168 Meals
I have less than one week left in my internship. In a few days, the duration of my time here in China will total nearly 56 days. Each day here I have followed a quite consistent schedule of eating 3 meals a day. This means that I will have had 168 meals starting from the first meal I had on my Air China flight to the lunch I will have before my 1:00 pm flight late this week.
The 156 meals I have consumed thus far have been diverse, offering up a plethora of origins from almost every province of China and many other nations. Every day I strive to try a new type of food or restaurant. Every meal I have had has been unique and no two meals have been the same. Eating something different every day has made breakfast, lunch, and dinner a small daily surprise that I look forward to.
As I may have previously mentioned, I live in the international dorm at my school. This means I have learned and experienced so much more than just the Chinese culture — including food! Typically, I enjoy five different options for meals: cooking and eating with my Pakistani/Indian friends (they comprise 95% of the people at the dorm), eating out at a Pakistani/Indian restaurant, eating at an American fast food restaurant, eating at the school canteen, and finally, what I do most often, eating at various Chinese restaurants in Beijing with my lab mates.
In this blog post I hope to give a brief summary of each option and include as many photos of each as I can.
Cooking and Eating with my Pakistani/Indian Friends
Cooking and eating with my Pakistani/Indian friends is typically the most convenient option because we cook in the dorm kitchen which is on the first floor and has all the cooking equipment we need to prepare delicious meals. My mom is from India and cooks a fair amount so I have had much prior knowledge and experience with this food. My friends were very surprised when I knew the names of most of the dishes and when I ate using only my hands, scooping bhindi fry with only a piece of bread like they were doing. In addition, since I am American, they assumed I did not enjoy things too spicy. I surprised them yet again, eating all their spicy dishes with a big smile. The food they cook is always delicious, mostly because they use so much oil. It is also very comforting because many of these traditional dishes are similar to the foods I eat back home.
Eating Out at Pakistani/Indian Restaurants:
My friends from Pakistan who are Muslim usually cook their own food because most Chinese restaurants are not Halal. However, there are some Halal Chinese restaurants and even some Muslim restaurants. These restaurants are more expensive than the average restaurant so we do not frequent these as much. Just as our Chinese lab mates invite us to try their cultural foods the Pakistani people in my lab invite me and many of our Chinese lab mates to experience their cultural foods. I really enjoy Pakistani food and, ironically, will miss it when I leave China — not Pakistan.
American Fast Food Restaurants:
Going to American restaurants is always a treat for me. They are a little more expensive than the Chinese restaurants and the food is a little different from that in the U.S. but it is always fun. Here in Beijing, I have seen a KFC, Starbucks, Dominoes, Dunkin Donuts, Pizza Hut, Subway, Burger King, and Dairy Queen. KFC is by far the most popular — I have seen more KFCs here in Beijing than in any city in the U.S.! I have only been to KFC and McDonalds, each once, because there is simply no substitute for french fries in Chinese cuisine, and my lab mates love it too.
Eating at the School Canteen:
The canteen at my school is quite inexpensive and has a range of foods from noodles to meats. Most of my lab mates go everyday which is impressive given that it is the same food everyday. I do not go as often as they do because I want to explore the other foods Beijing has to offer.
Various Chinese restaurants in Beijing:
Okay……from left to right: pancake with soybean cake and red bean dessert, Zhajiang Mian (traditional Beijing noodles), with my lab mates at the noodle canteen, (chicken, cauliflower, tofu, potato strands), kung pao chicken noodles, youpo mian, ramen noodles, bubble tea, (eating with one of the other interns in Beijing, Elijah, at a mall), eating with my lab mate at a small local Chinese restaurant, mango dessert, famous hot pot restaurant, egg and chive dumplings, green beans and potato strands, pancake, baozi, pancake, dragon fruit, scallion pancake with sesame soup, sugary hawthorn fruit on a stick.
Medium would not allow the upload of all these pictures individually, so I used an online collage maker to upload these as one image — I apologize for the poor quality.
After almost 8 weeks in Beijing, it is safe to say I have experienced Chinese cuisine. As one would assume, some of the food I loved, some of it was alright, and there were definitely dishes I hope to never eat again. Sampling so many different foods has definitely taught me a few things. I learned to keep an open mind and always try new dishes no matter what it looked or smelled like because, as I learned, that can be deceiving. I have adopted this mentality of keeping an open mind when approaching new foods and started applying it to other situations when I am dealing with new experiences. Having any sort of preconception of what something is like — such as, who a person really is or how difficult something can be — can really close off the world to you. You cannot truly know what a food tastes like until you actually try it. And once you try it you may love it, but if not, you certainly learned something new.
