Street Noodle Guy

Street Noodle GuyWe call him street noodle guy. In NYU Shanghai, the students don’t actually know the Chinese names of places and restaurants, so we make up our own. Places that we frequently eat at consist of: “noodle bar”, “rice place”, “curry place”, “muslim place”, “dumps” (short for dumplings), “skewer guy” and everyone’s favorite, “street noodle guy”. Vendors cooking noodles in a wok on the street are very frequent in streets in China. We encountered them in Shanghai, Beijing, Xi’an, Sanya, Chengdu. Five very different places. Each location has its own local signature. Chengdu incorporated its famous lip numbing ma la spice while Sanya’s street noodle vendors used tropical seafood.

Street noodle guy only comes out at night and usually works from 9:30 PM to around 3:30 AM. His cart is bare minimal and rides on the back of his bicycle. I’ve been there enough times to memorize the ingredients. Customers can choose from an option of 4 different kinds of noodles, rice, or my personal favorite, rice cakes. He starts off by heating oil in a hot wok under a propane flame. After frying an egg he puts in bok choy, a type of Chinese cabbage, and bean sprouts. After adding your choice of noodle it gets interesting. Street noodle guy begins to finish the order as he adds soy sauce, flavoring, and MSG, making a “ding” noise as he hits the spoon on the wok. We always say that it’s the sound of goodness going into the dish.

He is a migrant worker from a different province, coming to Shanghai in search of opportunity. He is typical of most of the 1.3 billion Chinese because he is from a rural area in China and is working hard to make a living. While China represents itself with its big cities, Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangzhou, most of the Chinese are still living in rural areas in low standards. He now knows most of us by face and has come to memorize everyone’s favorite orders. He knows that I don’t like bean sprouts in mine and that I like two eggs, not bad for 5 RMB, or 80 cents. I’ve noticed that Chinese people are either extremely intrigued by foreigners or couldn’t care less about them. He seems to be interested in us and has asked us about our studies and where we are from but for the most part he is concentrated in his business.