Hello everyone. I arrived in the city of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, with the aim of stopping my journey for a little while and maybe teaching English for a month. I quickly found I didn't really fancy teaching and at first, the city seemed damp and unwelcoming. But then I started cooking and had one of the most amazing times of my trip so far.

This email is on the long side, sorry about that, but it was a rather varied journey in Chengdu, and I didn't want to skip telling you about the wearying and depressing times in order to get to the amazing part (my cooking education) which is towards the end.

"Fuck your grandfather"!

So, we were in Li Jiang, Tim made preparations to leave to head for Australia. We met an Israeli traveller, Nurit (although, it is a Hebrew "r", so making her name very difficult to pronounce for English speakers. I settled on some absurd French style, "Nourieee"). She was an willing audience for all our travelling stories, especially as she was about to head off to Zhongdian and Lugu Hu. As we regaled her, she mused, "you two have a great relationship, I can't tell who is looking after who". Tim headed home the next day, with plans to give University a chance and to improve himself and his appeal to women by studying Arabic, Argentinian tango and knitting.

Once again a solo traveller, my journey to Chengdu involved a long bus and a longer train trip and a painful encounter with a vile hag-empress taxi driver's manager. There were many moments of utter confusion, it was all in rather awful, it seriously made me question the wisdom of travelling in China without a guidebook. But, I reconciled later, I wasn't endangering myself by doing so, and were I carrying the LP's "bible", would I have had the opportunity to swear at the above mentioned devil in female form in English and Chinese?

I arrived in Chengdu, and checked into an utterly deserted youth hostel, Chengdu Dreams.

The first page of my restaurant's menu proclaims:

Distinguished guests:

Welcome to the Chengdu Tidu Dandan Noodles Restaurant Wuhou Branch! Manager Xiao Shengtian and all employees of the restaurant thank you for your arrival.

Your visit is a favour to us!

Your comment and critism are love and care for us!

Your recognition of our services is a prize for us!

Everything we do, we do it for you!

It must be said, the food is pretty good, and I'm sure this is the equivalent to a cheap cafe for the Sichuan. For between thirty and sixty pence, they serve a full sit down meal: a dark big bowl of dan dan noodles, the pepper leaving my mouth numb and tingling, perhaps a bowl of dumplings in an oily clear sauce that forces me to smack my lips together deliciously, and maybe also some spicy corguette slices piled on a side plate. It great to be in a place where food is exhaulted, in this heartland of Sichuan cooking.

I like Chengdu. Although clouds block out the sun every day, I like the ambience, the wide streets, the smiling young faces. There is a big university here, and shoals of young cyclists speed along every street. Like in Nicaragua, people often ride two to a bike, but instead of the passenger balancing on the cross bar, while her boyfriend peddles from the saddle, his arms around her to steer, in China, the passenger sits behind the peddler on the flat back rest, legs swinging side-saddle. More practical, but much less romantic.

Ur, don't recall Indiana Jones ever doing this, Daniel...

My first day in Chengdu was more than a little depressing. I pulled myself out of my bunk bed and as I unpacked, discovered I'd left all my clothes behind in Li Jiang. This act of collosal stupidity made me laugh out loud - I'd left my bag of laundry in a cafe and forgotten to collect it. However, as "all my other clothes" had consisted of three tshirts, three pairs of boxer shorts, a pair of socks and one pair of shorts, it wasn't exactly financially crippling to replace them. I was, however, very unhappy to have lost the Union Jack boxer shorts that Gari gave me for Christmas.

Two tshirts later, I was leaving one clothes shop when a woman on the street, smart, perhaps in her early thirties, asked me, "Can I help you"? After I mentioned my plan to teach English, she told me her name was Alice and that she was an English teacher herself. Would I like to come to see her school? Her English dialogue was a series of prelearnt phrases, such as, "What is your name, ifImayask"? The school was empty, she sat me down at a table to discuss the job. On the nearby TV, two winsome American girls in scanty clothing sang a familiar if forgettable love song. I glanced at it for a second, she asked me, "Do you like this song"? "Not really", I smiled. She thought for a second, "Yes, it is for homosexuals, bisexuals... and small children". I'm quite a talkative person, but this utterly flummoxed me. "Uurrr.." She smiled and nodded to herself, repeating, "Yes, for homosexuals, bisexuals and small children" - this was clearly another preset phrase she had learnt, but how and where? I think I just mumbled, "Err, maybe?" as a bewildered response.

