Meals in Hunchun
I'm on the plane right now from Yanji to Beijing, so the first phase of our trip is over. I understand that most of our meals in Beijing will actually be American, so this is probably a good time to reflect on eating as the Chinese do in Hunchun.
We had quite a variety of food on our trip, and this is my best attempt to summarize the highlights and lowlights of the meals. Mike tried to tell us that we would lose 10-15 pounds on this trip. I honestly don't see how that's possible with the way we have eaten, but I guess I'll take it if it happens.
On this trip, our meals are covered by the money that we raised. We also use that money to pay for meals for the missionaries and others whom we take out to eat. There have been assorted pictures through the days collections of the different food, but I'm going to try to describe the top 10 observations when eating at an authentic restaurant in Hunchun.
1. Chinese Barbecue - Our translator, Stone, took us to restaurants on several of our meals. He asked if we liked barbecue, and we agreed. So we went to a Chinese barbecue joint, where they put the charcoal in the table right in front of you. There's a little hole in the table and a guy comes with a small box filled with hot coals. Then you get meat on metal skewers, which you barbecue right in front of yourself.
Now as good as this sounds, there are a few problems. First, it's a lot of work. You have to turn the food to keep it from getting burned. And then while you are eating what you have cooked, the fire is going out right in front of you. The second problem is that you are supposed to season the meat yourself, which you may not know how to do in the way that tastes best for you. Don't get me wrong, it was very good. If you are a carnivore, this is the way to go.
I understand that the Chinese who go to this work about ten of those skewers at the same time, constantly twisting them, getting them on the waiting rack, talking and seasoning all at once. I'm guessing it takes some practice.
2. Korean Barbecue - The next night, we went to the Korean Barbecue place, where they also cook it on your table. This time, though, you go get the food from a buffet and a cooler, put it on your plate, and bring it to them. They had all kinds of food available, every kind of meat, including the guts, and all kinds of seafood as well. I stuck with beef, chicken, lamb, and pork. But there were plenty of other interesting choices I could have had. They also had fruit and cake on their buffet. The fruit was good, the cake was dry.
The owner of the establishment took care of us, because she likes to give the best service to the American guests. Her goal is to open one of those restaurants in America someday. This was the night where the Chinese police came in and asked Kyle if he was a Christian because they saw his cross tattoo.
3. Street vendors - On many corners you will find a variety of people who appear to be very poor, selling things that they have either grown, made, or purchased elsewhere. While walking along, I bought pistachios from a street vendor, fresh strawberries, and popcorn. But my favorite of all was pineapple on a stick. Basically, they take a whole pineapple, core it, cut the rind off of it, then cut it into a slice the size of a dill pickle and put it on a stick. That costs about 15 cents. I was hooked on those. One night before supper, I was hungry and a guy had them for sale on the corner. I bought one and brought it back to the hotel where my team was waiting to leave. Several of them commented on how good it looked, so I offered to buy them all one. The guy was very happy when I bought 10 sticks from him. The next night, he was back at the same time, as were we. I bought one from him, and then he got more out, hoping I would buy them. That night I only bought 5, but I think it still made him happy. I must figure out how to make these for myself.
4. Fast food joints - Hunchun doesn't have the kind of chains that you find in Beijing or elsewhere in China. The closest one to our hotel was called Do & Me, which had chicken sandwiches, fries, soft serve ice cream, and chicken nuggets. There were also several soft serve ice cream places which have come around there. The fast food is comparably priced. I bought a large fries, which was comparable to a medium at Mcdonalds, and the cost was about 85 cents. They were pretty good, nice and hot.
5. Breakfasts in the hotel - Our hotel stay included breakfast every morning, which had some American items (fried eggs, fried potatoes, pancakes) and some Chinese stuff also (one morning I had octupus, plus they had sweet and sour pork and several other things. The last day I had scrambled eggs with cucumbers and carrots. That was actually better than I thought it would be and I will try to make that at home sometime. Even though they have pancakes, unfortunately they don't have syrup there. Most days I put peanut butter and jelly on the pancakes. But I actually missed having cereal and oatmeal.
6. PB&J with the team - When we were working, there wasn't time to go out and eat. So we purchased food in the supermarket and made our lunches while we were out. We got bread from the bakery, Jiffy peanut butter, and several flavors of jelly. We had apples and moon pies, water and coke, and we were pretty well set. It was a nice balance to the other huge meals that we regularly had.
7. Dog Meat with the Koreans - And now I save the best for last. You can find the pictures for Day 8 here: http://picasaweb.google.com/drfincher/ChinaTripDay8?authkey=Gv1sRgCOKt9YPS1PfJWw#
After spending time with the Koreans at the language school, we were encouraged to try dog meat, which is a favorite of Koreans. In fact, our translator said Chinese don't like dog meat, only Koreans. The Koreans dispute that, but I'll leave it to them to argue about.
