Having a large dinner to be welcomed to a new city that I perform at is standard fare, but it isn’t every week that I’m treated to local dishes which include gourmet insects. No, that’s only for exceptional cities like Panzihua and Le Shan (home of the Giant Buddah!). Tonight I came to find that a local speciality is some kind of fried fat millipede. The appearance of the dish is much more intimidating and threatening than the taste of it, as it tasted like crunchy buttered eggplant to me. I took a photo which is sure to gross everyone out which I’ll add here ASAP.
After dining on insects I walked the streets to return to the hotel and relax for a few hours before leaving for the club. On the way I saw a young Chinese peasant writing on the sidewalk with white chalk; in english. It approximately read as follows: “I have no money, please donate so I can eat rice”, after which his name was signed in chinese characters. I can attest to the fact that I’m probably the only foreigner within a 10-mile radius, so his goals for writing his plea for money to eat dinner in english are quite curious. But on momentary consideration while standing in front of him, it occurred to me that the message was intended for me. The force that made it happen is a myserrtery to me, but I gave him 50 kuai in front of a crowd of onlookers as stunned as they were overjoyed to have witnessed the connection. The more I think about what happened the more amazed I am. I hope he’s eating a fat meal of millipedes now.