A stop to Dagang town, off Tianjin was part of the China business trip we made in September '13.
The oil township of Dagang is quite a sight. The town is self-sustained by oil-industry and almost everyone who resides in Dagang has some job/career based on O&G (that's Oil and Gas for you FOBs, not the Obst&Gynae). To make comparison, Dagang is like Miri but the former is smaller. In Malaysia, we only have off-shore oil reservoirs, hence I was amazed by Dagang's vast land dedicated to countless on-shore injection pumps. From horizon to horizon, you can only see injection pumps working, pounding on the wells to extract crude.
One thing that caught my eye was the wind power. The wind in China is strong, and that is why they capitalize on this energy and technology. Even as I am now in Beijing composing this blogpost, the cold wind from the north is strong. And this is only the beginning of winter.
Look how they transport the blades of the fan for maintenance. I initially thought it was some Sci-fi UFO parts found and openly taken to a military base.
We stayed at the hotel in Dagang owned by the oilfield company itself. Likely, they own every building in this area, and make this town self-sustained in terms of food, lodging, job provision, entertainment and leisure.
We were served with a banquet day and night. It seems that the food in Beijing is generally bland, and if they's not bland, they are either too sour or salty or sweet. It's always at the end of the spectrum, rarely in between. Though we were provided with a range of food from eggplant to scallops, only some looks typical Malaysian. Malaysian Chinese food is influenced by southern China cooking while up here in the north, it's different. Rice is seldom served. Carbohydrates are obtained mostly with noodles or corn. I might never get used to the taste here. Anyway, China is so huge and therefore from one province to another, the food preparation and types varies drastically.
A banquet is still an understatement. Probably this is how the Chinese people treat their guests - freshly cooked food that doesn't stop coming from the kitchen to the table, alcohol that keeps refilling itself (think Hogswart) and yum-sengs that seemed to be like an never-ending wedding toast. The dining hall is brightly lighted and the table was huge as if for King Arthur's knights to commune.
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| Damn....I hate the yum seng time. They make everyone speak, so there I was, speaking Mandarin, carefully. |
Our Chinese partners made us all give a toast, in Mandarin or English. My bosses gave me that shot, giving me the you-are-chinese-so-say-something-on-behalf-of-us-lahh (or was it: don't-jatuh-our-air-muka ?) eyes, so I was kinda compelled to toast in Mandarin. I spoke about 'fate' that we are here today, and thank you for being a great guest in my first every visit to China (all in Mandarin). Voila! I didn't know where that came from! (my own mouth, of course).
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| Scallops with chili toppings |
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| Sotong |
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| A mutant of prawn and crayfish |
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| Omelette with chives |
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| Duck tongue - quite interesting texture there! |
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| Attempting a Word-of-the-year: Selfie |
When China and Malaysia meet, it's always because of the brilliantly Made-in-China goods, if not, for badminton. During the banquet, our China counterparts kept talking about badminton and the one-sided battle between Lee Chong Wei and their beloved Lin Dan. I remembered the Chinese guy said (in Mandarin), that if he could, he would love to bet his money on Chong Wei in beating Lin Dan because both had the same skills set, but what the former lack is 'heart' or mental-strength. Enough of talking, we did the 'walking'. We were all given badminton rackets each and started flexing our muscle....against the formidable Chinese.
Hah! The surprising moment is that Malaysian (led by an avid badminton player himself - my boss) beat the Chinese in 2 games. The Chinese are younger, but my boss practices and plays badminton almost every alternate day although he's like almost 50 years old. He probably lacks the stamina, but had the upper hand in terms of skills.
I had a great game myself, pairing up with my bosses. Before coming to Beijing this November (I still am here in Beijing!), I have been practicing badminton with my lovely colleagues in PERMATA every Wednesday and glad to have had my skills brushed and rustiness reduced. At least I wasn't intimidated of my Chinese opponent, as I have joined badminton tourneys before. Though a friendly match, the matches were still 'sengit'. Indeed we all really had a lot of fun and I can see that Chinese are most delighted to meet their formidable foe from Malaysia as well. I love badminton even more after this trip in September.
If there's one word to describe this short trip, it is the word: Memorable. And as far as 'memorable' goes, I think this is one photo that I can't get out of my head for a long time because, I it was RED, OVERSIZED & RIDICULOUSLY CUTE:
Ivy-out!
