Muslim Noodle Friends

One of my greatest desires as I prepared to make my China move was to build community with the people who lived and worked around me. This hope has been harder to accomplish than I imagined. 

Forget the language barrier, many people in this town treat me like I'm other worldly. I'm getting better at not letting this annoyance get under my skin, but it's hard to want to return to a restaurant, for example, when the wait staff all comes out and standing about 10 feet away from you snickers and stares the entire time you eat your meal. 

I just want to be treated normally while having healthy interactions with my neighbors. I was beginning to believe this was too much to ask for.

I'd been looking for a good Muslim noodle house since I got to Guiyang. While I'm generally a rice and veggies sort of girl, Muslim noodles are the exception to the rule. You just can't get this stuff anywhere in the States. I know. I've looked. The cook stretches out the dough as far as their arms span and divide it in half. This action rapidly occurs over and over until they have long, stringy noodles.

My favorite Muslim noodle dish is called "da shao mian," where the cook takes a large slab of dough, and with a knife, slices pieces right off into a pot of boiling water. It's then served with a broth — so good. 

It occurred to me ridiculously late into my time in China that I could probably find a pretty good noodle place in the Muslim quarter that is right across the street from my apartment. Brilliant, I know. 

Guiyang's Muslim quarter is tiny in comparison to many big cities like Xian, but I quite like it. Several weeks ago as I was wandering around, I noticed a man making da shao mian outside his restaurant, so of course I wandered inside.

The noodles were great, and the company was even better. The owners didn't treat me like a foreigner but rather like a friend. They even helped me with the correct pronunciation of the dish I was ordering. 

I've kind of fallen in love with the family that owns this place and find myself there at least once every other day. If noodles were more nutritious, I would eat there every meal without hesitation. I appreciate the generosity of my Muslim noodle friends toward me and look forward to learning more about them in the months to come. 

It's nice to feel that if anything were to happen to me I could run across the street and my Muslim noodle friends would help me out, and it's encouraging to believe that maybe this community thing is possible after all. 

I asked my Muslim noodle friends if I could take some photos of them, and they said that I could. They also kept trying to smile for all of my shots, but I managed to steal a few candid photos. I hope their kindness is as evident in these images as it is in their restaurant.