The (not-so) Great Wall of Snack Street

About a 10 minute walk from my apartment is the West Gate of the University. Right outside the gate is a small lane affectionately termed "snack street". Dozens of little restaurants and shops line the street. The appeal of the food on this street is that it's cheap. A few yuan buys you more than you can eat. The students love it since it's a change from the cafeteria but still within their budgets. Noodles, friend rice, dumplings, fruit, wantons, milk tea, bbq, hot pot . . . there really is endless variety. The problem with Snack Street is that . . . how shall I put it . . . it's not up to OSHA or Health Departments standards, I guess. Ok, well OSHA wouldn't even have had to get within ten feet of the gate to know they would shut it down. It is dirty and a bit of an eye sore . . . but it's cheap and delicious!

About two weeks ago, a friend told me he'd seen a notice that Snack Street was going to be closed for two months so that they could "clean it up". Who made this decision was unclear but all of us Americans were lamenting the loss of our favorite restaurant--Up/Down Dining Hall. Up/Down really does have the best sweet and sour pork of any place I've ever eaten in China. Ok all of their food is pretty much the best Chinese food I've ever eaten in China (and it's cheap!). Katie and I and another friend were on our way to Snack Street to eat at Up/Down one last time before the forced closing and we stopped dead in our tracks when we got to the West Gate and saw that they hadn't just closed down the street . . . they built a BRICK WALL in front of it!!! In ONE AFTERNOON!!
A brick wall complete with uniformed guards appeared there in a matter of hours to keep all of the students out so that the shops would have to close!! You can technically still get to Snack Street but to get there you have to go out the North Gate and walk several blocks out of your way and then up the other end of Snack Street. I'm really tempted to launch into an opinionated, wordy diatribe about how that wall is a metaphor for larger social issues but I suppose I'll try to fly below the radar of potential censoring by keeping my more political comments to myself. My other thought was that the wall might be in need of some graffiti . . . something along the lines of "Free the Noodles" or "Wokkers of Snack Street Unite! . . . Tear down this wall!" Of course the irony would probably be lost on all but a very few and I wouldn't want jeopardize my work here by actually doing something like that (although I confess I do harbor some secret hope of getting a chance to graffiti something someday).

Thankfully a newer, cleaner more officially sanctioned Snack Street has opened in the opposite direction from my apartment so we're not going to starve. The new food street is called Mei Shi Jie which literally translates to "beautiful food street." A few of our friends from the original Snack Street were able to move up there.

Here are a few more photos of some of the food that is/was available on Snack Street and a few of our Snack Street friends.

Hot Pot Stands

I like to call this the "Fried Rice Salad Bar". Pick out all the fresh vegetables you like and get them stir-fried with rice.
My Korean friend Shin Hong (these are his pictures, by the way) at one of the Milk Tea drink stands. There really are literally hundreds of varieties of tea, instant coffees, milk teas, pearl tea, fruit drinks and jello concoctions available. Al l for just a few cents.These people make wonderful pita sandwiches with pork, lettuce, cilantro, and a kind of teriyaki sauce that is delicious. Thankfully these friends were able to move to the new Snack Street location.

Our wonderful friend Tian Guinan at Up/Down . . . so named because you can eat either Upstairs or Downstairs. We told them they were more than welcome to set up shop right below our apartment and we'd eat every meal there to keep them in business but Tian Guinan said she was just going enjoy her two month vacation. They'll reopen in late June (supposedly) but by then there will hardly be any time left in the semester to enjoy their food.