Daily life in China: Food Choices

On Sunday morning we take our weekly e-bike ride to the wet market. I’m not sure why it’s called that; it’s a produce market, but also with meat, eggs, and basically fresh food stuff.  I’ve tried substituting a trip to one of the supermarkets, but the produce is far fresher at the wet market, so it’s an easy choice.  More important, there is also a wider selection.  I can find avocados fit for guacamole or spreading like butter, and a vast array of mushroom types at incredibly cheap prices.   I have gotten most types just to try, but I always settle on the shiitake, which here taste even meatier than the ones in the States.  The vendors are always friendly, and if you hesitate at all at their stand they hand you a plastic bag with a friendly smile and encouraging eyes.  They quote prices that I don’t understand, mostly because there is this measure of weight called a jin that I think is about a half a kilo, but am not at all sure.  I believe the quote is usually for a jin’s worth, but since I don’t speak the lingo, I really have no idea. However, I play the game and pretend I know what I’m about, and then pay whatever they ask.  The funniest thing that happens repeatedly at the market is when I examine say a fresh fig, or avocado, or strawberry (yes, I can get them all, praise to the food gods) and put it back down, the vendors rush to motion that I should just wait, and they’ll bring out the quality goods from the back.  And then they do.  I suppose everyone gets this “special” treatment, but if that’s so, why not put out the best to start with?  I suppose if they can get someone less discerning to buy their bruised figs, then no one’s the wiser, and they sell all their supply.

The prices are wildly variable in China in general, but specifically regarding food, first let me be clear; I usually don’t care.  I haven’t had access to avocados for 2 years while in India, and I’m happy to pay 12 rmb (2 USD) for the nectar. I’m not getting any younger, and who knows how many more good years these teeth have on them? I can get beautiful blueberries, rivaling any I bought in the U.S. in June, and if I have to pay 30 RMB for a ½ pint, so be it.  It takes my morning oatmeal to a whole different level.  I have no idea where these exotic fruits come from, but again, don’t care.  Mark Bittman can wax eloquent all he wants about eating local, but I’d like to see HIM eat the narrow selection that brings to some parts of the world.  I for one am most happy to put down the money to eat a full spectrum of fruits and veggies, and when I buy those which are grown here, they are quite economical.  When I opt for the more exotic, I expect to pay more, and I’m not disappointed. Nor are my taste buds when I delve into my purchases.  It works all around, so who am I to question the practice?  Check out the pics of a recent salad I was able to make from my purchases.  This is one very enjoyable facet of living in SIP. (Suzhou Industrial Park)

By the way, mandarin oranges are in season here, and if you can believe it the fresh one are even sweeter than the canned versions, minus the corn syrupy taste.  They are fragile and puffy and wonderful in every way.  We used to raid our mother's pantry late night for the occasional unused canned mandarin slices, and all this time the Chinese have been enjoying something far far better.  Well played, China.  Make us believe the canned version is as good as it gets.  The secret is out now, and I have a 2-a-day minimum rule that is keeping me going to school in the morning so I can have them for my snack.

HGTV in Suzhou

Note different colored lines for different frames

After logging countless hours enjoying my HGTV shows in Iowa City, I had the chance to use something I remembered seeing there and wondering why I had never thought of it.  I have several things I wanted to hang on my walls, and you know how it’s difficult to see where you want them while holding something up to the wall, or someone else who doesn’t really want to be doing this project is holding them up on the wall while you examine them.  Enter the wall template by way of HGTV.  First you need a large sheet of paper, which I didn’t have, but I did have some scrap paper and tape, so I constructed one.  Next, measure your wall space and then mark it on the paper.  Next lay the paper on the floor and then put the frames on the paper and arrange as you desi  Then comes the cool part.  Draw around the frames, and mark specifically where the hole should go for the screw.  I repeated this 3 times in different colors for different walls.  I felt very clever, I admit.  Last go find the person who is hiding from you and have them help you hold up the template while you use a pen and make a hole in the paper and mark the hole on the wall.  [Note:  This is the part I may have gotten wrong, but it’s all I could think of to do.  If anyone has a better solution, I’d love to know.]

