On munchin' sweet wood

I have finally tasted that sugar cane. Here in South China you often see common folk chewing on these sugar canes, spitting around the munched pulp right on the ground. That sure gave me some horripilations just to look at these ruminant activities. Like a lucky scout who stumbled upon a camp site with marks of its previous dwellers' activities, you can for sure say that a bunch of laobaixings stayed at a bus stop prior to your arrival, or that a flock of taxi drivers were awaiting customers for quite some time at a taxi stand. That's why I stayed away from those green or reddish sticks sold on every corner here, saying to myself, man, no! I am not going that low. The aesthetic value of this is something that rings the same kind of bell with another blogger's and China-life chronicler's ruminations on expectorating and stuff.

Sugar canes in their original format are sold at markets as long (or high - depending on whether you put 'em up or lie 'em down) stems - see the pic. They are brought to the place on any available means of transportation - trucks or motorcycles - it's fun to see a cyclist carrying a bunch of sugar cane stems under his arm steering wildly with one hand, and the ends with leaves bobbing against the road as he swooshes through the crazy traffic.

I did try sugar-cane juice on Gulangyu Island in Xiamen though, when hawkers squeeze sugar canes through two rollers right in front of you, decanting sweet yellowish sap into a plastic cup (for 2 yuan) or a plastic bottle (for 5 yuan).

Makin' of the sweet nectar:

Suppressing the voice of caution I did drink the fresh natural sugar, and let me tell you it is not that bad at all. But until recently I haven't tried to masticate on the cane itself.

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Taste of sweet wood - Get it from the horse's mouth!

With mixed feelings I finally bought myself a cane in our campus supermarket from my buddy - a fruit-stand Laoban. Locals who chew on those usually take away the bark with their teeth, boosting the immune system. I decided to bark the soap-washed cane with knife, for sure cutting off some of the sugary flesh, but you can't be too cautious with unknown sugar canes.

Well, how does it feel to plunge your teeth into a moist piece of wood it is? - an exciting move! I'd never really chewed on sticks or the like before, so the feeling is nothing I can match to from my previous gustatory sensations. But the sweet sap does stream down the cane. And it is tasty and munchy. Haw,I am looking for words to better explain it to those of my friends who never tasted it, and the best I can come up with is "it tastes like a sugar cane" :)

But you have to get rid of the munched pulp - that's sure thing. I usually eat sugar canes in my apartment, so I open the trash bin, chew on a little piece of the cane, take it out with my fingers and carefully place in the trash. Feel like a dork, but the years of cultivation do not allow simple spitting. Though I tried. In the latter case the pieces of wood fly around and do not necessarily hit the insides of the garbage can.


Funny thing is that after some time the dried up pile of chewed wooden slivers looks nothing different from flinders you get after simply hewing away at a branch of a tree. Heh, but that's a real first-hand experience of another culture. And I am still trying - to the best of my abilities - to do in southern China as the southern Chinese do.