Meals

Food is a really important aspect of Chinese culture. It symbolizes generosity, love, health, and wealth. There are many different lenses through which to view meals. I have captured a few of these below.

Breakfast

According to Chinese tradition, breakfast should be the heartiest meal of the day. This was especially true for hardworking farmers getting up at the crack of dawn for laborious work in the rice field. Nowadays, most people eat a bit simpler as they rush off to work or school. However, breakfast still holds more importance than it does in the U.S.

There is a variety of Chinese breakfast foods, ranging from youtiao (fried dough sticks) to mantou (steamed buns) to rice porridge. Here is a typical breakfast I had at Shenzhen. It includes mantou, yogurt, and hardboiled eggs.


Many street vendors also sell breakfast foods. One morning I went to a tiny little noodle place on a busy street and ordered a steaming bowl of noodles.


University Cafeteria

At universities, most students eat in the cafeterias. The one I visited at Hunan University was not buffet-style, like the U.S., but was ala carte. There are many different dishes including stir-fries, mantou, and noodles. It didn’t look particularly sanitary but there were many students gulping down their food after a tough day of classes.




Formal Dining Out

It is a great gesture of hospitality and generosity to invite guests or friends out for a nice meal. Large groups of people in a nice restaurant are usually provided with a private banquet room. The table is equipped with a revolving middle so everyone can reach the various dishes, eaten family style. Tea is usually served before the dishes are ordered. Dishes can be lavish, sometimes arriving with garnishes of ice sculptures or flowers carved from vegetables. Usually there is a lot of meat and fish. As the dishes arrive, the diners spin the middle of the table to reach each dish. People encourage each other to eat more. At the end, out of politeness, guests will argue insistently and each try to pay the bill.




Meal at Home

At home for Chinese families, most meals are healthy and simple. This is a sample meal at my grandparents’ home. There are fresh stir-fried veggies, fish, and rice. These types of meals are so soothing after several times dining out and eating heavy dishes.

Buddhist Temple and a Town Plaza

It may seem like Xiangyin is a tiny place, but apparently the population right now is 730,000. There is a lot of new construction of residential buildings. In fact, right behind my grandparents’ apartment beyond the vegetable gardens, there are the loud clangs and crashes of construction.

Early in the morning, my grandfather took me to see a Buddhist temple. We took a bus to get to the location, which was about half an hour away. The bus costs 1 Yuan per person, which is about 16 cents. Quite an affordable way to get around! We take the same bus to go to the large supermarket. However, I was reminded of the hazards of public transportation when the crowded bus halted suddenly and the woman in front of me stepped back onto my open-toed foot with her sharp stiletto heel.

We traveled out into the country until we arrived at this, for lack of a better word, complex. It is still undergoing some construction and landscaping, but it has several large temples and offering areas, as well as plant life and a pond. On this rare day with a big, bright blue sky, the area was beautiful.




My grandfather burned some incense and papers. Other visitors let off some firecrackers.


We entered the main temple and bowed to the statues as a woman rang some kind of bell. I used to be more informed about Buddhism but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten a lot of the knowledge. I know that many Chinese look upon Buddhism as more of a way of life than a strict religious code.


If you’ve seen The Da Vinci Code, then you will know that this symbol originally was not the Nazi’s swastika.


At night we went for a nice walk by the riverside. There is a gathering place by the river on a plaza. It is a sort of community center, with people of all generations hanging out after a day of work or school. Music played while people danced, little kids played games and rode motorized toys, and elderly people strolled along the river or chatted with others.


These are little toys that kids can ride on around the plaza. I found the Tellytubby lookalike a little disturbing.


I think these kinds of gathering plazas are really good for the health and cohesiveness of a community. Too bad they are becoming rarer.

Small Town Xiangyin

In the past few days I have flown from Shenzhen to a province in China called Hunan. It is still in the southern region but located further away from the coast. I am staying with my grandparents (on my dad’s side). They live in a quiet little town called Xiangyin, about an hour away from the nearest large city, Changsha.

Xiangyin definitely differs from the modern Shenzhen in many ways. Though it is a bustling, growing town, it is still in a fledgling developmental state. Most people do not own cars so buses, motorcycles, bikes, pedestrians, and wagons full of fresh produce crowd the streets.


Unlike Shenzhen, there are no Walmarts, Sam’s Clubs, McDonalds, or Starbucks. There are about two large supermarkets but they are located far from my grandparents’ apartment so we have to ride the bus. Tiny little shops and street vendors dot the narrow streets, each selling goods such as clothes and shoes or providing services such as hair-styling.

