Wishful Living Part 1 – Hollow Village in Dali

Have you ever dreamed of living in the countryside in a different country as a foreigner, owning your private kitchen and serving the local people?

A French freelance writer, Xiaosong with a French name, Gil, moved to China in 2005. He and his wife first lived in Beijing for five years, and then they relocated to Chongqing and stayed there for another four years. But they found themselves exhausted with the big city lifestyle, and they decided to return to the pastoral. They are living in Panqu Village in Dali, owning their private kitchen and serving dishes to the local people.

The village is a “hollow village” at the foot of Cangshan Mountain in Dali. Due to the inconvenience of life and the construction of the new countryside, most of the local villagers have moved to new houses closer to the city. The old house was idle and abandoned, and it was kept in the village. When Gil first moved in, the roof of the old house was on the verge of collapse. There were no circuits, earthen toilets, spider webs hanging around the corners, and haunted houses. After a difficult transformation, Gil, his wife, and their two-year-old daughter settle down now.

Gil cooks and serves the dishes to local people one to three times per week. He has to plan what he wants to buy a day before he goes out and to do grocery shopping at the local farmers market. He gets up at 5 AM in the morning, carries bamboo poles to the market in the ancient city to buy fresh ingredients, bargains with Chinese and local farmers with French accents, and learns about the ingredients.

Gil is very creative with cooking. Though he teases that he cooks "weird" French food, he invents a lot of fusion dishes. He will add Sichuan pepper in traditional French cuisine and wrap the traditional Bai snacks and milk fans with leaves.