As my adventure throughout China continues, I have come to a few realizations or important reminders for those expat-to-be's and Asian adventurers. 1) There are certain cleanliness standards and hyper-gourmandizes that us, Westerners, take for granted. 2) One man's taboo, another man's delicacy. 3) Not to turn Asian-cliché on you and quote Confucius (oh wait...) "Real knowledge is awareness of the extent of one's own ignorance". Now let me approach these in order:
1) When it comes to hygiene, there's a difference between being smart and being uptight. Being smart would be an example of choosing the bicycle-street-cart-meat-food is. He harps on the habits that are... uncomfortable for most visitors. However, this is only culture shock and, in practice, has no correlation with the food itself and falls victim to assumptive stereotypes. Many Chinese dishes are cooked and served hot, a common way to disinfect food and if you're smart, you shouldn't have any problems (most likely with a tummy ache or two). This brings me to...
2) There are many things the Chinese eat that Americans, Britains, French, (foreigners/'LAOWAI etc) find repulsive: in Chengdu province, dogmeat; duck throat; and perhaps the most common complained about food, chicken feet. I'll admit that there are a few Chinese delicacies that I could never bring myself to eat--mainly dogs... they're so cute! But there are many Chinese who I have met who believe the exact same thing. However, I'll admit that I find Foie Gras disgusting. Imagine force feeding a duck excessive corn to make them extra fat and then eating it's liver! Doesn't sound so appetizing now? Every culture has its delicacies that we might rather forget how they are made. After watching a show on taboos on National Geographic, I found out that in the rain forests of South America, there is a tribe that finds roasted tarantula a delicacy. The brains and organs, a white gooey substance, is squeezed onto leaves and fed to the elders. These examples bring me to my concluding quote...
3) Everyone is ignorant of something. I know more know-it-alls than I'd like. I know more picky eaters than I like. I'm not the most adventurous, I never did get those roasted testicles in Beijing back in 2008, but I promised myself I'd be more open minded this time around. I ate duck throat, holding the beak as if it were the bone of a chicken leg... and it was delicious! I even ate chicken feet... I was completely unaware of what part of the chicken (they were little pieces of fried chicken) I was eating until my friend and I while contemplating what body part had this many bones, saw a claw... It was also delicious!
So please, don't fall into the uptight foreigner complex and complain about every little thing that is different in China. Sure, you will have lots of fun jokes but in the end, you'll just become a jaded foreigner, unhappy with everything. But if you decide to open yourself up, you're destined for a work opened to delicious amazing culinary experience and a world of completely different culture. On this note, I recently embarked on an adventure to somewhere I'd never been, using modes of transportation that I had never familiarized myself with. For my parents sake, they will only know this once they read this post... whoops, my bad.
I went to a place known as Putuo Shan, a buddhist island not too far from Shanghai, in Zhejiang province, where no one spoke a single word of English. With a gang of two friends, we headed to the long distance bus station where we ended up on a bus two hours after our intended departure time. This caused a problem as according to information learned from various travel websites, the last ferry to Putuo shan was at 5h55 pm, and a "5.5 hour" bus ride separated us. I immediately called our hotel, telling them the situation and saying we would have to stay in Zhoushan. I then received a long text message, of which collectively we understood that there were later ferries and the hotel receptionist would help us out. At 6h00, we were dropped off on a random street in Zhoushan and needed to find our way to a port. With the help of a kind Chinese women, we fled the sudden accumulation of fascinated passerbys and rickshaw drivers (who were simultaneously dumbfounded not only by our presence, but also our interactions with the locals) and made our way into a taxi. With a bit of back and forth, confusing accents, and a phone call to the hotel, we found our way to the correct port and bought ourselves tickets to Putuo shan.
From here on out, our travels were without too much trouble! Instead of getting angry at every person who stared (believe me, we'd burn a lot of bridges), we found being overly friendly not only freaked them out but also gave them an unexpected surprise. This is how we made our first friend. A young mother came up to us, with her obviously embarrassed son clutching to the backs of her legs, asking where we were from and if she could have a picture. (For all Westerners traveling in Asia, you know (or will soon that) this is a very typical interaction). Seeing the family later that night, they offered to show us around the next morning. This was ideal considering since we had no concrete idea whatsoever of what we were doing. We had an early start the next morning at 7h30 and explored the buddhist temples, buddhist temples, buddhist temples, and the beach! Every meal was a competition between cooks and waiters who seeked us from practically a mile away and boasted "Best food! Cheap prices! Honestly cheap prices!" One lunch time, while literally surrounded by four or five restaurant workers attempting to persuade us to eat at their restaurant, one of the vendors admitted sheepishly that "they're all the same!": red bins with fresh fish and a wall of fresh vegetables. We liked her matter-of-fact attitude and ended up dining at her establishment. You can order off a menu but first you choose which fish and which vegetables you want from a wall (and floor) covered in buckets of raw food. They even accounted for Zsuzska's Celiac's disease, ensuring that no dish touched soy sauce. This was hands down my favorite weekend so far in China. We went in completely unsure what to expect and allowed China to lead the way...
The worst, but funniest, thing that occured happened whilst undergoing a "spiritual, moving, once in a lifetime" event. Allow me to set the scene: sitting on a giant rock on the beach, a small pagoda right behind us, and while the sun sets, an orange full moon can be seen--growing brighter with every minute that passes. It was one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever experienced, conversing with random passerbys and the occasional monk. One monk, a women with a shaved head with a hefty build, comes and sits with us. We began talking--about life, America, China, the monastical life, etc--when she suddenly pulls off her necklace and puts it on my friend. "Please," she says, "I want you to have this, my new American friend". She then pulls out two more and gives them to my friend and I. Meanwhile, we are sitting there bewildered talking about how surreal the whole situation was when, "Ok, you can give me Y100 now." We bargained with her and got it down to a reasonable price but the moral of this story is that you can't always trust a monk. After she took my hichew candy (the last one too!), we knew she was trouble... "I've never seen American money, do you have any that I can look at?" "NO! Sorry ma'am, but we only had what we gave you. If you don't mind, we're going to go back now..."
Me and the nice monk
Monks... who knew they were such trouble? She had a friend who was incredibly nice and a new monk. She played monk chants from her cellphone. We also saw monks picking up a pack of cigarettes as we left a small shop. All in all, this was an amazing beautiful and relaxing experience with a side of a few funny stories. But one motto that this island community definitely follows, based on the small shopkeepers who cooked up some delicious aromas on the sidewalks and those who owned their very own restaurants: Live Well. 好活。Eat Well. 好吃。