Most people buy their daily groceries from large outdoor markets. The one market we visit each morning is much more intense than the one I saw in Shenzhen. Besides the standard fresh-picked vegetables, there are also live frogs, flopping fish, and freshly-butchered beef.



Life is much simpler here. Each day we wake early, around six or seven, and after a breakfast of noodles, steamed buns, or porridge, my grandfather and I hit the markets to buy the fresh produce for lunch and dinner. People here really emphasize freshness. They buy ingredients just a few hours before the meal. After a lunch of fish, vegetables, and white rice, my grandparents take a nap or do chores. Sometimes if I’m tired enough I’ll sleep for an hour or two.

In the afternoon I usually struggle through reading the Chinese version of Harry Potter or learn some calligraphy from my grandfather. Dinner is eaten early, around five or six. We finish up leftovers from lunch and may cook up some more fresh produce.

Around six, my grandparents watch the nightly news. I usually stick around, trying to understand as much of the news as possible. Sometimes we will take a short walk around the neighborhood. Then I call home or write up something for the blog. At nine, it’s lights out for the grandparents. I usually stay up for a few hours more, surfing the web and eating interesting Chinese snacks.

Life here can be agonizingly slow, but it is also a good break from the fast-paced, cutthroat outside world.

Education

In China, public education is free but competitive. There are examinations in middle school to determine which high school one will be placed into. In each city the high schools are ranked; the higher one’s scores are, the better high school one can attend. Many high school students live on campus because their family may not live nearby.


It used to be extremely difficult to go to college due to the huge pool of students and the small amount of colleges. During my mother’s time, only one or two students from a high school would be accepted into a college. Everything was determined by examinations taken at the end of the senior year of high school.

Now, though it is easier to get a college education, it still is rare to be accepted into a high-ranked college. Test scores still are the main determinant. This year, June 7-9 were the national testing dates for high school seniors. On these days, all the test takers in the nation gathered at designated testing centers to participate in the most important written examinations of their lives.

I went walking one afternoon and happened upon one of these testing centers. There were hordes of nervous parents waiting outside the gates to pick up their children. Police had to direct traffic and close down the road in front of the school to control the crowd. At around five in the afternoon students started to stream out of the school. Most were chattering with friends, relieved to be done with a hard day of testing.


In my opinion the Chinese education system focuses too much on rote memorization. There is little emphasis on creativity, leadership, or independent thinking. The importance placed on test scores and class rank puts too much pressure upon students. This is not to say that the American system is perfect either. After all, American students fall far behind Chinese students in areas such as math and science. However, a more holistic approach to education college admissions that look at the whole person instead of just numbers may lead to a more diverse and vibrant class of educated citizens.

Environment

Though China produces so much pollution each year, each individual citizen actually only consumes a very small amount of energy. People have always been very conservative with their energy usage. There simply would be no way for every person here to have the same lifestyle as the average American. Below are some examples I have observed of energy conservation:

Plastic bags are not free at most grocery stores. They usually cost a Yuan each. Therefore many people bring reusable bags.

People usually line-dry their clothes. Nobody owns dryers. Some people do not own washers either and hand-wash everything. It is rare to see an apartment without clothes hanging out of the window or balcony. Usually if there are no clothes It means the apartment is unoccupied at the moment.


In my uncle’s home, hot water has to be turned on by a switch in the bathroom. At my grandparents’, the hot water heater is powered by solar panels from the roof.
There is usually no central air conditioning system. Many people use electric fans. My uncle is lucky to have individual ac units in each room. This system still saves energy because it does not waste power heating or cooling unnecessary areas of the home.

Public transportation is accessible and affordable. There are various types of buses, subway systems, and trains. Other people ride bikes or walk. Sometimes in cities it simply isn’t practical to own a car. In spite of this, air pollution is prevalent in most cities simply because of large population.


Recycling is becoming more popular now. However, most people seem to have no qualms about tossing a plastic bottle into the trash. Likewise, I have seen people just throw trash onto ground in public areas and spit onto the sidewalk without a second glance.


This leads me to believe that the environmentally-friendly ways of most Chinese citizens is not caused mainly by a concern for nature, but out of necessity and habit. There is not enough energy to go around for everyone to have washers and dryers. There is not enough space on the roads for everyone to own a car. There have been enough hard times in the past for my grandparents to still not want to waste a drop of water or a bit of food.

Still, as more and more people discover and demand a higher, western-style standard of living (personal cars, washing machines), China will experience a huge environmental strain and energy crisis. Therefore it is imperative that the country’s leaders figure out a solution that recognizes both citizens’ legitimate wishes and the environmental ramifications of a new age of economic prosperity.