Eco practices: 02 (Energy usage)

"Eco" here could be "ecological" and/or "economical".

"Energy" here could be gas or electricity or effort.

The Chinese style of cooking does not entail using an oven in general, especially in warmer, southern regions.

    In a nutshell, the historical reason for stir-frying being adopted is the shortage of fuel (firewood) in the earliest days.

    For those who are not that familiar with stir-frying, these are the main features:

    1. Cut up the food (meat and/or veg) into small pieces, so that the cooking doesn't require a lot of time (therefore fuel).

    2. The cooking utensil is ergonomically shaped for spreading the heat most effectively without using a lot of fuel (/ firewood) -- enter the wok.

    3. Heat up the wok really hot, throw in a bit of oil which will heat up in no time, throw the ingredients in and stir around for the heat to reach all bits, sprinkle some water onto this to soften the ingredients, add the sauces (soya sauce; bean paste; whatever).

    Of course, there's more to it than the three points above, but this blog is not about stir-frying, so I won't devote any more space to it.  (I'm also not good enough at cooking to do stir-frying justice in a blog -- only if it's in a tongue-in-cheek spirit...)

    When I became interested in Western baking at the age of 11, I had to organise my baking sessions so that the gas used for heating up this big box called an oven would be ergonomically utilised.  (My mother was already supporting a big family single-handedly.)  I had to make sure all the racks of the oven were loaded -- either bake at least two cakes or a batch of cookies as well.

    Long before even the energy price hikes triggered by the Ukraine War and now the recent developments in the Middle East, I was already adopting eco practices in my cooking routine and other aspects of living.  Here are some of them, in case you might be able to benefit from them (or the principles behind them).

    1. For heating:

I lived for 18 years in Belfiore Lodge (in Highbury, near the old Arsenal football stadium).  It looked like it'd come out of a Dracula film set but was an actual old Victorian house converted in the 1960s to four one-bed flats in the main house, with a wing of the same added at the same time.  No central heating.

My flat was laid out in a straight line:  living room at one end, bedroom at the other, with the kitchen in the middle.  Throughout the winter, unless it was a mild winter, I'd leave my oven on at the lowest level, which would take the chill out of the whole flat.  I'd also place a metal teapot inside for free hot water for my tea / coffee, as well as a pot of stew simmering away, with variations as the week wore on.

    2. For cooking: 

(i)  Go for stir-frying as much as possible to minimise cooking time (and therefore also fuel).  Cut up the food small, use a wok as well as a lid for keeping most of the heat in.  Switch off the gas x minutes earlier to let the residual heat do the rest of the cooking.  The x would have to be worked out by experience:  what kind of (and what size) meat or veg.  If you're fussy about getting the texture of your food exactly right (e.g., crunchy for stir-frying), this might not be the best practice.  I'm not a good cook, nor am I fussy about my food, so it suits me well enough.  As a low income earner, I'm happy to change my diet to suit my pocket.

(ii) I love Western-style thick soups.  They're an entire meal on their own.  The electric soup maker I have is set to 19 minutes for the whole process:  you just need to specify what you want it to do (smooth or chunky, e.g. -- the blending comes part way through, not at the end).  I've since discovered that I don't need 19 minutes because I cut up my veg very small, so now I switch it off after just 9 or 10 minutes.  It's very smooth even with only half the cooking time specified by the makers.  I shall try switching it off even earlier next time, and let the residual heat do the rest of the cooking.  Admittedly, if you eat this soup (about 4 portions for me) over different sittings, you'll still need energy to heat it up, but only enough to heat it up, not to cook it.  Soups (as well as stews and curries) improve when left overnight, so if you don't finish off the whole batch on the first day, you will have the bonus of subsequent helpings tasting better as well.

    If you want to interpret the "eco" in the title as "economical, you can make a big batch of a base recipe, especially if you get the ingredients cheap for some reason (the veg seller trying to get rid of them because of the summer heat, or closing for a long weekend), pot them up, freeze them, and eat them in instalments with varying additions.  "Economical" also in terms of time and effort energy (not just fuel energy) saved with a few instalments done in one cooking session.

Base recipe:  potatoes and onions; potatoes and tomatoes (I bought 48 egg-size tomatoes for a quid in 2003).

Additions for varying the taste:  chopped-up spring onion or coriander or parsley or basil or fresh chilli; cheese (different types); chopped bacon or ham or luncheon meat or spam; ground pepper (white is heavenly but more expensive); croutons (made out of bread that's not absolutely fresh -- more economy exercised here); anything you have around that needs using up or that you'd bought cheap (some kind of supermarket deal).

(From googling)  Quote central heating was not common in London flats (or British homes) during the 1960s; it was considered a luxury and only became the norm by the late 1970s or 1980s. Most 1960s Londoners relied on single-room heating, such as coal fires, paraffin heaters, or electric fires, leaving bedrooms and hallways unheated and often freezing. Unquote

Eco practices: 01 (Water usage)

I grew up in Singapore with water imported from (the) Malaya(n peninsula) across the causeway.

