Extremely Small MP3 Players and Eating Blood

Zhe Su, author of SCIM, holding a 512MB MP3 player

I am collecting lots of interesting goodies at the high-rise gadget bazaars here in Beijing. There are whole categories of devices here that I have never even heard of before, let alone seen in the US. Even the iPod shuffle or the nano — the sveltest of the Western offerings — look obese and American next to these lean, muscular Chinese beauties.

Other popular heretofore-unknown gadgets include tiny, matchbook-sized MPEG4 video players and hyper-thin palm-sized video cameras.

It’s really inspiring to see these bustling centers of Chinese commerce filled with alien technology. Usually when I leave the US I feel like I’m leaving orbit. My European friends come to Boston to buy hardware because it’s cheaper and the new stuff is released in the US first. But here I feel I’ve discovered a separate, technologically-advanced civilization.

Last night we ate at Xiabu Xiabu, an extremely popular local chain specializing in boil-it-yourself hotpot meals served at a long counter that snakes around the restaurant, maximizing its surface area like the villi in your intestines. They bring out plates of raw vegetables and meat and you dip them in the boiling water with chopsticks and dip them in sauce and eat. Totally awesome, and I hope to visit again before leaving China.

Although they did make me eat clotted pig’s blood.