Now, before you get a little disgusted about the idea of several of us willingly eating dog meat (mong mong), you should know a few things. First, the restaurants don't serve pets or stray dogs. These are actually dogs that are bred for the meat market, just like cattle or hogs would be. The cost is a bit less than beef, and with that many people to feed in Asia, having more types of food available than just what Americans are comfortable with is a necessity. (Individual homes may cook stray or personal dogs, but not restaurants.)
Patricia Kim told us that when the Olympics were in Seoul, South Korea in 1988, there was such an outcry from Americans about the fact that South Koreans eat dogs that the city banned selling dog meat during the Olympics. People in this region were very offended that Americans would criticize them for eating a food that they like just because a dog is an American man's best friend. (By the way, at supper, we mentioned to the Koreans that we in Americans eat squirrels, and they were sort of disgusted to find that out. But they certainly didn't tell us it was wrong or that they were offended. But I digress.)
Anyway, Patricia says they don't talk about dog meat while they are in America, because they know it would offend a lot of Christians. Considering that America is a country that spends more money on pet food than it sends for world evangelism, I think they are probably wise in that. The point is, if an American Christian finds this out, he will probably be more offended that Koreans enjoy eating dog meat than that they don't know Christ. To me, this is a symptom of the bigger problem in the American church, our selfish tendency to care more about personal preferences than the global work of the kingdom.
So to honor our Korean teachers (Lilly and Sarah), we agreed to go to the best dog meat restaurant in Hunchun. And honestly, it tasted pretty good. It may have even been the best meal we had. Now, we had more than just dog meat, but I could have eaten just that and been very satisfied. They had some in soup, and some on a plate. It looked like a beef roast and tasted like the dark meat of a wild turkey. Since I love both of those things, it's no surprise that I enjoyed it.
Here's the video:
Five of us were brave enough to try it, and all of us liked it. We sent the leftovers home with one of the Koreans, which I think made her very happy!
8. The final meal before we get back to Beijing was breakfast on the plane. It included a couple of pieces of lunch meat, four cherry tomatoes, a dinner roll, a piece of cake, peanuts, and kimchi. I saved the peanuts and kimchi (because they were in a sealed bag). But the rest of it was good, as were the drinks. Something knew for me was coconut juice. It looks like milk, but is sweet and smooth going down.
Plane ride is going well. Next post: Day 8 in Hunchun.
We had quite a variety of food on our trip, and this is my best attempt to summarize the highlights and lowlights of the meals. Mike tried to tell us that we would lose 10-15 pounds on this trip. I honestly don't see how that's possible with the way we have eaten, but I guess I'll take it if it happens.
On this trip, our meals are covered by the money that we raised. We also use that money to pay for meals for the missionaries and others whom we take out to eat. There have been assorted pictures through the days collections of the different food, but I'm going to try to describe the top 10 observations when eating at an authentic restaurant in Hunchun.
- Eating out is cheaper and easier than eating at home. I know this seems backwards compared to America, but I talked to some of the missionaries about this and they agreed. By the time you go to different places to find the ingredients to cook the way you would like to, it would be easier to walk down the street to your favorite restaurant. We ate for 20 Yuan apiece most of the time, which is about $3.25 (including drink and with no tax or tip expected). We ate pretty much all we could for that money. I went to a fast food place and it would be pretty easy to eat for $2. The benefit of eating out is great for missionaries . . . spending time with the people, practicing the language, learning how the people eat and looking like you are becoming one with them. With restaurants everywhere, there's lots of competition. The workers aren't paid a lot, but at least they have a job and going out supports the economy well. And if you only have a bicycle or are walking, carrying the ingredients to cook at home isn't as practical as you might think.
- Eat family style over individual. I tried it both ways and far preferred it when they brought the table a variety of platters and we put what we wanted on our plates. We talked about this and thought about how nice it would be at restaurants in America if you could go out to eat with 6-8 people, buy 4 or 5 entrees, and everyone take what they want on their own plate to eat. I think we're a bit too individualistic and germaphobic in order for that to catch on. But I remember as a kid eating just like that at KFC, buying a bucket of chicken and several sides and everyone would just put some on their plate. I think Boston Market does that as well. Other than that, I can't think of any chain restaurants where that happens. But it ends up being better, especially when you're eating in a place where you don't know what you're going to like. In my opinion, it's a real winner.
- The plates are small, the platters are huge. They bring all these platters out and only give you a very small plate to put it on. Perhaps it's because they don't eat very much. I think it has more to do with the fact that you don't take much at a time so that everyone can have some from the food on the platter. Once you've cleaned your plate or find something else that you'd like to mix in, add it to the plate. Everything ends up flavoring the other stuff in your plate, which creates a unique eating experience with every added entree.
