A young market vendor sits by his slow "clay baked chicken's", sometimes called Beggar's Chicken, at a small 'open air' market in the north of the city. The chicken is wrapped in huge lotus leaves, packed in cool, wet claylike mud or ceramic clay and then baked for hours in a low oven. When the dish is ready and the hard clay cracked open, the chicken, so tender it falls away from the bone, releases a steamy fragrance that is truly memorable.
It is doubly appealing because it is steeped in the kind of folklore and legend that the Chinese love.
One story tells of the beggar who became the first Emperor of the Han dynasty (202 B.C. to A.D. 220). It holds that this clay-baked chicken dish, a favorite of the beggar, became an imperial specialty when he became Emperor.
photo: mhobbs
Sunday, December 21, 2008
emporers chicken
Friday, December 12, 2008
steam
A vendor steams buns (Bao Zi) in the open outside his small " store", in the Jiancaoping district near 'Taiyuan Institute of Technology'.
photo: mhobbs
Monday, February 25, 2008
having spent the day # 2 - cibachrome # 12
A man crosses a busy street in the Xiangqiao district in the center of the city
photo:mhobbs
Thursday, February 21, 2008
when your friend is behind you - square # 171
A man stands close to his "van" with a ceramics factory 'chimney stack' looming large against the early winter sky. The factory is built close to an apartment "block" complex
photo:mhobbs
Friday, February 08, 2008
lucy - in b&w # 2 - square # 170
And now for something completely different.
Our beautiful daughter Lucy @ two years and three months
photo:mhobbs
when expecting the rain
A woman holding a red and white umbrella, stands at the entrance to a "Hutong" (Traditional Chinese alley dwelling) in a narrow "nong tang" (alley) in the Qiaodong distict
photo:mhobbs
when all you have is a simple gesture
A family - small "street" market in the Qiaodong district.
This may be a very simple image but of all the "square bw" images that I have taken in the last two or three years this one is one of my favorites - It has all the elements that I have tried to capture of 'everyday life' of the 'common person' in China - MH
photo:mhobbs
portrait of a man in the afternoon
A motorbike "taxi" guy stands by his 'bike in the courtyard beside the northern gate to Hanshan University
photo:mhobbs
game # 2 - square # 168
A group of men play a game of pool in a small 'backstreet', on the northern edge of the Qiaodong district
photo:mhobbs
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
hutong courtyard
Turn of the century Hutong (Traditional Chinese alley dwelling) courtyard in the Qiaodong district
photo:mhobbs
when everything you have is within your reach - square # 167
An old man stands by his vegetable stall outside the Han jiang market in the Qiaodong district
photo:mhobbs
when the reach is short - square # 166
A street vendor at her stall near the "northern" gate to Hanshan University
photo:mhobbs
warm
Baskets stacked in a "nong tang" (alley) near the Hanjiang market, glow in the warm afternoon light
photo:mhobbs
Yang Chun Wei - remember - student portrait # 1
Second year business studies student "Wang Chun Wei" (Bill) - Hanshan Normal University, Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, China. . His parents are farmers.
photo:mhobbs
far from here
A cyclist rides his bike along Hanjiang Lu (Han River road) in the Qiaodong district in the late afternoon
photo:mhobbs