Another, more junior teacher joined us. The conversation changed intensity - it was immediately a hard nosed push to get me to tell them what wage I wanted for this yet unspecified job. There was a lot of obfuscation, but through cross-examination, I finally established some details. They essentially wanted an English speaking receptionist to greet new students, give them a short written and oral test, and allocate them to the appropriate class. It meant staying in the office waiting for students six days a week, eight hours a day - "What would be the wage for this"? I asked, but Alice shot back, "what would you expect for the job"? Clearly, it was whoever says a number first loses, but, as I didn't want the job, I had no interest in overly compromising. I leaned forward in my chair and placed my hands on the table: "Well, this isn't exactly the kind of work I was looking for. For a teaching position, I might expect around 50 yuan an hour. Now mathematically, 50 an hour for those hours equals (I scribbled) almost 10,000 yuan a month". I knew this would shock them and it did. "However, this isn't a teaching position, so I guess I would expect something less than this, but as I've never done this kind of work before, I think it's only fair that you need to have a think and come back to me with a figure". I had been more forceful than I had ever been in an interview with either American or English employers. Had I talked like this, I think I would have elicted a response of "what a tosser.." from any interviewer - but the two Chinese women suddenly had happy smiles. "Wow, you are really smart", said the younger one. "Urr, maybe.." I said - "No maybe about it, you understood everything", Alice agreed. They started asked me friendly questions, the air around the table was lighter, they offered to show me some Sichuan restaurants. It seemed the money struggle part of the conversation had ended, I seemed to have won, now everyone could relax and make small talk. Especially for an English person, it was quite disorientating. The "friendly get to know you" part of the conversation would have had to come first, then, slowly and roundaboutly, we would have approached the possibility of money. It seemed like things were done the opposite way around here - first the bargaining to see who had the stronger position, then once relative superiority had been established, we could maybe be friends.

Who knows - Either way, Alice suggested I call them later and I got up and left, not especially enamoured with the idea of working with them.

I wrote this the next day, I think:
Sitting in this empty eight bunk bed dormitory room in Chengdu, feeling a bit low. Sensing how spiritually dead teaching a 20 odd strong class of Chinese would actually be. Very familiar hustle from some would-be employer has also been a bit of a turn off. Very seriously thinking of forgetting teaching and just heading on northwards. But that leaves the somewhat univiting prospect of continous travelling for a while. Really should stop for a little while, as was planning, or exhaustion and perhaps insanity could result. Idea of several days in a Chinese cooking school is starting to appeal.

Indeed, the idea of learning something of Chinese, and specifically Sichuan cuisine was very appealing. I took a three hour class run by a nearby hostel. It principally made me realise how little I knew about cooking. Taking the session with two Belgian travellers, even chopping up the ginger and garlic was a bit of a challenge for me to do at speed. I cooked up sweet and sour deep fried pork, aubergine in fish style sauce, gung bao chicken (kung pao chicken in the UK) and two salads. I reflected that it was rather sad that this was the first time I had deep fried anything - I had grown up in the land of fish and chips (and had a dad who makes expert chips at home) and had never even attempted deep frying - it turned out to be fairly easy, at least where pork strips are concerned. It was great to have done the course, but I didn't want to stop there. While I liked the taste of what I had made, had I been served it (or indeed the instructor's model dish) in a restaurant, I think I would have been disappointed. Plus, it seemed incredibly backpacker to go to Sichuan and do a three hour hostel-run course and then say, "I studied Chinese cuisine"!

On the suggestion of my hostel's staff, I travelled to the rather serious Sichuan Higher College of Cuisine, in the west of the city, looking to maybe take three or four days of tuition. I found myself in the office of an English speaking teacher - he would talk with colleagues, and although this was very unusual, he thought they could set something up for me. "Come back on Monday at 2pm". Today was Friday, so I had a couple of days to explore Chengdu.

I composed the following between Friday and Monday:

In Chengdu, I spent days wandering the city like a wraith. The sky is a perpetual clogging dirty white, hanging sullenly over the modern buildings. The clouds seem neither able to release and wash the city away, as they so clearly desire, nor able to let their envy go and allow the sun to visit. Such damp, cloying rule must make winters and summers hellish. Perhaps due to the darkness of the mornings, I find it impossible to get out of bed. Although I sleep for ten or more hours each night, waking up to my cold bed always feels like being pulled out of sleep by fish hooks.

