Shark fin soup

Taste for Shark Fin Fades Slightly in China

For something that doesn't really taste all that great, shark fin soup is a ridiculously popular and prestigious dish in Chinese culture. I had the chance to taste it at my uncle's 80th birthday at a restaurant that still had some fins from before they banned it in California. I shudder to think at the cost, but then again, that's how it should be. Expensive, so that fewer people can buy it, thus decreasing the demand for shark fin, hopefully. The shark fin in the soup is pretty tasteless; it's really just there for texture. The majority of the taste comes from the broth it's in. I think when I ate mine, I tried a little bit of it, then gave the rest to my parents (or someone) because I didn't care for it much and was already full from the ridiculous amount of food that had already come out.

Personally, I don't have anything against the dish itself, nor the fact that it involves eating shark. I do not, however, condone the practice of finning - the practice of just cutting off the shark's fin and dumping the body back in the ocean to die - and the fact that, in order to keep up with the demand, suppliers are depleting the shark population, which has huge effects on oceanic ecosystems. If there were a way to use both the fins and the body for the shark, instead of just dumping it, along with a way to contain overfishing, I don't think there would be too much of an issue with eating it; on the contrary, I think it's a part of the culture and perfectly fine to eat if caught in an ethical way.

But controversy aside, I wanted to take a look at why Shark Fin Soup carries so much cultural capital and prestige with it, and its history, and how it got to this point - and by quick look, mostly I mean looking at wikipedia and the links in the references and on google. Hooray, "research."

From what I've been reading - both on wiki and other sites like NY Times and Time Magazine - the soup itself originated during the Ming dynasty and was a delicacy only for the rich (presumably because it was pretty dangerous to catch, not to mention difficult). However, in the recent years, due to a rising affluent middle/upper middle Chinese population, more Chinese families can afford to splurge on the soup.

I'd also hazard a guess that as the number of affluent families increase, so too does the need to differentiate and to distinguish themselves from those families they consider beneath them in status. Doing so involves the consumption of not only foods, but other status symbols that carry cultural capital and prestige. Hence the increase in demand for shark fin soup. My hypothesis would be that if one were to observe the social status/class of the people who consume shark fin soup, the majority of these families would fall within that grey area of families who are trying to change classes, or whom are at the top of the middle class or bottom of the upper class. Those families are at the highest risk (or potential) of social mobility, and probably the ones that require the most conspicuous consumption of goods that will help them stay in their desired social class. Just a theory though. It could also be lots and lots of really rich people.

Also interesting, and slightly tangentially related, according to someone interviewed by the Times, is that the three treasures of the sea in China are abalone, shark fin, and sea cucumber. I never would have expected sea cucumber to make that list on account of... how easy it is to catch them. Unless sea cucumbers secretly had these mouths with rows and rows of teeth. That would be terrifying.

Further reading:
Bird, Maryanne. "Man Bites Shark." Times online. February 2001. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,100660,00.html?iid=fb_share

Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark_fin_soup

Qin, Amy. NYTimes.com "Taste for Shark Fin Fades Slightly in China." (see link at top)

Real NorNorCal

South Lake Tahoe :)

I still haven't been able to wrap my mind around the fact that it's 2013. It's kind of like.... what. What do you mean it's already 2013. Oh crap, I totally just wrote 2012. Let me add a little loop to the bottom to make it 2013.... just curve the end around a little bit and FIXED.

I'm going to be doing that for months. Sigh.

Winter break was too short. Way way way too short. Despite it being like, third week into the quarter and over halfway through January, I'm still like "what do you mean, winter break finished?" Sigh.

It probably felt like that because my family was all over the state. I went up with my dad and brother to Tahoe, picked up my grandparents and sister from Reno and went skiing. Lots of fun, but I fell so many times. So. Many. Times. We skiied the whole time at Sierra-at-Tahoe, close to South Lake Tahoe. My brother and I went three times and oh man. Skiing uses a completely different set of muscles. I hurt so much after the first day, despite only getting four runs in, because skiing is like doing a squat the entire time you have your boots on since you're generally unable to stand up straight. Also I haven't skiied in over three, four years. ...and I'm out of shape.

It was absolutely beautiful though the first three days we were there. Blue skies, sunny, fresh snow. Got a bit cold, but with enough layers that wasn't much of a problem. The weird thing is that when I was in Japan - with equally cold weather - I wore waaaaay more clothes and had layers upon layers upon layers, even when I was riding my bike and walking to work. So "but you're constantly moving and will be warm that way" wasn't really like, a thing, especially since whenever you ride on the ski lift, you're sitting still for a good while anyways.

My brother probably wasn't the right person to get back into skiing with. He's the kind of person that's like "so what, you fall down, you get back up. You're going to fall down, so whatever, take risks" kind of dude. Which is cool. I wish I was like that sometimes. But I'm not. Not when it comes to things that are painful like falling down mountains (or falling in general). That's kind of why I never really wanted to learn how to snowboard, and why I walk so freaking slow on ice and snow. I don't want to fall. It's not afraid so much as overly cautious.

