This photo was taken in the city of Datong (大同) the Northern Chinese province of Shanxi (山西). This is the most-common type of noodle in this area. This practice produces a thick, chewy and irregular noodle (relative to the hand-pulled variety). The chef, scrapes the noodles out of a pile of dough resting on his shoulder with what I would call a convex spatula or speckle knife. The noodles fly through the air into a boiler, where they are cooked for just a couple of minutes, scooped out with a sieve.