FOOD

I shall post another marathon-related blog when I have more photos.  Here is one taken by these nice ladies at the finish:

In the meantime, why don’t we talk about food?  I’ve certainly been consuming enough of it, and in fact it is one of the chief joys of spending time in China.  The traditional greeting in China is “你吃过了没有?”  “Have you eaten yet?”  I think it hearkens back to the days when food was scarce here and people often didn’t get enough to eat, but it also reflects the courtesy prevalent in Chinese culture.  I often take the question a little too literally and respond, “Yes!  I’ve just had lunch!”  or “oh my, of course, I’ve just had the best _______ (fill in the blank with whatever delicacy I’ve just enjoyed)!” You are supposed to leave food behind, to be polite and show your host fed you enough, but apparently now there is a bit of a “clean your plate” push going on. 

Food is central to the corruption epidemic and endemic in China today, so much so that the anti-corruption campaign initiated by new head honcho Xi Jinping has received the tag line of “three dishes and a soup.”  However, savvy netizens, through close analysis of photos of elites supposedly hanging out with the masses, sometimes notice that such frugality is not necessarily always happening.  It does seem that certain efforts might bear some good results, as apparently the demand for shark fin soup is in decline, which may also bode well for the tragically booming trade in ivory. This could be at least in part the result of celebrity campaigns against demand for products of wildlife crime headed by Jackie Chan and Yao Ming, as seen in these posters from a subway station:

But, back to the cheerier topic of food.  Apparently Julia Child once said that she could eat in China for the rest of her life and never grow tired of the food.  It is true that a typical menu here can be 50 pages long, albeit like the 50 pages of a children’s book with lots of pictures.  The pictures are great, as they allow me to order a much wider array of dishes.  Otherwise, without pulling out a dictionary, how might I really know what this is?

 or this?

How can you go wrong?  I actually prefer the simpler food, the common dishes that people eat daily but are not the fancy, exotic banquet fare.  I Love It.  (And, please know that it bears little resemblance to the slop that passes for Chinese food in many American Chinese restaurants, especially any of those with “buffet” in the name.)  Take, for instance, my dinner last night which cost a total of about U.S. $6:
 

A delicious cold dish of  spinach and peanuts marinated in vinegar and garlic and chili peppers, and guotie, Taiwanese-style dumplings.  These are extra special, because they take the deliciousness that already characterizes the Chinese 饺子(dumping) and add amazingness on top of it by frying them.   Wow.  And beer, which goes so well with the food here that I don’t feel the least bit bad about drinking alone when necessary. 

Two other things.  Now that the weather is cooling, the little lap dogs that dominate the canine scene here are appearing wearing t-shirts and sweaters.  Most of them. I’d say the proportion is about equal to that of those who wore the yellow race shirts in the marathon.   This has nothing to do with food, really, except that our dog, Abbey, refers to such creatures as “snacks in wrappers.”

And, finally, since we were briefly on the topic of Yao Ming, this is How Tall He Is:

The relation of this to food should be self-evident.