the hills are alive....

After finishing data collection last week, a bunch of us decided to get out of the city for a few days and head
to Jian Shui, a small city in southern Yunnan, followed by theYuanyang rice terraces.

Now, I’m no stranger to traveling on a budget. I’m a grad student, I’m poor—I’ve learned not to expect much from my accommodations. Or so I thought. On Sunday night, my roommate and I took a bumpy busride to Jian Shui to meet the rest of our friends. We showed up at the hotel, which compensated for its namelessness with holographic wallpaper and disco music. The first room we went to was filthy: skid-mark wall stains, cigarette-burned comforters, and more mosquitoes than I’ve ever seen in a natural environment. We decided to check out a second room. Room#2 was slightly cleaner, but the clouds of smoke hovering above the beds were less than appetizing. We entered Room #3 to find it was already occupied—by a cockroach. Shit. Choosing between which insect with whom I would sleep is not a dilemma I thought I’d ever face. But, it was late and we were tired, so we rationalized: a roach in one, a roach in all. So we climbed into bed, praying for no bedbugs, and turned off the lights. Two seconds later, Hila turned the lights back on. Bad move: roaches scattered across the floor like shy kids on the dance floor.

After a relatively sleepless night, we woke up and explored the town. Jian Shui’s a neat little city, composed mostly of alleyways, shops, and tiny restaurants. Most of these places have only a table or two; eating in one is like sitting in someone’s kitchen while they prepare the food a few feet away. The food is always fresh, usually from the market just a few hours prior, and usually quite tasty: rice with stir-fried eggs, tomatoes, or vegetables with plenty of la jiao, a searing spice I dump on everything. The specialty in Jian Shui is cho dofu, or literally, “stinky tofu.” The place reeks of the stuff; I never knew beans could smell so bad. ‘Course, most dishes apparently arrive with a side of bacteria, which now have taken up residence inside my GI tract. I’m pretty sure a small Chinese dragon has been chilling in my gut for a few weeks now. Everyone here’s some stage of sick though, so you learn to get over it and keep on movin’.

One bus, one van, and one taxi ride later, we made it to the rice terraces in Yuanyang. Truly, these mountains and villages and people are indescribable. The terraces are over 2000 years old, and in many ways it seems as though not much has changed. The villages that pepper the mountainside are home to several of Yunnan’s ethnic minorities. The women wear these brightly colored headdresses and carry woven baskets full of fruits and vegetables as they trek over the mountains to the market. Food is so central to life here: harvesting it, finding it, eating it. Pigs, cows, and roosters roam everywhere; they are slaughtered and cooked right on the cobblestone streets. The couple whose home we stayed in cooked for us each day—vegetarian, per request. Never have simple greens and rice tasted so delicious.

We encountered one couple on the top of the mountain on their way home to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival. The man was carrying a live hen upside down in one hand; the woman had a giant basket full of leechy fruit and other goods strapped to her back. The irony of this situation is that we were all dressed to hike: backpacks, boots, snacks. The woman? She was carrying an oversized bedazzled handbag and was wearing heels. High heels on a mountain! Never again will I complain about uncomfortable footwear, that’s for sure. Later, we were treated to an impromptu concert on a cliff when a group of men, also returning home, stopped to play their recorders for us. There’s truly nothing like the sound of music with villagers and cows and roosters on a cliff overlooking ancient farmland.

We had great weather during the day, but the nights were chilly and rainy. Even so, I hiked alone to the overlook one evening to watch the fog reach its cold grey fingers down the mountains. Never have I seen something so haunting and beautiful. The next morning, we got up before the sun to watch it rise over the paddies. With the wind rippling through the rice and the clouds swirling around us, we watched in silence as the sun rose and crested over the peaks. Breathtaking.

So yes, I slept on dirty cots with Mickey Mouse comforters and cigarette burns. I shared a room with a small army of cockroaches. I got violently ill while standing inside a cloud. I took more than one shower literally standing on top of the toilet. But it was worth it. Incredibly worth it.

Kind of pretty, I suppose...

Might have had a lil' Sound of Music moment at the top....