- The round, spinning tables are incredibly handy. It would take forever to pass all of these plates if you didn't have the glass spinner in the middle of the table. As it is, you are able to pass food to yourself by simply pulling on the glass. What you want will finally come around to you. Just be careful not to do it while people are still serving themselves.
- Watch out for bones in the food. I don't think the people intend to eat the bones, but the bones stay in the food for at least two reasons. For one thing, their cutting of the meat is rather haphazard, and they leave the bone right in there. I guess it's too much work for them to trim it off the bone. Or perhaps, too much gets wasted that way. Instead, they just chop it into chunks, bone and all, and let all the meat be eaten and the bones be extracted at the point of eating. The second thing is that I assume they want the bone to flavor the meal. Perhaps it does. But I will admit it's a lot more work to eat when you've got rather large bones in the middle of your food. Especially in the soup.
- If you don't like the consistency of something, it's probably fat, guts, or cartilage. Spit out what you don't like. It turns out that they throw away very, very little. One of our teams got a chicken that was entirely whole with the head and the beak and the talons of the feet. It's safe to assume the insides were all there as well. If you take a bite of meat and find things you don't think are meat, feel free to spit it back out. You may think it's gross, but they really don't care. I say better to feel slightly embarrassed now than very uncomfortable later.
- Most things that are red are spicy. From the kimchi, to the spices, to the sauces, there are several spicy things on the table. One way I saw Lilly get around the spicy kimchi was to dip it in water first to knock a lot of the spices off of it. The spices aren't quite the same as Mexican spicy or Italian spicy. But they will stick with you if you aren't careful with it.
- Chopsticks are annoying. Use your soup spoon or ask for a fork. I started out trying to eat everything with chopsticks, but that's a lot of work. Especially when the food is good, you're almost frustrated that you don't get a bigger bite at a time. It's even more frustrating (and time consuming) to try and take food off the platters onto your plate using chopsticks. Once you've eaten off of the chopsticks, it seems a bit unsanitary. Here's the suggestion I picked up from Patricia Kim. Use your soup spoon to get food from the platter to the plate and ask for a fork to enjoy your food without the frustration. They really aren't offended to bring you one. They mostly want you to enjoy the food and if a fork helps that happen, even better.
- The napkins are incredibly small. Don't just take one. They are about a fourth of the size and thickness of a normal American paper napkin. I can wipe my mouth once, and it's pretty well done. They put stacks of them on the table, so you just pull up another one and don't feel bad.
- Picture menus are good, but have at least one person with you who knows what you are eating. Everything looks good in a picture, but it's better to know what you are eating before it gets in front of you. It's sort of an insult to them to not eat the food they bring you, so it's good to confirm that you know what you want. The only thing I ordered off of a picture menu was popcorn chicken at KFC and french fries and ice cream. I felt pretty safe with those.
1. Chinese Barbecue - Our translator, Stone, took us to restaurants on several of our meals. He asked if we liked barbecue, and we agreed. So we went to a Chinese barbecue joint, where they put the charcoal in the table right in front of you. There's a little hole in the table and a guy comes with a small box filled with hot coals. Then you get meat on metal skewers, which you barbecue right in front of yourself.
Now as good as this sounds, there are a few problems. First, it's a lot of work. You have to turn the food to keep it from getting burned. And then while you are eating what you have cooked, the fire is going out right in front of you. The second problem is that you are supposed to season the meat yourself, which you may not know how to do in the way that tastes best for you. Don't get me wrong, it was very good. If you are a carnivore, this is the way to go.
I understand that the Chinese who go to this work about ten of those skewers at the same time, constantly twisting them, getting them on the waiting rack, talking and seasoning all at once. I'm guessing it takes some practice.
2. Korean Barbecue - The next night, we went to the Korean Barbecue place, where they also cook it on your table. This time, though, you go get the food from a buffet and a cooler, put it on your plate, and bring it to them. They had all kinds of food available, every kind of meat, including the guts, and all kinds of seafood as well. I stuck with beef, chicken, lamb, and pork. But there were plenty of other interesting choices I could have had. They also had fruit and cake on their buffet. The fruit was good, the cake was dry.
The owner of the establishment took care of us, because she likes to give the best service to the American guests. Her goal is to open one of those restaurants in America someday. This was the night where the Chinese police came in and asked Kyle if he was a Christian because they saw his cross tattoo.
