After living ten years in Sydney with a population of just over four million, I started to wonder if one of the first challenges that would come my way was to suffer from claustrophobia. If one was to compare the change to eating noodles and dumplings everyday, then having that taken away from you and given boudin noir instead, the trepidation sensed would almost come close to the way I felt.
I was taking a risk and hanging myself out on the line, following my partner to a country that was so foreign to me it had never crossed my mind to visit it. I continually reminded myself that love would keep me afloat. Yet again, clichéd, and on my part, helplessly foolish.
The vast difference in culture did not come as a complete shock to me as I come from an Asian background. As a chef, I knew that if I found the local cuisine to at least be enticing, there was hope for me in living here.
My partner (who is also a chef, albeit a better qualified one than I) did everything he could in his male-ish funny ways to make the transition a much easier one for me. We ate noodles and dumplings everyday for a week, which I found to be a little two sweet and oily for my palate.
We visited the famous Wu Jiang Lu food street, where we ate flame-grilled octopus, fiery crawfish and more dumplings. We even walked for seven hours one day in the midst of the Shanghai wet season to explore the city, only to find ourselves lost in a town that measures over six thousand square kilometres. He was trying his best, and I was being difficult.
Shanghai was going to have to grow on me, or I on her in the next two months if things were going to work out. I knew I had to be patient before we found the secret local places to eat great food - the welcoming arms of hot pot restaurants, the lure from stinky tofu' vendors, steamy finger-licking hairy crabs and maybe, just maybe, if we are lucky, even more dumplings are out there. They are all just tucked away in little corners, waiting to be discovered, tasted and devoured by patient food enthusiasts.
It was only a matter of a few more days before we found ourselves tasting foods that were familiar to us, but cooked with a different style and technique. As we got to exploring the food scene a lot more, we found ourselves stumbling onto produce in the open markets that we had never seen before. The sight of live frogs being butchered or chooks being killed in front of us didn't deter us, but intrigued us concerning the different approach and practices when it came to live animal produce.
Soon enough, even the doors of international cuisine started opening up to us; all you can eat Japanese sushi and tepanyaki houses, western cafes, French bistros, Moroccan restaurants, as well as high end fine dining food. Not to forget, the much anticipated restaurant/cooking school that will be opened by the King and Queen of the Shanghai hospitality scene - The Stillers.
Sitting and staring out from the balcony of our thirty-fifth floor apartment, I come to realize that anything goes when you are in China (as long as you neglect having any political views). This is where people from all sorts of background come to prosper, in an environment where if you have got enough push and motivation, you are bound to succeed.
From aspiring restaurant entrepreneurs to budding shareholders in the ever-growing numbers of shopping malls, there seems to be room for everyone. Just like the hustle and bustle of a heated fast paced kitchen during service, Shanghai's city buzz never slows down and waits for no one. She will leave you behind if you do not catch up to her speed. However, if you do work fast in the kitchen and find that things start coming together, you end up coming out with a satisfaction like no other. Shanghai holds the same reward.