    It wasn't just a matter of having to pay for every drop of water used.  There was also the constant worry about Malaya/Malaysia switching off the tap on us (because of political disagreements, say).

    The amount of water imported has gone down since, with the (as ever forward-thinking) government creating more reservoirs and water supplies in recent decades, but the island state is not totally self-sufficient (yet).

    My mother was the lone breadwinner.  We were not poor, but we were not rich either, with my mother having to support five children plus other relatives (to start with, those living under our roof:  my mother's younger sister and younger brother, as well as my father's orphaned cousin who acted as my nanny and general domestic help).

    Water usage was therefore deeply ingrained in my upbringing, along with other things like morals and ethics -- all of which I'm proud of having been taught, especially after seeing the shockingly lax approach of people over here.

    My family could've invented or initiated the practice of water recycling that only started to come into currency in the last couple of decades (in my consciousness of it).

    There was a bucket permanently positioned by the kitchen sink, to receive non-greasy water (from washing rice and veg, and from rinsing dishes after the soapy first round) for watering the plants in the garden.  (It was a bungalow with a huge garden all around, and some 50 pots of orchids, plus flower beds.  Plants had to be watered twice a day given the tropical heat and burning sunshine.)

    My father built a water butt from five concrete rings stacked up to the eaves for receiving rain water from the gutters.  This water would be used for washing the dog (and the cat on one disastrous occasion), the concrete floors and the cars, as well as for watering the plants.  Oh, for cleaning out the crocodile [concrete] pond as well -- yes, we kept crocs (not as pets but for turning their skin into handbags, purses / wallets, belts, watch straps and shoes).

    My sister-in-law has kept up this practice herself, putting aside the water from the washing machine's rinsing cycle in buckets, ready for flushing the loo.  I'm so proud of her.

    I was shocked to have witnessed these episodes in my earlier years here in London:

    1. A Brit turning on the tap and letting it run while he washed fresh mushrooms one by one.

    2. A German friend who came to stay turning on the tap for wetting his toothbrush, then leaving it on while he squeezed toothpaste onto the brush, then brushing his teeth with the tap still running all the while.

    When I pointed both episodes out to British people over here, their reaction was:  "We have so much water in this country that that is not a problem for us."

    My Swiss boyfriend back in the 1980s said, "It's not just the amount that's available.  A lot of work and energy has gone into purifying that water to the level of making it drinkable straight from the tap.  It's not right to just let so much of it drain away unnecessarily."  I was so proud of him.

    I've often thought that those people with the shocking lack of awareness or concern about how precious water is should go and live in places where it's a rare commodity, e.g., Africa, with people having to walk for miles just to fetch a container of water (which is all they can manage to carry all that distance).  Even then, not always clean water at that either.  (A bit like making motorists use the bicycle for a while to see how dangerously some motorists' driving can be for the cyclist.)

    My own observations, unfortunately, have not made me optimistic about people's behaviour improving in spite of the threat posed by climate change to our future fresh water supply.  Selfishness and laziness seem to be stronger forces, I'm afraid.

    

NB:  The "eco" in the title is for both economical and ecological.

Osmosis: 03 (One strategy for honing language listening skills)

I'd chosen Japanese as my Special Subject for my BA degree at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of University).

    Those were the days before free access to recordings on the internet.  Language tapes were not that readily available in the West in the shops, or not cheap.

    I managed to get a very kind and helpful technician at SOAS to make me a set of the tapes used in the language lab sessions.

    No need to sit down and focus totally on the recordings.  Just play them at home as background sounds when doing quiet tasks like prepping for a meal (peeling potatoes or onions), ironing, or mopping the floor.

    No need to repeat after the recordings if you're doing it as a listening comprehension exercise, but it'll help if you try and make the sounds yourself as well, because to make the sounds yourself, your brain will be working harder, which will let everything sink in deeper.

    No need to match the speed of the recordings.  Never mind if you can't repeat the sentences as quickly as in the recordings, just do whatever you can.  You'll find that, with time, you'll be able to utter longer and longer strings of sounds as your brain and tongue become attuned and remember what's gone before.

    As I now keep saying to my Mandarin and English students when advising them on how to up their listening skills:  it'll be like listening to music.  Once you've listened to the same piece enough number of times, you will be able to hum it yourself, or spot a note that's played/sung wrongly, say.

(London, 1978–81)

Osmosis: 02 (Learning numbers in a foreign language)

Reader and old friend Valerio posted a comment on my Osmosis blog (https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2026/03/osmosis.html) about a talk that he had attended as a graduate student, hearing the speaker saying, "...it's one of those things that you learn by osmosis in this field".  Valerio, himself a maths professor now, said in his comment on my blog:  "I began imagining me becoming as knowledgeable as him just by waiting for the knowledge to trickle down into my brain in a rather passive way..."

    For the full context of the above, see the Comments section of https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2026/03/osmosis.html.

    I was just going over this in a lesson recently.