This is a huge city, more populous than London - the deceptive scale of my sightseeing map leaves me exhausted each time I start walking anywhere. I find it next to impossible to relocate any of the interesting shops I stumble across - I even have to spend an half an hour anxiously searching before I find the dry cleaners where I left my jumper or the photo developer where I left my film.

More than anywhere I've been to in China, people here relax by sinking into a full flat footed crouch - it is quite rare to see anyone sitting on a step or pavement. People perch crouched, perfectly balanced, atop low walls and steps, chatting on mobiles or smoking. They look like birds preparing to return to the sky - I keep expecting one to finish her cigarette and launch into the air.
I walk the University campus as light fails, a shadow ungreeted by anyone. I watch the young men cycling with their incredibly slender long haired girlfriends sitting behind them - I feel immense envy.

I sit at a table by myself in a riverside park and order tea. It is a lovely civilised custom: for five yuan I get an ornate cup of tea and a thermosflask of hot water, so I can refill my cup as often as I want. So, spending a small sum of money, each generation of Chengdu is sitting at tables in this park and spends the whole afternoon nattering, walking children and playing majiang.

I check out of Chengdu Dreams, the solitude becoming too much. I went to the Ginko Garden Hostel, full of Chinese students - it is more expensive (25 yuan to the Dreams' 15), but seems to have a lot more character (and as a man once said, character goes a long way). The next morning, I am climbing the stairs to my fifth floor room, when the drab steps are transformed. A female opera student, somewhere on one of the higher floors, abruptly begins to warm up her incredible voice, singing scale after scale. It stops me dead in wonder, the power of the sound just takes over these narrow staircases - it is impossible to ignore even for a second. I continue to climb, and pass her floor - I continue upwards, as although I would love to peer in, I am too afraid my arrival might stop her singing. I stand in my room brushing my teeth, the sound as clear as ever, while a male voice joins her for a while before they rest. It was wonderful, and I haven't ever heard them sing again. As time goes on I start to doubt if it really happened, whether it was just a cd being played.

Monday arrives. I went to the Cuisine College, by now a little weary of being alone in Chengdu, and almost keen to head on. But during our meeting, the teacher's description of what they would teach me was contagiously exciting. Four days, twelve dishes, a teacher with some English, some snake recipes (or he could have been saying snack - it seems a difficult English word for the Chinese). But then the price: 1800 yuan. That's around 120 pounds - I am aghast. It probably would be a great experience, but especially as much would surely go over my head, linguistically and culinerally, I refuse and leave. I have a wide smile on my face for the first time in a couple of days, for I am free! I make plans to leave Chengdu, even though my hostel's owner has offered to arrange some classes with a restaurant owning friend of his. But, late Monday night, I realise I can't get the 7am bus to Songpan - I have to find a bank and also work out if I really need the peculiar Chinese insurance for travel north that my hostel's copy of the Lonely Planet says I do.

The next morning, having got some more cash out of the bank, I figure it can't hurt to just investigate a cooking school the hostel receptionist had been telling me about, the Bayi school in the south of the city. Thus began one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

A bus ride later, I am walking around this very poor and unassuming part of the city. Coming across the school, I walk past glass doored sparse lecture halls, a couple hundred Chinese students in each taking down notes from a blackboard. From this far away, the Mandarin characters look like some intricate mathematics question - realisation sinks in that this is not the kind of place to have some short introductory course for travellers. I start to feel very presumptious, this is their career they are studying for, I have shown up unannounced and expect things to be set up for me.
Despite these feelings, I find reception and try to explain what I want, something made more difficult by everyone there's total void of English. A woman takes me back past the lecture halls, looking for someone in authority. As we walk past, I disrupt classes completely as every student starts shouting hello and cheering when they see me. We walk up flights of stairs to an office. The two stubbly men sitting behind desks radiate a friendly welcome and are flabbergasted to see me. One shouts, "Hello!!!!" in a voice meant to penetrate bunkers and I feel myself relaxing. No one here speaks English, though, and many frustrated minutes pass. Each student that sees me is captivated in awe - I get the sense I am the first foreigner in a very long time to come to these parts. Every so often, a student leans in and says a stock phrase like, "Hello, how do you do?", and the directors shout something like, "Ha! you speak English, come and find out what he wants" - and each time the student recoils, downplaying their English ability and runs off. It suddenly occurs to me to call my hostel, Li (the girl running the desk) can translate. A three way conversation then ensues. It is explained I want to study at the school for three or four days, although I now have little hope this will be possible. But they are nodding, they will be happy to teach me. "Ask him how much for", but as I ask her this, the director shouts out, "NO MONEY"! "They will teach you for free", she explains, "as a friend of China". For the second time in Chengdu, I am speechless. Classes are from 8.30am to 12, then 2:30pm to 6pm - I will be starting in two hours. I walk about this very down at the heels neighbourhood and buy a notepad and pen. I am the centre of attention, but feel no malice, even though it must be obvious to everyone I am rich person visiting. I sit down, order food and write the above section in my new notepad. As I scribble, a small crowd forms around me - the very act of writing in the Roman alphabet is something of a sensation. Some chefs from nearby sit down with me and we swap his bad English and my worse Chinese. As my six yuan bill comes, he takes money from his wallet and throws it on the table - I protest, but he insists. Were I to play it totally English, I should now refuse, to the point of offensiveness - but I'm learning to just to accept the incredible generosity of people who are well aware how much better off I am than they. My lesson starts soon, I have no idea what to expect.

