A Special Economic Zone
Trip Start
Sep 21, 2006
1
66
99
Trip End
Ongoing
Loading Map
Shenzhen,
China
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
I visited 46 of the 50 American States and nowhere have I seen anything that even come close to this. It blew my mind away.
Funny Facts about Chinese People:
-They're slow walkers. I'm constantly working my way through the mass of people. I guess they know it's useless to be in a hurry. If you pass twenty people, there's another two hundred in front of them.
-On the bus to Guangzhou, the stewardess took a video camera and took a shot of each bus passenger's face before we left, for security purposes I imagine. And she actually filmed me for a moment. I guess I was the only one smiling to the camera...
-They eat much more noodles than rice.
-Their food is not very healthy. There's a lot of fried stuff and whenever they use meat, they leave a big portion of fat attached to it. They even list it on the menu as Fat Beef, Fat Pork, etc...
Andre.
Comments
Fat food in China
Hey Andre,
Just checking out your incredibly interesting blog entries.
I see you are wondering how fat makes such prominent spot in Chinese menus. Let me try to explain..
Fat has always carried a price premium and been reserved for somebody who can afford it in a traditional agricultural society of China. Famine is always a possibility at any given point of Chinese history until the modern ages and it's ingrained in the national psyche. (Agricultural society = no food during bad years) In other words, 'fat' is considered a good thing because it carries you through the lean times and you should eat as much fat as possible in the times of plenty. Further to that, being able to afford fatty parts of meat has thus became synonymous to being wealthy. And I can tell you all the 'fat' you see in your dinner bowl is a reflection of that psyche. The diner wants to serve up the best of the foods and fatty parts of meat is considered to be of higher quality than leaner part.
My grandmother fed me layers of pure pork fat when I was a kid because she came from the older generation and experienced famine when she was young living in rural China.
Hope you're having fun in Philippines. I look forward to see your blogs on Japan.
Eric
Re: Fat food in China
Hello Eric,
thank you very much for this great explanation. I really couldn't figure out why they ate that much fat. It all makes sens now.
Looking forward to seeing you again somewhere down the globetrekker trail.
Andre.