What Chinese people know about food

Only Chinese people like spicy food. Or maybe I should rephrase that as 'only Chinese people can eat spicy food', since there's an important difference. Seemingly, this is a matter of pride to folks here - the ability to eat spicy food. Non-spicy food just isn't proper food to many people. And it seems that even if you don't like the heat of the chillis, it is just the done thing, so you eat them anyway. How amusing to see people slurping down furnace-like hot and sour fishhead soup and chewing on red chilli-coated noodles while their cheeks glow pink and foreheads bead with sweat, insisting how great the food is (but all the while stopping for regular breaks and declaring how bloody hot it is). I've the question before: If it's too spicy, why not ask for it without the chilli next time? But I was politely informed that it wouldn't taste good without the tongue-searing, makes-your-eyes-bulge heat. 

I like spicy food. Chinese, Indian, Mexican - it's all good. I've tried to introduce the idea that other countries also have spicy food. I've talked about the popularity of Indian food in the UK. But ordering spicy food in a restaurant in China often produces the same response: A concerned look, then, towards my missus: 他能吃辣子不？("Can he eat spicy stuff?") For me, this is annoying on two levels. Maybe I'm taking it too personally but it almost seems like a slight against my manliness - yes I can eat spicy food damnit (just like I ate them the last ten times I ordered this dish in this restaurant...). Pile more chillies on top, see if I care. Secondly (if a little off-topic-ly) I ordered the food by speaking to the guy in Chinese, so why can't the guy ask me if I'm ok with spicy food?

Chinese people know what foreign food is: Burgers. And pizza. And fried chicken. I think those are the only available options. I once showed some students a picture of a cooked english breakfast and they didn't even understand what they were looking at. A full Sunday-roast style dinner (complete with yorkshire puddings, naturally) produced a similar effect. Regardless of their obvious utter lack of knowledge of foreign food, I was confidently informed that foreign food didn't taste good. (Note to self: Try this again, but first Photoshop the pictures to make everything look spicy.)

Oh, I missed one. Foreigners also eat onions.

To be fair, knowledge of what real Chinese food is is pretty pathetic in the UK. Most things that you might find on a menu back home simply wouldn't be recognised as Chinese food in China. Likewise, there's a lot of great Chinese food that I can't imagine I'd ever find in a restaurant back in England. 

The range and standard of 'western' food here is not great, though probably on a par with the range and standard of Chinese food available in western countries. Some of the 'western food' items I've been served - though I haven't necessarily eaten - include pasta (served in a ketchup dressing) and fruit salad (served in a thousand island dressing). Pizza has no tomato under the cheese. But at least the cheese is... cheese flavoured. Could be worse, could use one of these dairy-related abominations:

That'll be strawberry and chocolate flavoured cheese then. Say it with me: Mmmmmm.....

The Shaanxi Squat

Back in my school days I remember spending a lot of time sitting cross-legged on the floor. During school assembly, or at home in front of the TV. It seemed comfortable at the time, but my aging, unexercised lower limbs just don't have the required flexibility any more. I can bend to meet all the necessary angles required to sit on a chair, and that's about as far as I go.

Life in China makes more demands of peoples' thighs. What with all the stair climbing (buildings of eight floors or less have no lifts) and walking, and... well, I won't dwell too long on the delights of a visit to a non-Western style WC, but as you can probably work out from this picture it doesn't involve sitting down, but requires the 'user' to squat. 

Moving swiftly on, I'm focussing on the act of squatting itself. Chinese people are great at this. If it was an Olympic sport, then that would surely have been another gold medal in the bag for the PRC. It can be seen everwhere: In the street, at home, in school. Waiting, smoking, chatting with friends, eating. On the ground, on a wall, beside a chair, even on a chair...

Spotted this guy a couple of days ago in a local restaurant, thought I might sneak a quick photo using my phone, over my shoulder.

I don't know why, but although I've seen people squatting like this wherever I've been in China, it does seem more common here in Xi'an. Therefore, I propose that henceforth this manouvre be known as The Shaanxi Squat. I'm fairly good at it too, though I find it difficult to hold for long periods of time. I've yet to work up the courage to attempt an on-seat squat, but maybe one day...

Sorry, more toilet talk, but this warrants a mention too: On a couple of occasions I've seen footprints on the seat of a western-style toilet. No need, really.

