It’s not Halloween without candy, but how well do you know your local Chinese candies? Let’s skip the international brands and the ever-so-popular White Rabbit candies and dive right into the local stuff that you might not have yet taken a chance on.

If you want to try any of these candies, scan the QR code in Taobao to order.

Xu Fuji Crispy Candy

These usually come in a variety of colors and are usually seen in wedding goodie bags because of their bright colors. They come in different flavors, but to be honest, aside from the black sesame and peanut ones, the rest kind of taste the same. If you get a handful of these in your Halloween bag this year, don’t pass up on them! They’re delicious! They’re crispy and flakey and packed with the delicious flavor of whatever nuts they are made of.

Rating: 10/10

Chun Guang (Coconut Candy)

I usually get these after a friend comes back from a trip to Hainan. These are basically coconut-flavored caramel hard candies. They’re great for the first one (or three), but these are really sweet and end up leaving your mouth feeling a tad dried out after a while.

Rating: 8/10

Ying Tang (Hard Candy)

They might be pretty, but these are essentially the Chinese version of candy corn – cute, but no one actually wants to eat it. They’re so basic that they don’t even have a brand name (just like candy corn). Ying tang means hard candy, and don’t be deceived by their cute fruity colors. They don’t actually taste like fruit. These just taste like sugar with a hint of mint. Put them back…

Rating: 1/10

Bulaolin Nougat

These don’t have the most kid-friendly-looking wrappers. It’s literally fuchsia with some old guy printed on it. But don’t judge this candy by its wrapper. These are tasty almond nougat sweets that have been a local specialty in Shenyang for decades and they’re delicious! Tasty nougat candy with big chunks of nuts wrapped in a thin layer of chocolate. If anything, the outdated wrapper is proof that this candy is so good that the makers never had to update the look or recipe to keep up with the times.

Rating: 10/10

Dongbei Big Shrimp Candy

There’s no shrimp in the candy! They call it shrimp candy because of the thin layer of sugar that makes it look like cooked shrimp. But, like the nougat, this is also one of those candies that haven’t had to change their recipe or packaging for generations. It’s a flakey peanut candy with a thin layer. Why the makers decided to make it look like shrimp is beyond me, but Harbin local specialty candy is delicious and hard to put down.

Rating: 10/10

Mianhua Tang (Marshmellow Candy)

If you love eating Peeps these are even better! These fluffy marshmallow candies come with fruit-flavored jelly in the middle and they’re perfectly bite-sized, so you don’t end up opening a pack, not finishing it, and having them dry out.

Rating: 8/10

Have you discovered any delicious local candy? Let us know in the comment section below.

Images: Pexels, Taobao

Ah, China. Where my toothpaste tastes of tea, and my shampoo is minty…

I have never seen a more disappointed face than my then nine-year-old’s when he bit into his ice lolly to discover that it was durian flavor. But all China expats know the feeling. Red bean is the worst offender, lurking at the center of cakes, pretending to be chocolate, but there are other unexpected tastes to be encountered by the unwary. Pea-flavored ice cream? Blueberry pizza? Mung bean popsicles? You’ve got it.

In part this stems from the days when China was less open to the world, and chocolate imports were negligible. Candy and desserts were made with locally-grown products instead. Mainly though it’s just a cultural thing. There’s no objective reason why toothpaste should taste of mint, and pineapple on a pizza is as much of an outrage as blueberries. Many would argue that we should open our minds to a broader palette of flavors, and learn to love that jackfruit.

However if you’ve got kids, then good luck persuading them that red bean is better than chocolate, or to brush their teeth with green tea paste. We learn to dislike flavors when they arrive unexpectedly, our bodies concluding that if it doesn’t taste like it should it must be bad. And we’re most vulnerable to getting the wrong thing when we’ve recently arrived, struggling to read labels and to adjust to a new environment. This is when kids can take a violent dislike to a flavor they might learn to love if it was introduced carefully instead of coming as a disappointment. So here’s a guide for China newbies on some of the taste traps to avoid.

Red bean paste – 红豆沙 – hóng dòu shā

This isn’t too hard to learn. Look at the middle character, dòu. It looks like a bean! Well, kind of. If you squint.Hóng means red – you’ll hear a lot of talk about hóng bāo, the red envelopes given as gifts or as, erm, financial incentives. The character’s a bit trickier, but not impossible. Like a lot of Chinese characters, it has two parts, one suggesting the meaning, the other the sound. The squiggle on the left means, roughly, “writing”, and is included in most colors. The other part, 工 gōng, is he pronunciation (gong, hong… who’s counting?). It means “work”, looks like a hammer, sort of, and sounds like the ringing of a hammer on an anvil. If you can’t read the packaging, or there is none, then you can ask:

yǒu hóng dòu shā ma?

The answer will either be yǒu (“yes, it does”) or méi yǒu (“no, it doesn’t”).

