The Difficulty of Eating Chinese in China

A month ago, our favorite Chinese restaurant in our neighborhood closed down and left a gaping hole in our culinary life.

Chinese restaurants are, as you might expect, rather common here. But this one was special: it was owned and managed by an older gentleman named Perkins, who spoke completely fluent English. He, it turned out, had spent many vacations visiting family in the U.S. and even driven through my hometown. His restaurant served dishes from all across China, another happy eccentricity. Across our first five months here, with Perkins as our guide, we were gradually being introduced to more and more “real” Chinese dishes. The man was something akin to an expert sushi chef, who would, in the course of small talk, decipher what we really needed and order it for us. Under his expert tutelage, we began to experience all manner of soups, vegetables and fish dishes we had never before encountered. It was marvelous.

But now he’s gone. And without him, we were having trouble summoning the adventurousness to find a new Chinese favorite.

I’ll freely admit that we are often intimidated by the truly local joints, either because they’re packed with smoking taxi cab drivers, completely empty except for some desperate looking wait staff, or feature a menu entirely without pictures or the few simple characters I can recognize. Of course, we know some simple favorites in Mandarin, but how many times can anyone eat pork/beef/chicken, eggplant, green vegetable, and rice in any six months? Further, after a few bouts with stomach ailments, I have found myself reluctant to be too adventurous when it comes to spice or sanitation. This had knocked off our second favorite Chinese restaurant, a Uyguhr place down the street that was a little bit of a stretch on both counts.

Two weeks ago, my wife realized that we’d gone too long avoiding the issue. We could not live in China and eat Chinese any less than twice a week. We had to stop grieving for Perkins and move on. We cheated for a bit and went to the basement food court of Carrefour, with an abundance of little Chinese food stalls available on a point and shoot basis. Then we were taken to an exquisite Chinese gourmet restaurant that made us reluctant to taste anything inferior. We ate our fill of baozi and fried dough from the street food vendors, but we knew were just stalling. Soon we were staring at a series of trips to Japanese, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Japanese-Italian, and even a Mexican place, and feeling more than a little ridiculous. We had to admit that we’d grown accustomed to getting our Chinese food too easily and were now scared to fight for it like real travelers.

We had to start small. We choked up some courage and pushed ourselves to visit Dumpling Master. D.M. is a clean and trendy looking chain shop with a cuisine that might be easily inferred from its name. We had tried to go here before, shortly after it opened, but were deterred by the wordy menu and confused expressions from the wait staff. But dumplings sounded particularly good and the cleanliness was a big draw. This time, we were speedily seated, but again brought totally illegible menus. We began to try and piece together how and what to order, based off of price and a total of three pictures, when our waiter came up. Good service in China seems to be indicated by standing over a table from the moment the customers sit down until they finishing ordering. The pressure mounted and we couldn’t even figure out what came with what and when. We looked at each other and wondered aloud whether we should just give up and leave.

Then, our server crouched down and looked at our menus and, clearly understanding our plight, said in English, “Maybe I can help?”

Us and Them

The last month has beaten me down with a variety of winter illnesses, always striking over the weekend or right at the beginning of the week when I’ve time to write. But now I’m healthier and ready to blog!

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It seems like a truism that living abroad would make you more respectful of the differences between peoples, more understanding of the common humanity of nations around the world or, at least, more culturally sensitive and savvy.

Not always, I’m finding.

All too easily, a bit of stress or shock is all it takes to scrape off our thin veneer of respect and sensitivity and reveal a mentality of “Us and Them” that we share with expatriates of the earlier eras. I’m as guilty as the next expat, but I plead remorse and reflection in hopes it spares my traveling soul.

Many times, living here, I find myself slipping into the feeling that I am fighting against a tide. I’m battling waves of men spitting on the sidewalk, grandmothers letting their baby defecate in the street, hoards jostling to get on the subway before anyone has gotten off, or boys driving their motor scooters up a crowded sidewalk. I become convinced that I am being targeted because I’m foreign, ---that they try to snatch my cab because they know I can’t swear at them and won’t resist that much.

And always, always, it’s about “them.” We know better than to speak too often of “The Chinese,” as it rings of unmitigated colonial racism, so it becomes a vague pronoun that somehow serves only to make it worse. “They” are a nameless, faceless mass of black-haired spitters, hawkers, smokers, and thieves who are bent upon popping the bubble of happier, cleaner, quieter, more decent and ---though we so don't want to say it--- more Western ways, we try endlessly to puff up around us.

At school, some items of value have gone missing and we are painfully quick to accuse “Them.” (I can’t help but say “We,” though I find myself in complete disagreement with my colleagues.) Some suggest, with an attempt at earnest sympathy, that times are hard and wages are low, the problem would be solved if we paid them more. With money comes morals, after all, as evidenced so well in the US right now. Others, almost choking on their own racism, ask, “Who else could it be, you know, they have the keys?” The thought never occurs to “us,” of course, that it could be one of “us.” Worse yet, though, is the unspoken reality that we do not even know most of “their” names. When we talk about who may have stolen what, we have to describe faces and haircuts. “Us” and “them” is just all we know.

There is no chance for them to become our friends, or at least gain the sort of names, lives and identities that forestall the merger into "Them" ness. Here, just as long ago, expats can and are expected to satisfy every aspect of their social life, from going to church to joining a sports team, in their own little bubble. Even where the opportunity exists for Us and Them to meet and know each the other, at work, the language and precedent does not.

Saddest of all, perhaps, is how this descent into dichotomies seems almost inevitable when we stop traveling and start living abroad. Living abroad gives us the opportunity to see a country in a depth beyond shallowness of the spectacular. But once we have settled in, once the awe and excitement fades, we find that below the surface is the murky, dark and cold. The day-in-and-out grinding of the unfamiliar and uncomfortable leads us to forget a little of why we came. After a stressful week at work, we enter the weekend bent on living our own life, finding decent Mexican food and a book to read. Sometimes, a new park or an old building knocks us back to a state of happy amazement and dizzy intrigue with China. But all too often it goes the other way. A crazed driver and errant elbow combine to make us discard all thought of the incomparable complexity and majesty of this 4000 year-old civilization and to focus exclusively on all that divides “Us” and “Them.”