    One of the students in the group (mostly octogenarians) had read the Chinese for 12 o'clock (十二点 shí èr diǎn / "ten two o'clock") as 2 o'clock (二点 èr diǎn / "two o'clock").  She said she has trouble processing 十二 shí èr  / "ten two" and 二十 èr shí / "two ten".

    I cited (yet again to this group) my practice of running through, aloud, numbers in French when going up/down the stairs to/from my first floor flat, with one set of seven steps and one of eleven.  I can recite numbers in French now without having to think, but only up to eleven.

(London, 2026)

What are the humans to do with their time? (China)

 

After watching his video of the hotel room service bot (https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2026/04/room-service-bots-china.html), I texted my friend's brother.

Quote 

The worrying thought this hotel bot clip of yours has sparked is:  with such a huge population, what are the humans going to do if bots take over so much of their workload?  Especially the ones with lower levels of education and can only do menial tasks.

A German friend Bernhard from SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) went to China as an individual traveller in the early 80s.  Sent a postcard saying he went to a park which charged something very small (even by Chinese standards in the 80s, like maybe 10 fen [Chinese cent]) to get in.

1. He went to pay at one window,

2. ⁠went to a second window to get his ticket,

3. ⁠handed his ticket to a third person,

4. ⁠and was let in by a fourth person.

He said at the end of the postcard:  “No wonder they don’t have an unemployment problem.  It took four people to process my visit which cost 10 fen.”

Unquote

    My take is that this way (employing four people when one would've sufficed), it meant that three of those four people working at the park were not hanging around at home doing nothing for society, just feeding on the taxpayer's hard-earned money.  Well, in a country where there are state benefits to be had anyway.

    It's good social education for people not to take things for granted, I think.  I know a British woman on state benefits spending "money that the government owed me" on a tattoo (not her first either).  Apart from her attitude, calling it money that the government owed her, tattoos are not a life's staple.

(China, 2026 / early 1980s; London, 2025)

(from googling)

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The cost of a tattoo in the UK generally ranges from a minimum of £50–£90 for tiny, simple designs to £700+ for large, complex pieces (like full sleeves). 

Tattoo prices are heavily dependent on time,, with many artists charging hourly rates ranging from roughly £80–£100 in areas outside London to £150+ per hour in London.

Unquote

Room service bots (China)

An old friend's brother visiting Beijing chanced upon a bot delivering food to a room in his 4-star hotel, so he made a recording of it on his mobile phone, following it travelling down the corridor, waiting for the lift, getting into the lift (and he with it), emerging on a particular floor (and he with it), and turning right down the corridor.

    As he started to follow this bot, another (different looking) bot appeared on the left, making its way to somewhere, catching the attention of my friend's brother (and his mobile phone).

    A moment of wavering as he wondered whether to keep on tracking the first bot, or to start following the second one.  The camera reflects this, as it pans between the two bots -- the first one disappearing down the corridor, and the second one coming into view (maybe to catch the lift he'd just stepped out of with the first bot).

 

    I texted my reaction to the video:

    Quote

    I just had to chuckle at the camera being distracted by the appearance of a second bot and in two minds at one point whether to follow the new one or not.  Hahaha.

    I immediately had this picture of a man walking along with woman X (maybe his wife, maybe girlfriend), and having his head turned by another woman…

Unquote

(Beijing, China, 2026)

Osmosis: 01 (Unintentional product placement)

Valerio, old friend and avid reader / supporter of my blogs, posted a comment on my British understatement blog (https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2026/03/british-understatement-letter-to-school.html), reporting on how his own clever turn of phrase had netted a sympathetic response from an ex-employer who might not have forgiven him for deserting them for a different university -- my words.

    He thinks he might've made a British understatement on that occasion, which he's attributed to his four years in London.

    To do him justice, you'll have to read his full comment yourself at the bottom of the British understatement blog (https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2026/03/british-understatement-letter-to-school.html).

    I concur, calling it osmosis, something I myself am very prone to.

(from googling)

Quote

osmosis

noun

1. 1.

   Biology•Chemistry

   a process by which molecules of a solvent tend to pass through a semipermeable membrane from a less concentrated solution into a more concentrated one.
2. 2.

   the process of gradual or unconscious assimilation of ideas, knowledge, etc.

Unquote

    An ex-student had very kindly shared his Netflix account with me a few years back, so I started watching a lot of Korean dramas on it.

    Quite a few of the modern ones feature scenes of people dining out in restaurants which have a cooking ring in the middle of the table for grilling pork -- a common practice among the Koreans, it seems.  I then found myself eating marinaded pork for the following weeks.

    I have now switched to YouTube, having lost the Netflix share.

    The series that I was watching a little while back (Romance in the Alley, set in the China of 1977–1992, which had given me loads of blog material) has quite a few noodle-eating scenes, so I started eating noodles after that.

    Talk about being impressionable...

(from googling)

Quote

Product placement:  A practice in which manufacturers of goods or providers of a service gain exposure for their products by paying for them to be featured in films and television programmes.

 

Unquote