The world's cutest kid....until you notice HE'S GOT A GUN! 

it's the end of the rrrrrrrrrrrroad

I did something sorta bad. Well, before I explain, answer me this: is it wrong to go out with someone for purely anthropological reasons? I asked this myself, and then started to worry about the guys who may or may not have gone out with me for similar reasons—then I said naw, no way—I’m far too comfortable in my blonde, Midwestern genericity  (yes, I just made that word up. Whatevs). I’m sure any guy going out with me for less than honorable reasons was in it for other reasons. Probably, my car. Who wouldn’t want a free ride in a beat-up ’99 Cavalier with a hood that’s attached with a string and only a 90% chance of starting?

Anyway, so I went out with this guy I  met a few weeks ago, only because he is Chinese and I thought it would make for an interesting story. And yes, as I was sitting in his car last night, I thought to myself: “Wow, you really are an asshole.” I admit, going out with someone only so I could tell people about it later made me feel guilty. But, like any good former Catholic school girl, I did it anyway.

So he picks me up and takes me to this restaurant by Dianchi Lake for dinner. Because my Chinese is limited to food-and-drink words (the important stuff, obviously), and his English is rusty, our conversation hovered around a pre-school level. Like, less than 5 syllables per sentence. No problem, since I spent my days with Chinese 5 year olds (one of whom today looked at me and started singing “Ra ra oh Ga-Ga! I wanna a bad romance”….did he actually think, perhaps, that I am Lady Gaga? Shit, I thought, I really  need to start brushing my hair before work!). So our conversation went something like this:

“Do you have a pet?” (My Suitor)
“Yes, I have a pet. I have a cat. His name is Victor. He is very mean.” (me)

“Do you know they eat cats sometimes in  Guangzhou (southern Chinese city)?” [Insert 10 minute conversation about “special” animals some people eat: mice, snake, cat, dog (only certain breeds, lest you worry), monkey, etc]

“Wow. That is gross! …But maybe it is very tasty depending on how you cook it?”(me, first being judgmental than attempting to appear culturally enlightened)

The convo continues:

“Do you have a sister or brother?” (Suitor)
“Yes, I have a sister. She is in law school. She lives very far away from me…. Do you have any siblings?”

Then I cringe.

WHY DO I ALWAYS ASK THIS?! Per the one-child policy, most people my age (or a decade older as my delightful suitor turned out to be), very few people have siblings unless their parents  1) paid a fine, which sounds cheap by American standards but would probably bankrupt most Chinese 2) are farmers or 3) belong to a minority group (2 and 3 are both permitted to have additional children). Still, it understandably saddens many people and they (like My Suitor), launch into a sad story about how lonely they are, how bad they feel for their parents who are now old and alone and need taken care of, and how they long for a big happy family, Steve-Martin-is-my-dad-in-Cheaper-By-The-Dozen-Style   style (ok I just made that last part up…maybe only my own personal fantasy? whoops).

So after we hashed through this scenario, we finally made it to the restaurant. My Suitor (it sounds so gallant when in caps, right?) was generous enough to order vegetarian to me—for which I was exceedingly grateful , considering that the dishes du jour included larvae and half-hatched eggs. We shared some really excellent mushroom dishes- Yunnan is famous for them, and a lot of silence. This will come to a shock to anyone who knows me, because normally I will babble on about just about anything to fill a void in conversation, but I’ve gotten really comfortable with silence here. I feel no need to talk. I just eat or daydream in peace. It’s quite nice, actually, not hearing myself chatter all the time.  Makes me wonder—how many people feel the same way?!  Don’t answer that.

After dinner, My Suitor and I took a pleasant evening stroll around Dianchi Lake, a body of water nestled up against an impressive mountain range (which, as I learned, is named “Sleeping Beauty.” You know you haven’t lived until you’ve watched a pollution-laced sunset with a dude who’s pointing out the “breasts” on a mountain in broken English).  Honestly, Dianchi Lake is far the most disgusting, vile water I’ve ever seen. It’s tragic, really: it would be so beautiful but it’s literally coated with a layer of green slime. I kept waiting for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles—or frogs or snakes  or fish- to crawl out of the oily liquid and kill us all.  I don’t know why everyone was so impressed by this Jesus character—if you’ve ever visited Dianchi you know that just about anyone could walk on the water. If you want instant cancer, that is.

