The Unexpected Joys of Shanxi
Including good food, good vinegar, and most of all, good people. Also, happy mother's day!
Happy mother’s day to all the moms out there! My family and I had just arrived home from the airport this afternoon, having dropped off a friend at her terminal, when I received a surprise slipped in through the slats of our front gate. It was the May 12, 2024 Sunday issue of the newspaper Business Mirror. Included among its pages was the second of my two travel essays about a recent trip to China, titled: “The Unexpected Joys of Shanxi.”
Shanxi is a beautiful, seldom-visited province some distance West of Beijing. My father and I were taken there by our friend, Tom (that’s his English name) and his colleague Oscar. Tom is a native of Shanxi, and long before I ever stepped foot in China, he had told me many stories of his beloved hometown of Luliang:
“The houses, Tom said, to save on construction costs, were often carved directly into the mountainside. The rock provided natural insulation against winter, which was always cold and dry. Food came in the form of millet, oats, and wheat, sometimes also mutton, goat meat, potato noodles, cucumbers, and aged black vinegar. But definitely not seafood. The ocean was so far away that Tom spent the first twenty or so years of his life without ever eating a fish.”
Once again, many thanks to Tita Chuchay Fernandez and Mr. JT Nisay, the Y2Z editor of Business Mirror, for finding my essay interesting enough to publish. Thank you again to my father, Tom, and Oscar for such an inspiring trip. If you’re interested in reading more about Shanxi, you can find the link to the online version of the article here.
Cheers, and thanks again for reading!