Finished Product

This makes putting the holes in the wall a breeze, usually.  I had to finally hire someone to come put holes in the wall for me because I couldn’t find any wall hanging hardware, or rather didn’t know which of the million stores in this town to look for them in, nor how to ask for it in Mandarin.  The fellow who came was nice….He also didn’t bring a hammer, and was trying to put some weird hooks in the wall using his pliers as a hammer.  I went to get mine, and still he charged me 10RMB/nail.  It was a stiff bill, but I’m really glad that I took 5 hooks from him and hammered them in for my fan wall in the time it took him to drill one hole for the heavy frames.  He was neither speedy nor well equipped.  Well, that’s not entirely accurate because he did have a laminated copy of his fee structure, although it was all in Mandarin.  Funny how Chinese people keep writing stuff in their language, even though I still can't read it. 

The Box

It’s been quite a saga, but on Friday of last week we finally took possession of a box that our dear nephew sent us over 2 months ago.  It took all of 4 days to get it from Des Moines to Shanghai, but that’s when the problems started.  The custom officials decided to have a little fun with us.  First they wanted a list of everything in the box.  Woops, forgot to make a list, so I had to use emails and recreate what we thought was in there. Next they required it all be translated into Mandarin.  I enlisted one of the front office staff and she was gracious enough to do it.  Next came a big obstacle.  They demanded a letter with our school seal that verified that I in fact was NOT opening a small store to sell all the food goods in the box, but actually planned on consuming them. [I don’t know why they thought 20 bars of chocolate, 120 bags of instant oatmeal, 6 bags of coffee beans, or 12 bags of assorted notes was a lot for us to consume, but they did.]   At first the school said they couldn’t get into the practice or writing letters on their seal because they know the Chinese bureaucracy and they constantly push back on new demands, because the bureaucracy is already burdensome, and once you establish it as a step, it’s always demanded in the future.  Anyway, I tried sending a variety of non-sealed letters, but the DHL rep kept sending back the same demand.  After about 4 weeks the school came up with something they thought was acceptable and sent it.  Just when I thought perhaps I would be having oatmeal for breakfast, they sent a letter demanding a doctor’s prescription for the large bottle of ibuprofen in the box. I explained it was over the counter, but they didn’t care.  I told them to throw it away, because I had no such document and I just wanted to end the nightmare.  Ok, they said, but now it will take time to go through another layer of bureaucracy if they must discard an item.  I had to verify that I allowed the discarding…It was getting pretty ridiculous, but I wanted my food. One of the women in the front office kept suggested I just tell them to send it back, but she didn't know what she was asking of me to deny that I wanted my food snacks. 

Finally they decided they couldn’t allow the almond butter to come into the country because it was obviously a dairy product, which isn’t allowed to be imported.  I had to write a letter explaining even though butter was in the name, it was just a joke; there wasn’t butter in the ingredients.  I said it was like peanut butter in that respect.  After I sent the email I remembered I also had 2 jars of peanut butter in the box and thought I had set myself up for more deletions, but they didn’t catch it.

Yummy Treats worth the trouble

Finally I got an email that said they were ready to give me what was left of my box but that I had to pay a fee of 766 RMB, about 120 bucks or so.  When I asked for an itemization I was more than a little irked to see about 500 of it was a “storage charge” by DHL for storing my box.  I was on the phone very quickly to DHL and my heroines in the front office got enraged for me and took the phone and let the guy have it.  They’d been helping me through the weeks of demands and they were tired of this box business, too.  They, in fact, have told the DHL people they will never use their services again.  I'm never sending food into China again, but I may need DHL in the future, so couldn't burn that bridge.

The one small victory from all this was that DHL agreed to take off the 500 charge, and finally brought the box.  I had great fun remembering all the foods, and checking out the stash. Much to my surprise the items they had disallowed were also in the box.  Go figure.