 Anyway, we continued our stroll, and My Suitor tried to convince me to move to China permanently (because near-engagement is normal  after 2/3 of a date). To sweeten the deal, he serenaded me. First with a little Chinese love song about “Sweaty Mice.” I’m think he actually meant “sweet mice,” but I’m not really sure how that’s better.

But then came the clincher. My Suitor told me that he also likes English music.

“Like what?” I asked,   painfully unaware of the performance about to ensue.

“You know. Boys II Men.” He replied.

….and then proceeded to launch into a full-blown version of “So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday.” We’re talking top-of-the lungs falsetto. I was stunned

.

“You know, you’re right. It really is hard to say goodbye to yesterday,” I told him, clapping enthusiastically.

But, sadly, not hard to say good-bye to him. I mean, if I’m gonna go out with a Chinese guy I might as well hold out for one who can sing me N’Sync…right?  

raindrops keep fallin' on my head...

Or some kind of mysterious liquid, that is. For some reason, walking on the sidewalks here is an invitation to get splashed -- water, toothbrush juice, urine, who knows—falling from an unidentified location above. Also, Chinese babies pee in the streets—in fact, they have a hole cut out in their bottoms for easy access—so I have become wary of even the most innocuous looking puddles.

As it turns out, the Chinese find Westerners’ obsession with hygiene totally bizarre. Of course, this hygiene issue—or lack thereof—leads to some interesting, albeit sometimes disgusting, dining scenarios. For one thing, knives are nonexistent-chopsticks only- so people just grab large chunks of anything and cram them into their mouths. Since my chopstick use is mediocre at best—I’m way far too clumsy/shaky to get a good grasp on those things—I spill food everywhere (yes, more than usual). But it’s cool, because I’ve found that meals here frequently involve bits of rice and noodles flying everywhere as everyone eats in a flurry of chopsticks and chatter. Also, people use their chopsticks to eat common food: everything is shared, which as a public health student and the daughter of an infection control nurse, makes me secretly cringe with every bite. No one has a problem with bringing their bowl to their mouths and sucking up noodles or rice like a human Hoover. Also, subject is too personal or bizarre for conversation. This weekend, I was chatting with a biostatistician at the Chinese CDC, and he asked me friendly but strange questions like how much I “prioritized money.” This question, I’ve found is a common one, as all Chinese people seem to think Americans are loaded. When I told him I had a cat, he asked me if my cat had had “its genitalia removed;” we proceeded to have a five minute conversation about the pro’s and con’s of removing Victor’s junk. He segued right into a more philosophical realm with next question: “Are you a Christian?” (my response: uh…..)

Actually, much to my personal delight, I’ve been exploiting my so-called Christianity here. At home, where my Catholicism consists of little more than church attendance for the rare wedding, the memory of 12 years of hideous plaid jumpers, and a lingering sense of guilt, I can hardly claim the religion as my own. In China, I find myself employing my so-called faith to get out of things I don’t feel like doing. This works well with Chinese people or Westerners of the non-American variety, because they either don’t understand what Catholicism is (Chinese) or they are somewhat afraid of it (Europeans). The excuse is handy because of its versatility: I can use it to get out of eating meat, doing things on Sunday, or just about anything I like, as my recent encounter with one feisty Scot exemplifies. We were at a bar around closing time, when he invited me under dubious pretenses to share an after-hours hot pot. (dear family: FYI, hot pot is a type of food, not a type of illegal herb).

“I totally would, but it’s Saturday night, and I have to get up early for Church tomorrow. You know, the Catholic thing…” I said by way of explanation.

“Are all Catholic girls this difficult?” he asked, disgruntled.

“Only ones who are studying to become nuns,” I said, before grabbing my roomies and hailing a cab, laughing all the way out the door. My Israeli roommates, by the way, find my Catholic excuses hilarious—the next step is to get them to try it out.