Maybe a little bit afraid too.

The "warm up run" my brother allowed me to do wasn't the nice easy bunny slope I wanted to remember how to ski on. Oh no. We went to the second highest ski lift and took the beginner green runs the whole way down. About half way down, the trail splits from the "EZ way down" course, Sugar and Spice, to this ridiculously annoying, full of turns run appropriately called Corkscrew. I can't turn for crap. D:  My approach to that run was "come to an almost complete stop and then kind of very slowly turn" that occasionally turned into "fall down so you don't fall off the mountain, then get back up and turn" turn.

SNOW DINO

The whole "fall down and then turn yourself manually" turn is something I've gotten quite good at. When my sister finally joined us on the slopes two days later (my brother and I took a day off to uh, recuperate. I made this super rad snow dinosaur, since making a full blown snowman seemed like way too much cold at that point since I was barefoot lol.) we - still at Sierra - decided after my sister had gone a few runs to go "exploring" some of the other runs since my brother was getting bored of Sugar'n'Spice and Corkscrew. He managed to get me to go down a blue medium slope, since it wasn't *too* terribly steep, so I figured, why not try this other one. It was called "Upper Sleighride" and we figured, "how hard could it be?"

I think I was stuck at the top of the incline for a good 15-20 minutes. We came out of this rather pleasant area with some hills, and then BAM it was like HELLO SHARP STEEP HILL. Like those kind where when you're at the top and you look out and you can't actually see the rest of the run. There was another section across the way that looked vaguely less steep (but still pretty steep) so after running into some ski patrol guys who offered the solution of waiting for 45 minutes until the slopes were closed and the run clear, I figured that perhaps this way would be an alright way to go down.

It generally involved falling every time I tried to turn on my right foot (so turn... left?). Personally, I think I would have preferred to have a snowboard at that point, since at least with a snowboard, you can turn the board horizontally and kind of feather your way down; at no point is your board pointing straight down the mountain. You can also face down the mountain and kind of slowly make your way down (I watched another woman do that. She told me that normally that run wasn't as steep, but for some reason that day it was extra steep. Hooray). Skis on the other hand, when you turn, at some point in time, your skis are pointing directly down the mountain. It's fine if you can turn them in time (though you still pick up speed I think) but I generally... can't, which leads to a few terrifying seconds of OHMYGODPICKINGUPSPEEDAHHHCAN'TSLOWDOWN in the case of my right turns, and OHMYGODPICKINGUPSPEEDAHHHHHCAN'TGETFOOTALIGNEDAHHFALLING falls on left turns. My brother claims that skis are easier, and to some extent, yes. But for steep slopes, I would have to disagree, especially since my weak point (or well, one of many) is having control in going down steep parts. Barreling down is kind of dangerous, not just for yourself but for others as well. With skis, sure, you can take up the entire run to criss cross your way down, but at some point in time (every time you turn really) your skis need to point down, and you pick up some speed. There are a bunch of other points too but yeah... for me this is a big one. I've always heard that skiing is easy to learn, hard to master, while snowboarding is the opposite; hard to learn, (relative to skiing) easy to master (as easy mastering things go anyways, which is never simply "easy").

Not-so-great skiing conditions

Our last day of skiing was right as the winter storm was hitting Tahoe (we drove out in the middle of the winter storm. Smart...). So while the day started out alright, it quickly was reduced to a super crappy visibility with a lot of snow and wind. So much wind. But I mean seriously, how are you supposed to be able to ski and like, not hit people/trees/know which way to turn for runs/not fall off the mountain when your visibility looks like a huge patch of white?



I spent some more quality time contemplating how cold I was and how to get down the mountain during that run. I had better visibility diving in San Diego (which has really really bad visibility because of all the sand that gets kicked up). I think I contemplated taking off my skis at one point, since I did not want to miss a turn and end up tumbling down the mountain... but I don't really remember how I got down. Lots of "AHHHHHHHHHH" and probably a significant amount of swearing and praying. Also, lots of going really really snow. Good control work I guess?  My brother said he almost was going to ask them to send a search crew for me, it took so long.   (._.);  I felt kinda bad too, since both my siblings were waiting for me at the bottom for like... a while.


Hooray, sibling bonding. After that though, I think they did one more run while I sat in the lodge, since I decided that I liked living and disliked stress. They did agree though, that we were ending the day early due to the ridiculous amount of snow and wind. I did discover at least, that Sierra actually has really good mochas (and chili cheese fries).

Actually, I'm going up again next weekend with a bunch of people from my housing area. Stanford really seems to like planning ski trips (which I guess makes sense since we're pretty close...ish...) but I swear, most of the mailing lists I'm on are like "SKI TRIP" or I keep seeing things for "DORM SKI TRIP" and I'm just like... dang. We didn't have anything like that at UCSD.

...then again, we didn't have PE classes like Polo and Equestrian (though, I think we had rec classes for surfing).