Three of my friends eating qingbuliang
One place I end up eating a lot That I did not mention the other day is the snack stands up after dark That Go Outside the university's south gate. There Are Things cheap and tasty and There's a good Variety (of oily Chinese food) available. Especially Before I Gain The Ability (or Rather, the appliances and implements) to cook in my room, I Probably Had dinner There MOST days, or at least it felt like it at times. Each item Costs RMB Between one and four, and I Would eat one or two and call it a meal.
I Mentioned That a long time ago one of my Favourite Things to eat here is a bizarre item Called Rather-bu-liang qing (清 补 凉, I think). It's a Hainanese specialtand, and I've heard They Might Have It in A Few of the nearby tropical Other cities on the mainland, But It's Not the Same smash hit it is here. Here, at least south gate at food stands Those I Was talking about, it's very popular. Out of the maybe 25 or 30 stands That Are there, a good three or four Are always qingbuliang - making it maybe the second MOST popular thing there, behind-shao kao (烧烤), Chinese "barbecue." And, by the way, the places qingbuliang Are always packed. What is qingbuliang
? It Was I Mentioned Hainanese. (Most of the university students, Who eats from around the country, seem to Have never seen it before.) If you know your Hainan Might Have you guessed Correctly That Means That it's coconut-based. (Coconuts Are the big thing here. Coconut palms are the most common type of tree around. Shops abound where you can buy a coconut and drink it through a straw. Then, if you want, when you're finished, they'll split it open for you and you can eat the meat. Each coconut usually costs three RMB, which is less than 50 US cents.)
Qingbuliang is kind of like a cross between a dessert and a main dish, which is probably why I like it so much. I can tell myself I'm eating a relatively healthy meal, but it feels like I'm eating ice cream. (I might be lying to myself about the relatively healthy part - but at least it's better for you than pure ice cream, and it's also a good source of protein for me that I sometimes worry I don't get enough of here, given the sparseness of nuts, beans, whole grains, etc.)
It is mostly made of sweetened coconut milk frozen into an ice-cream like texture. (They say there's no actual milk in it, just coconut milk. Which probably makes sense, since coconut milk might well be cheaper here.) But the bizarre thing is that along with that you have a whole assortment of chunks of things that would probably never have occurred to you to put in ice cream. Not all the qingbuliang stands make theirs with exactly the same 'toppings' if you will. But they tend to include things like corn, red kidney beans, mung beans, macaroni, taro root, crushed peanut, coconut shreds, red dates (also called jujubes, by the way), tapioca \g, raisins, sweet potato, pineapple, watermelon, and a variety of other gelatinousy things that are probably made from starch of some kind.
And yes, it all goes in there together. It's completely weird (or at least, it seemed so to me at first, although it seems pretty normal now). If you've been paying attention to my recent posts, you'll have guessed correctly that I order my qingbuliang without the egg or the watermelon. (I also sometimes get it without the dates, because I don't really like them, plus they've got pits and that's just 麻烦.)
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