Chocolate – 巧克力 – qiǎo kè lì

This is easier to say, because it’s a “loanword”; it sounds like “chocolate”. (Chinese ideas of what sounds like what can be baffling. May 20 is one of many “Chinese Valentine’s Days” because “5-20” wǔ èr líng sounds like “I love you” wǒ ài nǐ. NO IT DOESN’T.) The characters are harder, but it might help to think that 克 kè looks a bit like a key, and 力 lì means strength, and looks a bit like someone flexing their muscles. Again, you can ask:

yǒu qiǎo kè lì ma?

Yǒu means “have”, and ma makes it a question.

Tea – 茶 – chá

The sound is easy to remember if you’re from Britain, where “a cup of char” has long been slang for what we too consider our national beverage. Unlike Brits though, the Chinese put tea in everything, including desserts and toothpaste. The character’s not too hard. The line across the top, with two smaller lines cutting it, indicates a plant.The arrow shape underneath resembles a tea leaf.

The “spearhead” shape of tea leaves is imitated in the Chinese character

Mint – 薄荷 – bò he

Mint isn’t much used in Chinese cooking, and you won’t find it in most supermarkets. So it must taste like an exotic and challenging ingredient. You can find it in toothpaste though, due to western influence. The first character is a really tough one to remember (though see the “plant” lines over both characters?) You only really need to remember the second one though. I don’t know any mnemonics for it, but it’s derived from the hugely important character 可 kě, part of the ubiquitous phrase 可以 kě yǐ, meaning to be allowed to do something. If you learn only one word of Chinese this might be the most useful:

kě yǐ ma? (Can I? Is it OK?) kě yǐ. (OK)

So there you have it. We encourage you to introduce your kids to the new world of flavors available in China, but when they know what’s coming, and are open to it. That durian ice lolly? It went in the bin, and we got him a strawberry one instead.

Photos: chooyutshing, Florin Gorgan via Wikimedia Commons

Halloween is slowly creeping in all around us, and it can be a pretty scary holiday. Many people don’t celebrate Halloween, but dressing up and eating candy is too much fun to let it completely pass you by! In the U.S many communities hold fall festival parties as an alternative to Halloween, and in Australia and New Zealand a popular Springtime alternative is a Light Party, which has less scary elements and celebrates light and life. Does your family also celebrate alternative holidays?

We can’t escape Halloween culture but a light party is a great alternative especially for younger children to have a nice dress up in a cosstume, dance, and candy party without the all the spooky stuff. On Saturday the 28th of October the Congregation of the Good Shephard invites families to iLotus to have a non scary family friendly party. iLotus will be dressed up in fun colors, games, food, and dancing. This event is almost sold out and has a limited capacity so contact cogs@fastmail.fm to see if you can join.

ILotus is an active space where people can work, have workshops, popups, and parties like this one. This amazing space is suitable for many events and is located next to Bottega and Qmex Taqeria, so when families are danced out they can escape for a pizza or a taco. A perfect Saturday in our book.

ILotus is located next to Raffles Medical 1F jinshang building xinyuanlixi chaoyang district.

Picture credit: organizers, ILotus, declanmageedesign.com

Though most have received their photo from the party, we would like to surprise some parents with extra pictures of their kids. Saturday and Sunday October 29 and 30 marked the 10th Halloween Anniversary party at the Canadian International School of Beijing. Almost a thousand kids, parents, and care-takers attended the party. The crowd enjoyed trick or treating, a haunted house, and fun activities. Halloween marks the start of a two month season that goes hand in hand with lots of sugar and surprises:Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. (Parents only a few more days until we can go back to normal, no or low sugar diets!)

Photos By: Uni You

Mooncake eating time is officially here, there’re so many options it’s  hard to narrow down what you should try. We received a mooncake box from the Sheraton Dongcheng and it had numerous flavors both traditional and a gourmet. We tried all flavors of course but my favorite was the coffee, which was really good but this was gourmet as coffee isn’t a traditional filling. Most mooncakes won’t have an English name written for easier differentiation therefore you have to rely on a Chinese friend to help, learned Chinese and can easily tell, or taste to know what you’re eating. It’s good to try at least one of these traditional flavors before the gourmet ones to get your favorite. 

Lotus Seed Paste
This is one of the most traditional flavors out there, the lotus seed paste. The dense paste will leave you dry so washing it down will be necessary but it’s very filling as only one will be enough. This isn’t for everybody.

Sweet Bean Paste
To be totally honest the whole bean paste tastes doesn’t bode well for me. I first tasted in a pastry then a moon cake and didn’t even want to try the ice creams. Of course there are various pastes such as the mung bean, red bean, and black bean. Red bean is a popular choice and might be worth a try to see if you like it or not.

Five Kernels
Nuts and seeds such as walnuts, pumpkin seeds, watermelon seeds, peanuts, sesame seeds, and almonds are another common filling that depends on the regional preference. For Beijing, sweet nuts and seeds are used such as almonds and watermelon. 

Egg yolk
This is one of the popular options that’s readily available as the symbolism of the moon is through the salted egg yolk in the middle.

Green Tea
The healthier option is for cheaters like me who want to be in denial that the candy coated mooncakes are okay to have. The taste is definitely acquired and might have a tea aftertaste left depending on the way it was made.

This was sourced from China Highlights

Photo: miniharm.com