[Note: This is one of several emails that I sent back to my friends, while I was visiting Shanghai, China in 2005.]

from: jerry@[email address removed]
Date: Sun, 25 Sep 2005 11:02:57
Subject: Food, drinks, et cetera

Hello, everyone!

It is 7AM and I am already at the office. I don’t seem to be able to sleep more than eight hours since I arrived here and as I went to bed at about 9.30PM, I was awake with many thoughts dancing through my head at 5.30AM.

I have been asked a bit about Chinese food (you know who you are), so I will give a brief account of what I have experienced in my few weeks here. First, the Chinese eat predominately carbohydrates. Of course, we already know they eat a lot of rice, but they supplement these carbs with dumplings, doughy breads, sugar added to everything, etc. Speaking of sugar, they have that terrible fetish with corn syrup that the Americans have. Corn syrup is cheap, so it is added to SO MANY things – all sorts of carbonated drinks, drinks that are referred to as “fruit juices” (but are mostly corn syrup and water), et cetera. Not only is all of this sugar bad for the waist and teeth, but it also plays hell on one’s stomach. On my last trip to the USA I had to start popping antacids, so I am doing my best to avoid such here by drinking LOTS of green tea and water, instead of other drinks. The Chinese do not eat anything like the amount of meat and other protein we have in the West (which could account to some extent for their size) and when they do have meat, nothing goes to waste. So, when you have a chicken, beef or pork disk, the bones are included (free of charge). If you go to restaurants frequented by foreigners, there are not so many bones, but at the local restaurants, expect to get your bone dish with a little meat included. When you have these meals you end up putting in your mouth (with your chop sticks, of course) what appears to be a nice big piece of chicken and you have to spit out a huge bone. Elizabeth (Roderick’s Chinese assistance) claims that the meat next to the bone is “delicious” and that this is why Chinese eat it, but I would say that their are more historical and practical reasons why it is preferred. Speaking of chop sticks, I am often complimented by the Chinese on my abilities with chop sticks! Now I can look back on all of those times in my favourite Chinese restaurant in Oklahoma (when I was taunted by others for attempting to use chop sticks) with pride. Also, when you go out to eat with others, the dishes are put in the middle and everyone reaches and grabs what they want with their chop sticks (even after they have put their chop sticks in their mouths).

Chinese drinks – the Chinese drink HEAPS of green tea, their beer is all made from rice (including foreign brands produced locally), they haven’t yet developed a taste for coffee (unlike most of the rest of the planet) and they have hard liquors made from rice. They also have a type of hard liquor that tastes something like brandy (if such a comparison can be made) and it ranges in price from AUD1.00 up for around 600 ml (I bought a more expensive brand that was AUD3.00).

So far, the Chinese have been friendly and accepting. Of course, they do like to stare but this more in awe then as an act of disrespect. When you approach them and try to speak to them, they smile and are quite patient, even putting up with your wild gestures and sounds (no one I know will ever be able to beat me at Charades (sp) again). Actually, so far I have found them much more inviting than Australians (excluding those other Aussies on this list, of course). When I am in Australia, I find that I speak little in public (can those of you I know from the US believe this?), as the moment you open your mouth and Australians hear your accent, they often snarl, develop a very blank and uninviting stare or comment on how lucky you are to be in Australia and out of the hell hole you came from (wherever this may be). This makes more sense when you look at Australian history (try reading Manning Clarke’s Short/Brief History of Australia) and you find out that the children of the early Australian convicts considered their own parents as foreigners. Many times, I have stood quietly on lifts or walked into shops and said nothing and heard the insults that were thrown at Americans, Brits, Kiwis, etc. It is especially interesting when an Aussie makes such a remark and then turns to me for validation, only to hear me sarcastically agree in my American accent. You should see their faces! I have never been anywhere else in the world where people comment on how open and friendly they are and have no idea how bigoted and racist they really are.

The Chinese, however, tend to be fascinated with things and people from the West. People are eager to talk to you (especially to practice their English) and Westerners should especially expect to be approached for a conversation if they are by themselves. I went to the student canteen to eat by myself the other night and the place was almost deserted (I planned it this way) and while there were hundreds of empty seats, a Chinese girl came and sat down at my table. She asked if the seat was free first and then said “Hello, my name is Cinderella.” The Western names some of these students take! Some of the more memorable from the last few weeks are “Brick” and “Kinky”, but I must say that I almost spit out my hot dumplings all over “Cinderella” when she told me her name.

I did three hours of student interviews yesterday to show students what the speaking part of the IELTS test is like (the IELTS test is an English language test that is used to determine if a student is proficient enough to study in an English-speaking university). I asked students questions about themselves and about important people in their lives and it was touching to hear about their respect for their parents and their understanding of the sacrifices that their parents have made for them to be able to attend university. I am an old softy these days and it was difficult to hold it together at times, especially as I saw the students get teary-eyed while talking about their mothers and fathers.

One thing that really pisses me off about China (note the strong language here) is the Internet access at the university. I am hoping that it will be better when I have ADSL at my apartment, but it is absolute shit here. The university probably has some ancient server here, on which they try to support as many users as possible. They have set the server time out to something like one minute, so if you are surfing the Net and you stop for a second to read something and you have no browser activity (i.e. you don’t click a link), you have to bookmark your place and log back in and then go back to your website (and perhaps log in there again). What a complete pain in the ass! I am having to type this email in Notepad and then copy and paste to my email program the moment I want to send it. Also, the university only allows an extremely limited amount of access to users (even though we teachers were told we would have “Internet access” when we applied for positions here), so if you are online more than a few minutes a day, your account time runs out and you have to go kowtow (sp) to some tosser in the IT department. This system might be OK for those peasants who spend most of their days working in the fields, but it is inadequate for those accustomed to using technology in the 21st Century (I know you b*st*r*s in IT are reading my emails and I hope you take note!). I will put up with bones in my food and more, but I will not stay in a country that can’t even do something as basis as provide decent Internet access to their teaching staff.

Well, it has been almost an hour since I arrived in the office and I need to prepare for my classes.

I hope you all are well.

Someone please have a drink of good Aussie or Kiwi beer for me and know that I wish I could join you!

Cheers,

Jerry

P.S. Please note that I have had to borrow someone else’s username and password to log into the university server, as I have apparently already used my 22 seconds of access for this month! So, if you email, please use my gmail account (which I will have to check at an Internet Cafe). If this is the Internet access I am going to have, I will get on a plane and fly back to OZ.