A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. First and foremost, I would love to thank you all for taking
some time to look through my first blog. It has received a warm welcome on the internet. Please continue to view, comment and don`t forget to share the link. With that said, let me get down to today`s topic. Food!!!!!This is a widely broad topic considering the vast amount of foods found in China, some of which even the majority of the local Chinese people haven`t tasted. Statistics has it that Chinese people are the most nutritionally fed people in the world, hence the high life expectancy. Don’t hate.
You`d probably agree with me that almost every street corner has a McDonald`s, KFC and a Starbucks. Believe me if you find one of these three, the other two would obviously be close-by. I found it amazing that a McDonald`s restaurant in china has rice on the menu aside the normal fries and burgers. Imagine taking your son to a McDonald`s just to have rice, but hey this is China. A lot of western restaurants can be found in many cities across China. Korean restaurants are very common with Indian and Sri Lankan restaurants in the same suit. Beside finding the above mentioned on almost every street corner, you`d probably find a bank or an ATM on almost every other corner, so it is like find one and you`ve found the rest. I`d probably encourage you to remember this find one and you`d have found the others concept for future posts` use. I really don`t know why, but in china, companies selling the same product type or offering the same kind of services are usually found as street chains which sometimes biases my choice on which one to go for.
One friend once asked my option on what business I`d venture into if I was Chinese and provided with capital to start. My answer will forever be a restaurant. China has a lot of restaurants than I`ve seen in any other country I’ve been to. With most cultures when an alarming issue arises, sleeping over it is commonly encouraged, however this is different in the Chinese culture whereby it is believed that most ideas, solutions and best relationships are made over the food table hence the common saying,” the stomach is the gateway to a man`s heart” is considered to be of Chinese origin.
Most schools, colleges and universities usually have their own canteens offering the most commonly eaten delicacies across China at a lesser cost compared to outside (of university premises located) restaurants. I am not really hesitant to say I run on a student budget, so I find the university canteen very friendly to my pocket. The famous Chinese chopsticks are really difficult to hold and use at first, but a lot of practice will take you a long way. You can test your chopstick skills by trying out soup dipped noodles with them. The next issue will be on how my first experience and thoughts to Chinese food in conjunction with comments or emails from fellow students on the same topic. Send me an email of your thoughts on Chinese food and your favorite Chinese food if you have.
I can without doubt boldly say it is here in China where I had my first bite of donkey meat and dog meat. Dog and cat meat are usually not on the menus and you have to ask if the restaurant offers, reason being that most Chinese people now find it a taboo eating meat of these animals. On the brighter side, I love that most restaurants even infamous ones deliver food right on your doorstep without any extra charges. You`d probably need to know how to speak a little Chinese Mandarin on the food you want to order, your location and hopefully the price it`d come to. You totally have no idea of the power of owning a smartphone in China (next week’s issue). China has a lot of expensive restaurants, but in the direst financial situations, I`ve found the common Lanzhou 兰州拉面（food starts from 8yuan-1.20usd) or food sellers along the streets (food starts from 3yuan-0.45usd) to be of ease.
On asked what I hate about Chinese food. uuuhh mmmm the beef. I have a big problem with how less it would be every time I order a dish that
has beef. Beef is just too expensive that it has become normal for me to go for more than 5 months without eating proper beef. The local cheap beef is whitish in color and a little hard to chew. I personally wasn`t a fan of Chinese food, but now even my own country dishes taste strange.
Please consider this as an introduction to the next post when we`ll cover more about what students in China think about Chinese food, their first thoughts on Chinese foods and their favorite Chinese food(s). Comment or email me and stand a chance to win a full year subscription of Nordvpn.
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Student Life In China 