Food
– Gotta Have It!
We
hope you ate some turkey for us on Thanksgiving! Actually, we ate at a Western
hotel dinner buffet and had some turkey ourselves! Kitchens here don't have
ovens, so the many foods we bake in America are not very popular here, or even
possible. Meat is pretty expensive, so it’s usually cut into small pieces to
make it spread further--usually chicken or pork, and all the fat is chopped up with
it as well. Many non-meat products are flavored with meat, and every bit of the animal is utilized.
We're eating a lot of peanut butter, eggs, and cheese. We get cheese
from a small business that imports Western foods, however much of it is quite
expensive. A box of Kraft mac and cheese is $4, and a Betty Crocker cake mix is
about $5. The local food is pretty
cheap. Fruits and vegetables (some I don't recognize) cost less than at home,
but its only available when in season. Butter and milk are sometimes hard to
find but yogurt is a big seller.
Every
week we try to find some comfort food—there are a couple of places that have
burgers, and we have found a Turkish restaurant that is very good. If we’re
really desperate for Western food, the chains we have here include Subway,
Pizza Hut, McDonalds, and KFC. Of
course, to get to any of them is a long walk or a bus ride, so we really have
to want them badly!
We
aren’t too far from a fairly good grocery store, and it’s always an adventure
to shop. For example, there are probably ten to fifteen different kinds of
eggs—you can choose on the basis of color (blue, gray, white, brown, speckled,
clean or straight from the farm),the bird it comes from (type of chicken,
goose, duck, quail, pigeon etc.) or the way you would like it prepared—raw,
hard-boiled, fermented, or pickled, and how you would like it packaged-- vacuum-packed,
in a carton, or loose (sold individually), to take home with you or as a quick on-the-go
snack.
That process can be repeated for any number of things from oil, rice,
soy sauce, yogurt to chips and snacks. Of course, don’t try to find ketchup,
jam or pickles!
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| Oils by the gallon--not apple ju |
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| rice of many varities |
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| chicken head soup? |
Many
things are not quite what the picture on the label represents. How helpful it would be, we think, to have
English to tell us what it is!
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| or maybe duck is more your taste |
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| Tofu---we think! |
Of course, sometimes the translation doesn’t
really help identify the item!! Or make you want to sample it! Tofu, anyone?
The Chinese don't do candy! We had some that tasted a little like milk-flavored dry noodles-let us know if you want us to bring some home for you! Richard has found something he recognizes, even in Chinese! So things aren't so bad!
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| Goodies! |
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| And it tastes the same! |
The majority of
the foot traffic opts for street food.
There are many open air markets selling foods we don’t recognize. You can get your duck cooked, or pick out your favorite for Peking duck! 
We
only eat foods that we see cooked in boiling oil, so we know it’s safe!
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| Seaweed must be a delicacy |
One of our staples at home is ice cream. It is almost nonexistant here. We did find Haagen Dazs, but at 99 RMB or $16 a pint. So eat some ice cream and think of us!
The
Chinese are catching up with us by offering more quick prepackaged foods. We enjoy finding those that have been
translated into English or are recognizable by the picture portraying what’s
inside. How about American prunes, anyone? Scarlet says they’re great! Of course we can't see why anyone in China would EVER need prunes!
A
Trip to the Dentist
We
have been told numerous times by our students that the food in China is
delicious. It must be an acquired taste. Since meat is at a premium around
here, I try to consume it when available. Herein is the saga resulting from a
single ox tail soup bone. One day, Suzanne had a helping of what appeared to be
beef stew in our faculty dining hall. It turned out to be ox tail soup,
complete with bones. A hidden bone assaulted a molar and broke off the back
half. After the initial insult from the
ox tail bone, Suzanne was faced with several fundamental questions.
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| store front dental work, anyone? |
The possibilities
were: 1. Ignore it 2. Go to a street
dentist or 3. Try to find a real dentist. One of Suzanne’s students gave a
report on the Chinese medical system. She stated that everyone knows that the
medical system is not very good, so the best thing to do is to stay healthy! That’s sometimes easier said than done! Perhaps
ignoring the problem until we were back in America would be a good option, but
we have many months to go before returning home. One of the American teachers
gave us a referral to a dentist. We only knew that he spoke English and he had
at least one American satisfied customer. We made an appointment at the Fourth
Military Medical Hospital. It turns out that this is the dental training
hospital for the People’s Army. High government officials come here for dental
work, which most need because they lived through the Cultural Revolution and
therefore have fairly bad teeth.
The
first visit was to determine if the tooth could be saved. The dentist ordered
x-rays. We traveled to another floor in the building for x-rays. (10RMB =
$1.60). The root looked good, so step
one was to drill and insert pins into the dentin to rebuild the shape of the
tooth with filling material. (No Novocain). Two hour procedure, 350 RMB = $56. Then
she waited two weeks to see if the tooth survived the procedure.
Survival meant
a crown was in order, tooth death meant root canal. It was a long two weeks. We
appreciate the prayers of each of you and knowing that we are included in most
prayer circles. The tooth survived, so two weeks later Suzanne met with another
dentist who was a crown specialist. There was a lot of grinding and weeping and
wailing but no gnashing of teeth. This time there was Novocain ! (10 RMB for
the shot.) She left with a temp. crown.
We celebrated by eating a long
donut-like thing that had been boiled in oil! Two more weeks and the final
visit saw the permanent crown installed. The crown came with a one year
guarantee on workmanship and materials. Total cost was $570. Less than the
copay in the good old USA. We’ll spare you the photo of the tooth!
We’re
surviving and are well and happy. Every
day brings a new adventure!
After years of America buying all of their Christmas decorations from China, China is now increasingly celebrating the commercial aspects of the holiday. There are Christmas decorations everywhere. (Most look like they came from the Dollar Store!) We receive many Merry Christmas greetings during the day from passersby. This has softened the blow of being so far from home, friends and family during this time of the year.
We have tried to keep the spirit of the season alive by listening to Handel's Messiah over and over. The Grinch has made numerous appearances to our Chinese students. Thanks to every student having a video phone, the Grinch is now posted somewhere on the Chinese equivalent of YouTube. Even though Christmas is beginning to be celebrated here, we still had a full week of teaching. We each had six hours of class on Christmas Day. We had not been up at 6:00 AM on Christmas morning for many years!
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