I’ve also been telling a disproportionate number of nun stories lately, mostly to horrify my UK peers, who apparently view Catholicism as some sort of draconian torture. Of course I have to perpetuate this belief by regaling them with tales of the time Sr. Adele punished me for poor reading skills by pinching clothespins to my ears, bruising me for weeks, or how, every time an ambulance passed, Sr. Mary Norberta would pray that the victims were not Catholic. These stories are not only untrue, they’re stolen from Pat Conroy, who has a far more imaginative and distorted view of a Catholic childhood than do I. I’m not sure why I find this so amusing, when I should be grateful simply to have some undiluted English conversation. In fact, the tiny fraction of my soul which has been forever imprinted with twice-a-week Masses and endless confessionals recoils in horror—I know I’m gonna pay for this someday. But in the meantime, since I highly suspect that the Chinese are laughing at my own poor dining etiquette (in fact I know they are—I finally learned the word for chopsticks, and can hear them saying something about kuai zi as they stare and laugh), and the Israelis gab away in Hebrew, I’ll take my mischief where I can get it—even if I’m the only one laughing.

public healthy: parental eating habits don't mean squat

Interestingly, parents' eating habits dont' influence kids' eating behaviors nearly as much as one would think, according to some epidemiologists from Johns Hopkins. and that other factors- such as TV or advertising- may play a larger role in the kind of diets kids eat. This study made me a little sad, first because I think it's kinda depressing to think that the influence of TV might outweigh parents, who are actually giving the kids food. (Although this also makes me wonder- how do parents' TV watching habits impact kids? Maybe there's some relationship there, too, since parents are the ones spending the cash in the grocery store).

The study also says that very few parents actually did have healthy diets, and that their kids were more likely to eat healthy too. This makes sense: after all, what's the point of teaching kids about the food pyramid if Mom and Dad are chowing down on Mickey D's?

Lately I just keep wondering, why is it so complicated for adults (and in turn, their kids) to eat healthily? For all our good intentions, it just seems like we make this unnecessarily hard on ourselves. Someone needs to apply Occam's razor to this situach, and instead of bombarding us with endless conflicting studies, literature, education, and magazines, simplify the problem....so we can find, if not an easy solution, a livable and effective one. A person shouldn't have to have an advanced degree in nutrition or a loaded wallet to eat well each day.

(image from http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/ )

fish stick-it-to-me

Although I've been claiming to be a vegetarian for a few months now, I've gotta fess up. I'm actually what's known as a pescatarian, or as my Ohio relatives insist, a "fishatarian." I was going easy on myself because the pretext for my vegetarianism, Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, focused only on the nutritional and ethical dangers of corn-fed beef and chicken....


....and more honestly, I really, really like fish. So I continued to obliviously- and happily- eat salmon or tuna once a week or so until I read a piece in today's NY Times dining section, when Mark Bittman, author of Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking cruelly burst my bubble.

A self-proclaimed fish-lover, Mark gloomily recounts the rise of large-fleet fishing, which has depleted the oceans of many types of commonly consumed fish, and the prevalance of dubious fishing tactics. Because buying fresh fish has become such an "ethical and logistical nightmare," not to mention, less-than-cheap. Mark offers his thoughts on what was once thought of as an alternative panacea, farm-raised fish:



"...With the exception of mollusks, which have been farmed forever with little environmental impact and sometimes with as much flavor as wild, most of the products of aquaculture are not only not worth cooking but are also environmentally challenged. In fact, farm-raised fin fish are really the cage-raised chickens of the sea: in many instances wild fish are harvested to produce feed for farmed fish (nearly 90 percent of the world’s fish oil goes into fish food), and it takes three pounds of wild fish to produce one pound of farmed salmon (other farmed species require even more). Aquaculture is also a local pollutant and a major consumer of antibiotics, and it has long been thought that escaped farmed fish will interbreed with and weaken wild fish."



I'm sad....for the fish, and for me! Who knew that fishing could be so cruel to the fish, to the environment, and to the consumer. What do you think? Is it posssible to eat sustainably raised fish on a meager grad school budget?




Meanwhile, thanks to Bittman's article and the judgmental eyes of this guy:
I am going to go fish-free!