Wok marvels

Chaos, initially. I try to find the office again, but students recognise me and start dragging me towards the lecture halls. Then a gell heavy administrator starts asking for my student ID - of course I don't have one. So I start retreating, then he gets informed by someone of the situation and abruptly taking me by the hand, leads me to the cooking lecture. Facing a row of ten woks and a long supplies bench behind them, sit perhaps a hundred students on a cramped series of steps, packed in like hunched over sardines, the back row's heads close to the ceiling. They go crazy to see me, cheering, shouting - a space is quickly made for me. Assistant instructors busy about, chopping ginger, cleaning the woks, refilling bowls of spices. As I sit, in what feels like some insane dream brought on by food poisoning, the gell bloke returns with the man who will become my translator, saviour and friend, Chris Cheng. Chris is 28, from Hong Kong, studying here for three months and speaks English, Mandarin and Cantonese. But ironically, many of the teachers here speak in a Sichuan dialect and so Chris moans to me, "I need a translator too"! He explains that this is the practical cooking class, he takes me behind the woks to show me the spice and sauce bowls by each station that students use to create their dishes, the roaring flames seemingly barely under leash that fire each wok. It is clear, being this honoured megastar, I can stand anywhere, but am already starting to feel embarrassed by the constant attention and we return to our cramped spaces between the other students.

The lecturer arrives - I never learn his name - he puts on a white chef's coat on over his dark clothing. Were Tom Hanks' face older, a little fatter and Chinese, he might play this man rather well. The lecturer's face doesn't radiate intelligence - but his character emerges in bursts from frequent laughing jokes, his loud quips to stressed out students battling with their ingredients and with his obvious genius with cleaver and wok. In his shirt pocket he keeps a rolled up chef's hat, a pairing knife, two chopsticks and three cigarettes.
He starts shouting out names of students, and one by one they take their plate of raw ingredients and start preparing them hurriedly on the row of chopping boards at the back of the room. Then the lecturer looks over and calls me up to the table. He has a big smile on his face, but not, I think, an entirely altruistic one.

I attend the school for three days and each of my cooking classes fall into the same, nerve wracking pattern. Early in the process of students being called up for their turn of cooking, the lecturer beckons me over. Unlike the students who have to queue for their turn at a chopping board to prepare their ingredients, I always have a chopping board waiting. I start slicing with my powerful cleaver, but the standards are exacting and I am an utter novice. Ice ages pass while I try to turn my chunk of tofu into perfect little cubes, mountain ranges fall into dust during the time it takes me to chop up my onion stalk, and while I desperately attempt to render my slab of pork into little ribbons, alien races attain sentience, build star faring empires and draw up plans to anally probe 3% of Americans. What makes matters worse, the rest of the students seem to dart around behind me as if on some speeded up film. Finally, often only after someone has grabbed my cleaver and finished the slicing for me, I turn with my plate of ingredients to face the instructor. He and I always cook together, with the entire audience watching in fascination and loving the comedy. He surmounts the language barrier neatly - he holds my right arm at the elbow and so together we dip my ladle in the different sauce and spice bowls and deposit them in the wok. He laughs uproarously at my idiot mistakes and he makes jokes to the students as we cook together. But it occurrs to me that he is at heart a showman: he wants a foil, not a victim - so I play along and work the crowd as well. I mock recoil and check my eyebrows if flames leap up; as he and I stir furiously the simmering ingredients, I shimmy my head back and forth as if deeply concentrating and the students roar with laughter. Then, in brief minutes, the dish is finished, I pour it onto a waiting plate and the lecturer tastes a tiny portion - he gives me a little thumbs ups and a nod and everyone cheers. I stand to one side eating my creation (I made a chili red tofu dish the first day (mapor tofu), and a crispy pork and onion one the second and third), but I am not out of the spotlight yet. Due to the lecturer having directed me so closely, my dish starts being held up as the model dish - he chuckles broadly as a student shows him a dark brown mapor tofu and indicates my glowing red creation. I decide I need to get rid of my awkward masterpiece quickly and add it to the sloppy pile of discarded tofus.