Be careful the safe

What better way to escape from a Wednesday afternoon at work than to be carted off to a health and safety workshop? I'm certain this is a familiar scenario to people all over the western world. Sadly, no such thing would ever happen in China, the land of blatant disregard for human safety (in spite of the occasional redundant sign).

Traffic lights are just for decoration, right? (I've personally witnessed at least half a dozen car crashes over the past couple of years, compared to one in my previous 28 years in the UK.) Hiking up mountains is aided by "safety rails" that are barely up to knee-height... more of a trip-hazard really. How many people can you fit on a motorbike? Come to China and you'll find out. Having said all that, it is actually quite refreshing to be in a country where daily life has not had all the fun thoroughly beaten out of it with a large and pointy health and safety regulations stick. I rather enjoy careering around the streets of Xi'an on the back of someone's moped. (I try to forget that driving lessons are optional here... Want a license? Just buy one.) A small part of me (not my lungs, obviously) loves that it is ok to smoke anywhere you like. Including in hospitals. (But I don't like it in lifts.)

The street where I live is populated by many businesses that make neon signs for shops. As such, there's always work going on out in the streets. (If there's not enough room inside, they just drag everything outside onto the pavement and do it there.) I don't entirely love the smell of burning plastic that fills the air, but I do marvel at the guys welding the metal sign-supports together. Welding masks? Ok, what about goggles? Why bother when you can just turn your head away? Has anyone really thought that through? Welding, whilst not actually looking at what you're welding? (Hmm... Maybe I've found the reason why Xi'an has a hospital that specialises in reattaching severed hands!)

Possibly my all-time favourite example of lack-of-fear-of-potential-death in China was also witnessed right here in Xi'an. These are some pictures from the first summer that I arrived here, in 2007. I was walking atop the ancient wall that encloses the city centre when I noticed this guy sitting on his little stool, hanging onto a rope, which disappeared over the other side of the wall...

He looked a little nervous as he smiled casually at me. I tried to just walk by. It was none of my business what he was up to. I walked. I walked some more. I thought I'd made it, but I just had to look. It was like trying to ignore an itch - I just had to look. I walked towards the side fo the wall and stuck my head through so that I could see outside. What was on the other end of that rope?

Well, I suppose it was easier and significantly cheaper than to hire some kind of lifting platform to hoist him up from the ground on the outside of the wall. Practical, don't you think?

Remember kids: Be careful the safe.

Internet explorer cannot display the webpage

Most likely causes:

You are not connected to the internet.

The website is encountering problems.

There might be a typing error in the address.

Or secret option number 4: You might be in China.

The Chinese government has a reputation for blocking certain websites, in a bid to protect the fragile, impressionable minds of its billion-plus population. I've seen this reported in the western press (especially around the time of the Olympics) as another example of how evil and oppressive this place is. But the truth is actually a little different.

Email is blocked! (Actually, no, it isn't.) Wikipaedia is blocked! (Again, no, its not. And that includes the pages about 'sensitive' issues.) I can't read the BBC site! (Yes, yes you can.) In fact, I find that very little is blocked. I can use Blogger and Youtube, I can read the news, and can do everything else I want. This isn't through a special connection set up for use by a foreigner - its from my Chinese apartment. Same goes for my Chinese workplace, and also the Chinese internet bars that I've used. I find that the censorship situation is massively exaggerated. But China-bashing is fashionable, so its ok, right?

That's not to say that some things aren't being blocked. Since the internet is reputedly 90% porn, I guess only 10% of the internet is now available to internet users in China, if this and that are to be believed. Is it right to censor internet porn? Well that's difficult for non-Chinese to comment on, since local laws and the definition of decency vary the world over. I suspect the western concensus view of this would be to say that its a free world, and people should be able to do what they want. But that argument rings hollow when coming from a land with more rules and regulations about what people can and can't do than pretty much anywhere else. Example: Riding your bike without a safety helmet - not allowed due to safety concerns, as decreed by government. But then, isn't it the welfare of the people that the Chinese goverment are thinking about, by attempting to prevent the "destruction of the moral standard of society"? Swings and roundabouts?

The nation's favourite hobbies

Quick question: If someone asks what your hobby is, what is a valid answer? Reading? Watching films? Playing a sport? Yes, yes and yes. Listening to music. Yes. Sleeping? Er... is that really a hobby? Well, it is what many Chinese people claim as their hobby. And to be honest, after living here a while that reply doesn't surprise me. People sleep anywhere and everywhere. It doesn't matter where you are or what time it is - its always a good time for a nap. Asleep in the street. Asleep in a shop. Asleep at work.

