Southern Tales: Exploring China: Daily life

Once we had conquered the mounds of red tape, had figured out how to keep the local bug population under control, and had accepted the fact that going to the bathroom was just going to be an adventure every single time, we were ready to start living life the Chinese way.

The most important decision one has to make almost every day once you've settled into a foreign country is whether to venture out for your meals, or whether to play it safe and eat what you know. As Anderwoud predicted in her guest post last month, once the students discovered that there was a McDonald's, KFC, Pizza Hut, and a Subway right outside of campus, they rarely ventured back into the on-campus dining halls, but instead opted for the fries, pizzas, and subs they knew so well from back home. I wish I could be all awesome and inter-cultural and tell you that during that whole month I -never- ate at any of those places, and actually actively avoided them, because I really wanted to immerse myself in the local culture, but that is just not true. Out of the entire month, I probably ate at a non-Chinese restaurant once, maybe twice a week, and yes, every time I did it was usually because I had just about had it with the peeing bugs/overcrowded buses/lack of AC/iffy internet and needed something that was familiar and "normal". I ate all of my other meals at the campus dining hall (or local restaurants when were out on excursions), but again, not only because I had this lofty ideal to be all global and immersed. Sure, it played a role, but it also helped that the dining hall was a five-minute walk away from my dorm, while the western-style restaurants entailed a good twenty-five minute trek across campus; that I could buy close to four meals at the dining hall for the amount of money I was going to spend at, say, McDonald's on their number 2; and that the dining hall actually served fresh fruits and vegetables. Sure, gaining the cultural experience was nice, but money and convenience played as much a role as a desire to be this galloping global ambassador.

Even though I would have never guessed this when I first walked into the dining hall and thought the amount of people swarming around coupled with the smell was enough to make me go off food for an entire month, I really learned to like the place. Since none of our students ever went there (in spite of their spiffy e-cards), it meant that it was one of the few places where I could be little old me and not Dr. D. It was the place where I would meet with our other professors and assess the day's events. It was the place where other foreign students and faculty members I had met came as well, and made me feel at home by greeting me like an old friend, and in some cases, stopping to chat for a while. And it was the place where I learned how to eat with chopsticks like a pro.

Chinese dining halls, you see, really are Chinese dining halls. They don't seem to care a whole lot that a sizable chunk of Xia da's student and faculty population is not Chinese. The only food you can purchase there is local and the only utensils available are chopsticks and the little spoons for noodle soup. The staff does not speak English, and unlike most European and American dining halls, the concept of queuing is yet to be introduced. If you want to eat, you will need to jostle your way to the front of the buffet, and push your plate at one of the workers waiting to ladle your choice of food on to your dish or bowl. And you had better remember to get your rice first. No rice? Well, then no meat or no veggies either. The rice comes from a gigantic trough in the corner of the buffet, and even though seeing the rice slopped onto your plate by a man who looks as though he'd rather be dead than serve one more annoying student did little for my appetite, it was the best sticky rice I ever had. And the same goes for the rest of the food. Yes, the workers are surly, rude, and will gladly avoid serving the foreigner if they can help it, but the food they served was magnificent. Lunch and dinner always featured a mouth-water selection. Shrimp, salmon, flounder, pork, beef, tofu, sweet and sour chicken so succulent it makes me hungry just thinking about it. There was Chinese broccoli, "hollow tube" greens, beets, carrots, corn, and lots of other green veggies that tasted like heaven but whose names I could never remember. And breakfast was no different. There was rice porridge (which, by the way, absolutely rocks), sauteed green beans (odd, I know, but very tasty when it's hot outside), hash browns, eggs, assorted pastries, and the best of all: nai cha (tea with milk).

When I first walked into the dining hall, the hustle and bustle, as well as the apparent lack of organization completely overwhelmed me. Where did I start? Where were the plates? Where was the silverware? How did I pay? How did I order? It took a few tries, but eventually, I learned to navigate the place like an old pro. Pick up your plate with rice from the dead-rice-man, elbow your way to the front of the queue to see if they were serving sweet and sour chicken today, swipe your e-card across the little register hung above the buffet, then cut across a line to find the basket of chopsticks, and then sit and enjoy.

So as far as the food was concerned, all was well in China.