A friend's wake recalls a curious cruise along the Yangtze
Cecilie Gamst Berg remembers her first China travel companion, whose allergy to chillis and preference for Western food was often a source of culinary consternation
Last Saturday, I went to a social gathering I had been dreading for weeks: a wake for my friend G. Younger than me by four years, she was taken away too, too soon by that cruel and ruthless bastard cancer.
As we sat there eating smoked salmon and drinking white wine, my thoughts went to China, and to all the adventures G and I had had there in the 1990s. For G was my very first China travel companion.
She had a strange and vexing idiosyncrasy: she was allergic to chillies and favoured beige food. The first time we visited Guangzhou - before it became a mega-metropolis clogged with cars - she dragged me into something that was supposed to be a Western restaurant. You could tell it was "Western" because it had wrought iron and wicker furniture, and plastic vines hanging from the ceiling.
"Nooo, G! Don't do this to me, please!" I begged, being used only to local restaurants, where half the fun was to struggle through the Chinese characters on the chalkboard menu.
But G was nothing if not merciless. She wanted spaghetti with meatballs (or something) prepared at a safe distance from any chilli-contaminated kitchen utensil. I can't remember what I forced down, but it must have been awful.
It was there, however, that I discovered the most fabulous Chinglish menu, whose "domestic life beef immerses cabbage Brazil", "carbon burns fresh particularly must", and "three text cure" ham sandwiches have been a source of enormous pleasure ever since. Thanks G! You lit up my life.