3. Street vendors - On many corners you will find a variety of people who appear to be very poor, selling things that they have either grown, made, or purchased elsewhere. While walking along, I bought pistachios from a street vendor, fresh strawberries, and popcorn. But my favorite of all was pineapple on a stick. Basically, they take a whole pineapple, core it, cut the rind off of it, then cut it into a slice the size of a dill pickle and put it on a stick. That costs about 15 cents. I was hooked on those. One night before supper, I was hungry and a guy had them for sale on the corner. I bought one and brought it back to the hotel where my team was waiting to leave. Several of them commented on how good it looked, so I offered to buy them all one. The guy was very happy when I bought 10 sticks from him. The next night, he was back at the same time, as were we. I bought one from him, and then he got more out, hoping I would buy them. That night I only bought 5, but I think it still made him happy. I must figure out how to make these for myself.
4. Fast food joints - Hunchun doesn't have the kind of chains that you find in Beijing or elsewhere in China. The closest one to our hotel was called Do & Me, which had chicken sandwiches, fries, soft serve ice cream, and chicken nuggets. There were also several soft serve ice cream places which have come around there. The fast food is comparably priced. I bought a large fries, which was comparable to a medium at Mcdonalds, and the cost was about 85 cents. They were pretty good, nice and hot.
5. Breakfasts in the hotel - Our hotel stay included breakfast every morning, which had some American items (fried eggs, fried potatoes, pancakes) and some Chinese stuff also (one morning I had octupus, plus they had sweet and sour pork and several other things. The last day I had scrambled eggs with cucumbers and carrots. That was actually better than I thought it would be and I will try to make that at home sometime. Even though they have pancakes, unfortunately they don't have syrup there. Most days I put peanut butter and jelly on the pancakes. But I actually missed having cereal and oatmeal.
6. PB&J with the team - When we were working, there wasn't time to go out and eat. So we purchased food in the supermarket and made our lunches while we were out. We got bread from the bakery, Jiffy peanut butter, and several flavors of jelly. We had apples and moon pies, water and coke, and we were pretty well set. It was a nice balance to the other huge meals that we regularly had.
7. Dog Meat with the Koreans - And now I save the best for last. You can find the pictures for Day 8 here: http://picasaweb.google.com/drfincher/ChinaTripDay8?authkey=Gv1sRgCOKt9YPS1PfJWw#
After spending time with the Koreans at the language school, we were encouraged to try dog meat, which is a favorite of Koreans. In fact, our translator said Chinese don't like dog meat, only Koreans. The Koreans dispute that, but I'll leave it to them to argue about.
Now, before you get a little disgusted about the idea of several of us willingly eating dog meat (mong mong), you should know a few things. First, the restaurants don't serve pets or stray dogs. These are actually dogs that are bred for the meat market, just like cattle or hogs would be. The cost is a bit less than beef, and with that many people to feed in Asia, having more types of food available than just what Americans are comfortable with is a necessity. (Individual homes may cook stray or personal dogs, but not restaurants.)
Patricia Kim told us that when the Olympics were in Seoul, South Korea in 1988, there was such an outcry from Americans about the fact that South Koreans eat dogs that the city banned selling dog meat during the Olympics. People in this region were very offended that Americans would criticize them for eating a food that they like just because a dog is an American man's best friend. (By the way, at supper, we mentioned to the Koreans that we in Americans eat squirrels, and they were sort of disgusted to find that out. But they certainly didn't tell us it was wrong or that they were offended. But I digress.)
Anyway, Patricia says they don't talk about dog meat while they are in America, because they know it would offend a lot of Christians. Considering that America is a country that spends more money on pet food than it sends for world evangelism, I think they are probably wise in that. The point is, if an American Christian finds this out, he will probably be more offended that Koreans enjoy eating dog meat than that they don't know Christ. To me, this is a symptom of the bigger problem in the American church, our selfish tendency to care more about personal preferences than the global work of the kingdom.
So to honor our Korean teachers (Lilly and Sarah), we agreed to go to the best dog meat restaurant in Hunchun. And honestly, it tasted pretty good. It may have even been the best meal we had. Now, we had more than just dog meat, but I could have eaten just that and been very satisfied. They had some in soup, and some on a plate. It looked like a beef roast and tasted like the dark meat of a wild turkey. Since I love both of those things, it's no surprise that I enjoyed it.
Here's the video:
Five of us were brave enough to try it, and all of us liked it. We sent the leftovers home with one of the Koreans, which I think made her very happy!
8. The final meal before we get back to Beijing was breakfast on the plane. It included a couple of pieces of lunch meat, four cherry tomatoes, a dinner roll, a piece of cake, peanuts, and kimchi. I saved the peanuts and kimchi (because they were in a sealed bag). But the rest of it was good, as were the drinks. Something knew for me was coconut juice. It looks like milk, but is sweet and smooth going down.
Plane ride is going well. Next post: Day 8 in Hunchun.
posted by Central Christian College of the Bible at
10:51 PM
