I've been wanting to write a bit about some interesting perceptions of what westerners (namely Americans) eat, which can at times be kind of funny.
In general, people are curious and i notice while i'm shopping at the grocery store in our neighborhood people like to look into my basket as they walk by or at the checkout. Of course westerners have the (pretty well-founded) stereotype here of eating a lot of dairy products. Milk has really caught on in China recently (thanks in part to the commercials of tall children drinking milk and then being the tallest kid on the basketball team and making baskets while the short, non-milk drinking child stands by on the sidelines). The whole milk scandal here put some people off milk for awhile i think but now there are also commercials of pristine milk factories complete with large car-wash type scrubby wheels that scrub the sides of the white happy seeming-cows and lots of smiling scientists testing the milk with pleased and impressed- looking westerners observing. Cheese hasn't really caught on much though and and all in all i do eat a lot more dairy products than the average Chinese person. So in the grocery store while they are adding jars of fish paste, tasteless rice snacks, and plastic bags of bloody meat to their carts, i feel i must be confirming their suspicions as i pass with my basket of bread, milk, and yoghurt.
we get our vegetables at the large semi-outdoor vegetable market down the street. a lot of migrant workers from the country side sell good fresh fruit and vegetables there (I've heard the main fertilizer is human waste, but i guess it's not that big of a deal really... right?) Anyway, there or back at our building waiting for the elevator people often look at my bag and then at me and ask if i know how to cook. I tell them yes, my husband and i both like to cook. Then they usually ask if we cook chinese food and i say no i don't really know how and then they ask what we cook and i try to summarize my cooking habits in a few floors worth of elevator ride.
maybe the strangest assumption about American eating habits was a couple months ago when aaron was across the hall at our neighbors. He's been helping their son and their son's friend with English and trying to get some Chinese practice in too. He was sitting in the living room with the two little boys (who were hanging out in their underwear-it was a hot day) and the mother kept coming in the room refilling aaron's little cup of beer she'd given him. But as it was only 3 o'clock in the afternoon and he was pretty thirsty, he asked her if he could just have a glass of water. She said, Oh! You drink water? I thought Americans only drank beer. She seemed surprised to see Aaron drink down the glass of water she brought him. She's been very generous though and often sends aaron home with a gift of some sort: 8 bottles of pepsi, crisco-y tasting cookie snacks, weird icecream, and once a watermelon, but this particular day she brought him a plastic bag from the kitchen with a duck in it. head, beak, feet, body, it was all there, though it had been hacked into many pieces. Try the neck! she cheerfully instructed aaron who was trying to decide what to do. Aaron dutifully retrieved a neck-looking piece from the bag tried it--it's suposed to be the best part of the duck. He thanked her but tried to explain that since his wife didn't eat meat he couldn't finish the whole duck himself, so maybe he could just take half of it. Trying to explain vegetarianism to someone in a culture of not so distant famine and hardship, where meat is a sign of health, wealth, etc, is never easy. She said, yes, but has your wife ever tried this?, indicating the duck. Aaron said no but she really hasn't eaten any meat for 15 years; i don't think she'll want to try it. Finally the mother seemed to understand: Oh, She's a buddhist! Aaron tried to explain again but sort of gave up, so now i guess i'm the Buddhist neighbor. when aaron came home and deposited the bag on my chest where i was reading a book on the couch i had a moment of cultural defensiveness. wait--she thinks we're weird? she gave us a hacked up duck in a plastic bag! i could put it back together like a puzzle.
finally, the other conversation that seems to fit into this entry about food and assumptions took place last week in our office. One of the Chinese teachers who's only been there the last couple months asked us if we liked chinese food. we said yes we like it a lot. she asked if we cook at home of just go out. I find this question sort of weird. Considering we've been living in Beijing in an apartment for nearly a year would you really think we only eat out? we said no, we usually cook but sometimes go out. she asked if we really cook though, because didn't we mostly eat cold foods? i asked her what she meant. she said she thought americans mostly eat salads and uncooked foods. (this was a new one--other people seem to think we only eat hotdogs, hamburgers, and pizza.) I said, well, i do like salad, but we definitely also eat a lot of cooked foods too. This is the same teacher who asked us if American high school is really like Gossip Girl and if American culture is like Desperate Housewives.
I can't really blame people for having skewed perceptions of the U.S. if that's what hollywood is showing. (I think about what i knew about China 4 years ago before I came--very little.) But it can still be frustrating at times to feel misunderstood. Yes, you're right; I'm American and I'm not fat. No, I do not drive a fancy car, own a gun, live in a mansion, eat cold foods and drink only beer.
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