CHINA
Country Overview:
“Love the food, hate the government”
I arrived in China in May 2013 and left August 2020. I taught English for awhile, did my master’s of politics & foreign policy at Tsinghua University, worked for a year at China Today, and then two years at Xinhua News Agency. I spent most of my time in Beijing, but also traveled to Shanghai, Wuhan, Inner Mongolia, Shenzhen, Panjin, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Qingdao, Xi’an, Sanya, Macau, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
Last Dinner In Beijing
Headed to Sanya tomorrow morning for at least 2 weeks. Have to wait and see what countries open in June. Chinese visa expires June 10, so I’ve got about 3 weeks to hangout until I’m forced to leave.
Spicy wontons. Sichuan cold noodles. Sichuan potatoes shaped like French fried but not fried. Chinese croquettes with egg custard filling.
Peruvian Food In China
Frozen Prisco sour, lomo saltado, and ceviche. Overall, the food was ok, but what really stood out to me were the prices. Lomo saltado, a staple of Peruvian food, was more than $20 in China when it would be no more than $3 in Peru. Would I go here again? Probably not. Hard to justify the prices and quality of the food compared to the real thing during my time in Arequipa. Had good interior design and good salsa music - although I wish it had more of a grittier style restaurant feel instead of trying to be “high-class” Peruvian food.
Food Festival in 798
Despite not taking any pictures of food, there really was a food festival. Everything outside just seemed better to take pictures of.
Malaxiangguo
I like this dish because it’s sort of a Mongolian BBQ style food, where you choose the ingredients you want, then they cook it up and serve it all in a giant bowl.
Lunch in Guangzhou
Alrighty, so we've got some steamed shrimp balls, fried wontons, shrimp wontons in noodles, pork and salami over rice, bbq pork puffed dumplings, and fried shrimp wrapped in something with a peanut sauce. I could easily see myself living in Guangzhou if just for the food alone.
Tasty little hole in the wall place I stumbled upon
Dish on the left is fried fish with pumpkin fritters and the right is a hot pot style pork with cabbage
These are like big, fried versions of a potsticker, filled with either a chicken, beef, or vegetable mixture
They are .50 Yuan each and super delicious.
Currently budgeting out my salary to figure out when I can move closer to the school I work at. Word of advice for foreigners, ‘don’t be too anxious to move into an apartment’.
The next 3 days are the 'Dragon Boat Festival’ here in Beijing, so my plan is to find a pedal bike. Everyone keeps telling me where the bike market is, the problem is trying to figure out how to bike the 15 km on side streets back to my place. I’m sure there’s something closer and I intend to find it.
1st picture was my first dinner here in China
The guy who picked me up at the airport got me settled in at the hotel, then left. Great. I was starving and had no way to communicate. So I went back to the school and asked if he could help me out. He took me to this giant place in the basement of a mall that has tons of Chinese food. You load up money on a card, then when you want something, you just tap the card against the machine and it deducts the costs and they serve you your food. Besides the sweet/sour chicken with rice, I had no idea what the other 3 bowls were.
Sometimes I know what I’m getting, and other times, I don’t. For example, the yellow stuff in the bottom picture came with what I ordered and it was like a gelatinous tapioca pudding without any flavor. After struggling with chopsticks and rice, I asked my buddy what the Chinese word for ‘fork’ was and he said, “They’ll just give you chopsticks anyway”.