Food for Thought

Of all the unknowns going into this trip, one of the foremost on our minds was what we were going to eat for almost three weeks in China. So we loaded up our suitcases and carry-ons with almonds, Clif bars, oatmeal packets and other non-perishable goodies from home. We’re VERY happy we brought them!

It’s not that we’re going hungry here. It’s just that things are very, very different than they are in the States. It wasn’t really like that to start off in Hong Kong. Someone mentioned today that Hong Kong was very much like New York City—not all THAT evident that you’re in a foreign country. There were many Western-style restaurants right around our hotel—Subway, Outback Steakhouse, McDonalds, Starbucks. We found however that the pizza from room service was good and also convenient, so we had that most nights. We did eat one meal with our group in a Chinese restaurant. We were also able to find a grocery store near the hotel which had a number of familiar products. I came home bearing KitKats, Pepperidge Farm Milano Cookies, Skippy Peanut Butter and Sun Chips among other things. (Awesome!)

Now that we’ve moved on Nanchang (and mainland China), it’s very apparent we’re IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY! We eat at the breakfast buffet in the hotel each morning. Eggs, banana bread, bacon, fried intestines. Yes, there was a pot on the buffet labeled “Fried Intestines”! Having NO intent of actually taking any, I did however open up the lid. Any guesses as to what I saw? That’s right—sausages! Must’ve somehow got lost in the translation!

In this city of 4 million they have KFC, McDonalds and Papa John’s, but they’re all located a distance away from the hotel. Only Papa John’s delivers and is consistently like home, so they’ve been getting a lot of our business this week. The Papa John’s menu, also however features something called Squid Rings. We’ll stick with the cheese pizza, thank you!

China is definitely not as advanced when it comes to refrigeration, so every meal you wonder if everything’s safe. That also means that you need to get used to room temperature drinks as well—even the stuff that’s been refrigerated! And there’s absolutely no ice that should be consumed by Westerners because the water purification techniques are not advanced. CCAI recommends that you drink no water from the tap, take no ice in your drinks, eat no fruit or vegetable that’s not thoroughly cooked, and don’t even sing in the shower! The good thing is bottled water is readily available so we’ve been using that for a number of different purposes.

What is not readily available in the grocery stores of Mainland China are namebrand American food products. I went on a field trip with our group to Walmart thinking that it would be the cure for a little homesickness. The fact was that just the opposite happened. The labels are unfamiliar and of course are written in Chinese. So you have no idea what’s inside the package. You usually don’t even know what “section” of the grocery store you’re in! So when you see any familiar packaging you snap it up, even if it’s written in Chinese. (Sidenote one: Anyone need a big box of Depends? Sidenote two: I almost bought a big jug of apple juice till I realized it was fish oil.) Seriously, we did find Cheetos, Pepsi and Oreos in their Chinese packaging and they did pass the “taste test.” But wow the smell in the produce section! It was like serious death. Later we learned that it was a plant called durian, which has been banned from all public transportation in China (check out the wikipedia entry if you don’t believe me!). Otherwise, we didn’t see anything as exotic as you might have expected. It was however very different from the Walmart back home! Another day I’ll be sure to post on the authentic Chinese food we’ve had opportunity to try.