Adjusting to Daily Life in China

My motto since I moved here has been, "When in China..." It's a play on the old "When in Rome" bit, and what I try to do is just roll with the punches, enjoy the surprises, and keep an open mind about the new culture. Even with all the effort I put into just simple daily life, there are still things that blind-side me as a foreigner in China. Every so often, I see or do something that reminds me that I'm still just a stranger in a strange land.

This list is intended not as a reference, but more as a forewarning of things to expect (or look for) if you or someone you love decides to embrace the "When in China" ideology.

Things I've Eaten

• Jellyfish
• Duck brain
• Water buffalo
• Chicken feet
• Goose head
• Eel (lots of eel.)
• Baby dove
• Turtle soup
• Fish (bones in)
• A big lamb leg
• Hairy crabs
• Crayfish
• Snails (right out of the shell!)
• Duck blood

I'll try to add more to this list as I think of them / eat them. I know dog will join the list soon. Mmmm.

Weather

China is hot. I don't mean Phoenix-Arizona-hot, I mean China-hot. I've survived 110 degree summers, and I've been to Phoenix, New Orleans, San Diego, and other "hot places." I thought yeah, sure, it'll be hot, but meh! How hot can it really be?

Well the answer to that question is: really hot! We've been hitting about 95-105 degrees Fahrenheit every day. But in Shanghai (even more so than in Huai'an), the heat hits the ground and radiates up towards you from below like you're standing in a big frying pan. The humidity gets through your clothes and makes them stick to your body. Your clothes become heavy, heat radiates up your legs, and within 2 minutes of going outside, sweat is literally dripping off your face. At least, this is my experience with the heat of China. It's very different from the heat in other places, so be ready for it!

The heat is not completely unbearable. I cope in different ways. I always carry water bottles around with me. I stop at little stores along the street for a few minutes at a time to pretend to be interested in shoes, or shirts, or whatever they're selling, while I cool off in the AC. I also started buying shirts and shorts here because the material is a lot thinner and breathes much better. A thin shirt can make a huge difference in the humidity. And almost every afternoon, there's a nice rain storm to cool off the streets.

Grocery Stores

For some reason, I love Chinese grocery stores. Maybe it's the amazing prices (I'm still converting to U.S. dollars in my head!), or maybe it's the aisles of new, strange cookies that I want to eat one of each of. Also, things have price tags, so there's no bargaining with anybody - I'm not good at the whole bargaining thing yet, so I do better when my goods have a solid price tag on them.

Watch out for the produce section. There is a "live animal" area filled with things swimming, crawling, and clawing around that are sold by the kilogram. So far, I've seen: turtles, fish, eels, lobsters, crabs, crayfish, shrimp, and bullfrogs all for sale. I grew up with pet turtles and frogs, so it's hard for me to imagine those as food - but hey, when in China... (in other words, I will definitely eat them! Dog is also on my list of things to find and try. So is donkey!). The best cookies I found so far are double chocolate cookies called Trakinas. (They say Nabisco on them ... so why aren't these delicious little guys on sale in the U.S.?!? Nabisco, you're missing a huge Trakinas market here!) Other snacks I've been enjoying are boring, normal food: salted peanuts, tea crackers, and funny hard candies called Vita-C that keep my immune system up to par.

Fresh fruit is good. I bought a fruit I had never seen before: dragon fruit! Look it up on wikipedia - it's pink, scary, and awesome! It tastes kind of like a banana and a kiwi combined, and the meat inside is white with small black seeds. Hard to describe, hard to eat, but very interesting to me. Some fruit is really expensive - there are always two bins of oranges: "real" oranges and these small, dry, trick oranges that look normal, are cheap, but don't be fooled! They're not real oranges at all. Pay the extra few yuan and get Florida's finest. My friend and I tried a dorian, too. They're also known as "stink" fruit (or as I affectionately called it, "shit" fruit), and it tastes as bad as it smells: like rotting human flesh, onions, barbecue sauce, garlic cloves - basically, it was nasty.

Instant noodles have been perfected in China. They're like Ramen Cup-O-Noodles, except they don't taste like crap and they come in different sizes. I love the instant noodles here! And so does my stomach. (When you're suffering from too-much-Chinese-food-in-my-American-stomach-syndrome, or as I like to call it, "Diarrhea," the instant noodles can be a familiar flavor in your gut.