarantine a weekago.
OF (32:04):
Yes. You’re fresh out. LC
to go to Cages. My friend, I have a friendDalton. I haven't seen him yet and I feel
like he'd be down. Maybe I'll just send himthis podcast, and say “Wait till the end.
I’m inviting you to Cages.” Yeah.OF: Nice.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.