After everyone has had a go, there is a break and we return to watch the lecturer inspire us by demonstrating more complex plates. It is wonderful to watch. Sichuan food screams. The colours are a shocking red, a rich peppery brown or an oily clear white. Dishes without a sauce inevitably have a layer of golden chili oil seeping across the plate. The smells are pungent, arresting, the fried chilis making eyes water even at distance. The flavours are so strong, salt, sugar, chili oil, peppers, msg, vinegar, wine, I am feeling quite ill by the third day - after my first day at the school I wake up at 5am, feeling as though someone has thrown a shovel-full of salt into my mouth while I slept. The lecturer effortlessly parts fresh pork into paper thin slices with the huge cleaver Sichuan cooks use and as easily lightly fries a whole fish then strips it out of its bones with only the edge of his chopsticks. Two unforgettable meals: he cuts a huge slab of pork fat into cubes, slathers the cubes in egg yolk, deep fries them in his roaring hot wok, makes an amazing syrup by dumping sugar into a wok filled in oil, then adds the now battered pig fat cubes to the syrup, then pours sesame seeds all over them. They taste like nothing I have had before - sweet and addictively rich, as though everything I have eaten before has been some pale imitation of food. The other dish was chopped fried pig intestines with vegetables and a huge amount of Sichuan pepper seeds dumped into the cauldron. It is hard to describe what Sichuan's numbing pepper feels like - perhaps as if thousands of tiny needles are prodding in to your tongue and gums, but you like it. As he prepares this, he starts making jokes - I am going to taste this, as I get the first taste of all the dishes he makes - another way I am singled out. I try it, it is lovely, the spices are bearable, and to my and everyone else's surprise I eat it all. He laughs and passes me a cap full of harsh liquor as congratulations - I lift the bowl to my mouth and my nostrils sting before I chuck it against the back of my throat.

My mornings pass in the chopping class. Students take a round white carrot and practice reducing it to sawdust with their cleavers. Under the skilled direction of a quiet instructor in a double breasted suit, we first ease our cleaver through the carrot, carving it into circular two dimensional slices. Then we take all the slices and cut them into slenderest slivers, then chop those into pieces. Suffice to say, I am not very good, but the tuition is really on the level I need.

I am incredibly popular. In every break, a crowd forms around me - students fire questions or just gaze at me, Chris having to translate it all. They tell me all kinds of things, they marvel at my brown hair, height and big feet. If I walk away ever, another group quickly forms around me. One says, "I wish I looked like a Westerner, tall and strong" - every else laughs on hearing this. Another asks if I like Chinese girls, have I visited any Chinese prostitutes, don't I think black men look ugly? They also don't like the Japanese much - hearing I may go to Japan, they warn me, "we may go to war with Japan, so bring back information"! I seem to be a combination of visiting hero and everyone's favourite younger brother - the fact that I am such as bad cook only enhances my appeal. They take endless photos of me, I sign people's books, one student even gets me to write my name on the shoulder of his white uniform. Unless musical tastes change drastically, this will be my one experience of what it is like to be a pop star.

It is exhausting. Each night Chris and I go for a coffee or beers, and I excuse myself fairly early and go back to my hostel to recover. I also feel a bit bad for unquestionably slowing the cooking class down with my rubbishness - and I can't really pick up any recipes, not being able to understand a word of the theory lectures. On my third day, Chris and I go back to the office, and through him I thank them profusely for the experience. They thank me in return, and tell me I can come back whenever I want. Wow.

I leave the school, but have not finished my cooking education yet - I ask the hostel's manager to set up those classes with his restauranteur friend he had been talking about.

Daniel, Chengdu, 7 March