Bread was made with wheat, sold in little 8 slice packs since it was such a novelty, and we found one grocery store that sold cheese, in the entirety of everywhere they looked. They had three kinds, and normally about two packages of each. With these we could make grilled cheese sandwiches on our single-burner heating plates in a wok. Milk came in individual glass jars.
Fresh fruit was an adventure. We made a game of bringing random fruit home and trying to guess how to eat it.
After several incidents of eating rinds, seeds, stems, things which weren't suppose to be eaten unless they are cooked, and various grossly unripe or overripe things, we more or less gave up and stuck to pineapples and pomelos. Most of the fruits we never learned the names of, but the red thing with the green spines is a Dragon Fruit, the one with the points is called Star Fruit, and the one opened on the newspaper is Jackfruit.
After getting tired of fruit, the Russian Roulette activities continued as a drinking game using random candy with no English on it whatsoever, which became nearly ubiquitous during New Year's celebrations.
Pizza Hut was, unbeknown to us, a very classy establishment. The first time we went we had already had a few beers before we piled in to order pitchers of beer and a few pies, which we ate barbarically with our hands, without noticing the black tile floor, the nicely dressed waiters, the pasta dishes and mocktails on the menu, or the violin music in the background. Half way through dinner I turned around to see a local man wearing a tie and looking rather forlorn. His girlfriend, in black dress, looked unhappy, and I was suddenly struck with the realization that we had ruined the very nice dinner he was trying to treat her to.
We found wheat flour and made pancakes at home sometimes, because they were familiar and easy. We searched high and low, but couldn't find maple syrup for them anywhere. Eventually we started asking coworkers about it.
"What does it look like?"
"It's thick brown sauce, and it is sweet"
"What's it made of?"
"You take sap from Maple trees"
There was a pause, and my coworker gave me a very blank face
"Liquid in the bark, it brings food to the rest of the tree..."
"Yeah yeah"
"Then you boil it down a lot,"
"Ok"
"And then it's ready!"
My coworkers looked at each other for a long moment. Then one smiled, and in his most polite and patiently culturally-understanding voice he explained, very delicately as to not offend us,
"We're sorry, but we don't drink tree blood in China."
Posts
