A Word for Qin

The other night I went 'solo'... First to eat Dim sum, ensued by a visit to The Green House where I made a new friend, from Chile this time.

Going back to dinner, turns out that what I used to call, and know as, Dim sum... isn't the word they use here in Barcelona for those delicious steamed little morsels. Here they refer to the Chinese delicacy as Dianxin (Mandarin) or Pin Pan.

In Xi'an, Teresa referred to them as 'raviolis'. And in Shanghai, Cathy called them Yum Cha. And here in Barcelona so far I have found two different restaurants, with two different names for the same!

Boy! did it reminded me of the movie Hero... and the aiming of the first emperor of a united China, and the first of the Qin Dinasty, Qin Shi Huangdi. Among other things, he will unite all the Chinese Kingdoms under a common language. The one we now know as Mandarin and it is spoken throughout modern China.

With so many different words to describe just one tiny inconsequential thing... No wonder communication becomes such an unobtainable dream... a true Babel!

I wonder... what name will the Chinese market stand give to it????

The not so sticky rice I ordered along with my not so Dim sum!
It was good though. Steamed on a lotus leaf.


I never got the name of the guy with the black shirt... but the other one is Zhu Ling Jun. He speaks a little English and we talked about the difference in names of what I ordered. It goes with the geography, we both determined in the end.