Re Gan Mian

CLACK – CLACK – CLACK – CLACK

I wake up every morning to this sound coming from the apartment upstairs. I’ve occasionally reflected on sinister explanations for the sound – maybe it’s a young couple conducting mutual lashings with a cane for some kind of sadomasochistic breakfast ritual – but I’m pretty sure they’ve just got a ping pong table up there.

CLACK – CLACK – CLACK – CLACK they never tire.

Once I’ve risen and revived for the day ahead, I take to the streets of Wuhan in search of the ultimate pot of Re Gan Mian (hot dry noodles). I’m not the only one. I see many noodle-hoppers each morning, going from stall to stall, faces jumping from pot to pot. With so many distinctive variations in the way the noodles are served, the spice addicts are keen to be first to the gates of Heaven.

The spices fill the air. Sometimes they are sweet old grandfather spices, frail, but wise and hardy. Sometimes they are robust and aggressive industrial spices – they mean business and will slice your tongue in half, clean down the middle. Sometimes the spices are young and lively, almost too much so – a little bit of every season in the alignment, they tend to make a lot of noise in your mouth, before slowly receding in the twilight. My preferred spices are those that are tempered, yet influential, capable of getting to the core of one’s desires without even trying. They usually come in all manner of hue and ability. They can be fishermen, secretaries, professors, and clerics. They work hard, but don’t take things too seriously. These are the spices whose aromas fly lighter in the air, unconcerned by competition.

I decide to ditch the search for perfection today and opt to eat at my favourite stall with the lady vendor who always has a smile for a wandering foreigner such as I be. Her Re Gan Mian is delicious, and saturated with the tempered spice I prefer. She gives me a bottle of fizzy orange because she knows I’ll be reaching for liquids very soon after the initial twirl of the chopsticks. When I finish, I thank the lovely lady vendor and she says to me in English, ‘Nice Ireland man.’

After I’ve eaten a pot of Re Gan Mian, I always feel a sense of delayed being, as though time has steamed on ahead without me. I usually walk the streets in a daze, thoughtless and calm. Then when I get home, time finds me.

CLACK – CLACK – CLACK – CLACK

The ping pong match upstairs chases my invigorated heartbeat as my whole body sizzles in ecstasy.