I like the neatly-placed shoes

I've been in shops where the shop owner was asleep, and couldn't be bothered to get up and serve me. Many small shops even have little beds behind the counter for ease of napping.

One guy was so fascinated by this that he put a website together based entirely on photographs of Chinese people asleep in unusual locations, which you can find here.

The other best way of wasting time, if you happen to be in China, is chatting to people on QQ (basically, an Asian-version of MSN). In you aint napping, you're chatting. If you aint chatting, you're napping. In offices and shops all over the PRC, that is what's happening right now. Chatting on QQ is actually the favoured method of contact for many people. Sometimes if you call a business to make an enquiry, they'll tell you to find them on QQ instead, then put the phone down. Not entirely sure what the advantage of this is (hey, why say in 20 seconds what you can type in 10 minutes?...), but, as it says on the QQ homepage: "In China, QQ is not just a way to communicate—it's a phenomenon, a part of culture, and a daily necessity".

Hospital advertising

In Britain we have the good old NHS. Healthcare is free (well, its paid for by everyone's taxes) so hospitals are free to go about their business making people better (giving them MRSA infections). Elsewhere in the world hospitals operate a pay-as-you-go system, as it is in China. This makes hospitals something of a money-making business, rather than just the place to go when you're ill. I've noticed several things that make this all too apparent. For example, what do you do when you have a bad cold? Stay at home, plenty of hot honey and lemon, plenty of rest? Wrong - you should proceed directly to hospital, have an injection of vitamins in your buttock, have a drip put into the back of your hand (the colour of the liquid to be intravenously given varies, but the bright orange type is popular) and spend three nights in a hospital bed. Of course, you have to pay for all of these 100% essential things. Also, how do you choose which hospital to go to? I've already mentioned this topic here, but another thing I've noticed recently is the amount of advertising that's done by hospitals. Since they're effectively operating as cash-generating businesses I suppose this makes some sense. Some of the TV adverts I've seen for various hospitals are great. Here's a rough translation of one of my current favourites:

"What can you do in three minutes? You could drink one-third of a cup of tea. Or you could eat half an apple. Or you could have an abortion, at blahblahblah hospital..."

Another one that I like features a young couple contemplating the problems they might face in their married life:

Girl says: What if my clothes need cleaning?
Guy says: I'll wash them for you.
Girl says: Well, what if I get vaginal yeast infection?
Guy says: Then I'll take you straight to Xi'an blahblahblah hospital.

What I like best of all is the natural, everyday dialogue.

Asian blepharoplasty

Now popular the world over, and as simple as having a haircut, we have cosmetic surgery: the almost-instant answer to all of our bodily aesthetic issues. What are the most popular procedures? Nosejob? Boobjob? Lipsuction? Correct, correct and correct again. But not in China. (Are you beginning to notice a theme in this blog?)

The key to being beautiful in China is all in the eyes: they have to be wide. Specifically, a lady should have a double-eyelid. No, not like a crocodile. It means that putting an artificial fold in your eyelid will widen your eyes and make your face appear more attractive.

I first noticed that people did this when I saw something hanging off the eyelid of a young lady I was talking to. I later found out that it was a piece of narrow sticky tape, applied just above the eyelashes on the upper eyelid, to pull the lid up a little, so widening the eyes. And it's really popular - I've since noticed a lot of other girls using this stuff. But, even better, you can go a step further and have it done on a permanent basis, thanks to a quick surgical procedure.

My initial reaction to this was that it was crazy, but it does make a difference. There are a bunch of example before and after pictures here, though, typically, the before picture is always some greasy-skinned, sad-looking, bad-hair-day girl, followed by an after picture of some just-about-to-go-onstage-look-at-my-fancy-makeup-and-hairdo girl. But still, it does make the eyes look wider.

There are even a range of different styles that you can go for, which give the eyes a slightly different shape.

Another one you can do is kind of an in-reverse version of the nosejob that many western folks might have. Essentially, it involves building up the bridge of the nose to make it protrude from the face a little more.

But as with any cosmetic surgery, you have to know when to draw the line - just ask Jocelyn Wildenstein.