There are approximately 6 yuan to a dollar. Living in China is very cheap when compared to living in the United States. For instance, a bottle of water is usually 1-1.5 yuan. Fruit is plentiful and cheap. Jeff and I loved buying small Mandarin oranges to munch on while we watched movies or whatever at home. They were delicious and plentiful, and a lot cheaper in China than they are in the United States. They also taste better in my opinion. Pomegranates are cheap also. Jeff and I got several of ‘em. I had only had them once before in my life, so it was interesting getting used to them, but they are now one of my favorite fruits. I just wish they were easier to eat.
Speaking of hard fruits to eat, the plumello is definitely one of those. Helen gave Jeff and I some for Christmas. They’re big, round-ish, and green. When you open them up, there’s tons of white matter surrounding the fruit you have to peel through. I found it amusing to watch Jeff do so. When you finally get down to the actual edible fruit, it’s about the size of two grapefruits and tastes a lot like them. Jeff thought they were pretty nifty—he’s bought some stateside to share with my family.
Another
yummy fruit is the dragonfruit. Man, I wish we had that here. They’re funny
looking fruits—pink and poky on the outside similar to a soft pineapple.
The inside (which is the part you eat) is white with black seeds. They’re
like a really sweet kiwi fruit, and it’s fun to spoon the soft inside out
to uncover the pink shell. Another yummy fruit is called dragon eyes—we
had some of those in Hong Kong when we first arrived. They grow on trees
(you can obviously buy them in the store if you’d like) and are about the
size of grapes, but harder on the outside. You don’t eat the skin. You peel
it off and reveal a translucent fruit around a hard dark inside, which really
does resemble an eye. It’s a lot sweeter than I think eyes would really
be, though.
Vegetables are really abundant as well. They’re incorporated into a lot of dishes in China, which is great. The carrots are ginormous. Bell peppers are small. There’s always a huge selection of peppers at the store, which are used in a variety of dishes. Everything looks fresh and appetizing—even flowers. I learned how to make a dish using a flower commonly grown in Xiangtan (I haven’t got the faintest idea what they’re called) that tastes like a mixture of asparagus and green beans. There are lots of sprouts and other very fresh vegetables. The Hunan area is apparently really rich in iron—the dirt is about as red as it is in Southern Utah. Which makes it really pretty, but it stained my tennis shoes like nothing else. Bok choy and cabbage are good. As the weather starts to change, stores start offering bamboo shoots. Not only do they build with bamboo, but they eat it—the bamboo is blackened, and then bits are chopped off and peeled. Sadly, I didn’t try any.
Some vendors specialize in selling stuff on the side of the road near bus stops. They had these delicious sticks with fruit covered in sugary goodness available for 1.5 yuan. They were yummy—but a little sticky. They also have a lot of pears for sale. I wish we had fruit and vegetables for so cheap—I think people would eat healthier if it were so easy to do so.
When
Jeff and I went grocery shopping, we primarily went to the Bubugao (or the
Better Life Store). They had set prices, and cash registers, so it was easy
to pay for things without knowing how to speak Chinese. They also had a
great selection. They had Dove chocolate. It was expensive, so they actually
attached RFID tags to the small tubs of chocolate to prevent people from
shoplifting. Jeff and I found a brand of Chinese chocolate that was actually
pretty good—at least, the dark chocolate was. The milk chocolate wasn’t
so good. It was a lot cheaper than Dove. Every once in a while, though,
I would convince Jeff we deserved M&M’s or Snickers. The Bubugao had
a market full of fruits and vegetables that was often crowded. We would
fill up little plastic sacks and have them weighed by the helpful associates.
Whenever we went during the middle of the week, these helpful associates
followed us around the room. That was kind eerie—but there are a lot of
people in China, so it makes sense that some would have mostly completely
unnecessary jobs. Besides, the ones at the clothing store often helped us
find sizes that actually fit our tall European bodies.
I rather stupidly didn’t bring a pair of jeans with me (it was August while I was packing), so Jeff and I had to find some warmer clothing that actually fit. Fit being a relative word, of course. I could’ve gotten something tailor-made for a decent price, but I was a bit of a chicken and didn’t particularly want to be measured by someone who couldn’t understand what I was saying. C’est la vie, n’est-ce pas? We did find some clothes that fit fairly well, and neither of us froze—except for in our apartment. We had only one heater that did much of anything, and it primarily just warmed the rather spacious ceiling-space. I don’t particularly understand why they have such high ceilings in China, but they’re probably a good two or three feet higher than the average ceiling in America.
Finding things in the store wasn’t always an easy thing to do. But it wasn’t as hard as you might think, actually. A lot of the food was labeled in both Chinese and English. The really hard thing to find was salt. Jeff and I were able to find MSG really easy, but it wasn’t until Michelle and Ben showed us their salt we were able to find some to use in seasoning our food. We tried to find yeast, as well, but couldn’t…but that’s alright. Obviously we survived without making bread. It would’ve had to be steamed anyway, as most Chinese homes do not have ovens.
The Bubugao had a bakery. They made some delicious cake-loaves that I miss that were a lot like eating angel food cake. They also made sliced bread and rolls, which meant we could have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (their peanut butter was a big grainy, but yummy nevertheless). I made hamburgers a few times, also, by chopping up the beef (at least, I assume it was beef) really well. They also occasionally experimented with baked goods, making cookies and other sweets that weren’t quite right. But Jeff and I still enjoyed trying them.
Buying
meat in China was exciting. We decided to do so at the Bubugao rather than
off the street (I once saw a woman carrying baskets full of dog meat) because
they had packaged meat like we do at home. They also had it sitting in the
open, mind you, but we chose the vacuum sealed ones because the familiarity
was nice. If we had wanted really fresh meat, we could actually buy a chicken
at the store. They would kill it for us. Or we could buy a fish from one
of their fish tanks. One afternoon when we went shopping, Jeff and I were
behind a young woman who bought a bag full of fish. As the cashier worked
on checking her out, the fish hopped out of the bag and onto the conveyor
belt. It was hilarious.
Our neighbors thought it funny watching us buy so much at one time—especially my students. Once we used a shopping cart. We didn’t do that a second time—Jeff and I were hungry when we went to the store, so we ended up getting a lot. Taking a lot home on a crowded bus is not a fun thing to do, believe you me.
Everyone treated us with a lot of respect when we bought a new pressure cooker because the one in our apartment was broken. It was amusing. They treated us as if we were buying a car or something, finding their best English-speaker to help us fill out the form for the 300 yuan appliance. That thing was really nice. It made making rice a snap—I guesstimated on how much water to put in with the rice and then plugged it in while I worked on the rest of dinner. Jeff made several yummy stews with it. I even made dulce de leche after we found sweetened condensed milk. That stuff is really good with apples—like caramel, but more liquid. The sweetened condensed milk just needs to be boiled for a few hours, or put in a pressure cooker and then completely cooled.
When we first arrived in Xiangtan, Lany took us to Wal-mart for a day trip to Changsha. It was interesting in China—it was a lot like the Bubugao in that there were fruit, vegetables, fish, and meat out in the open. It was two stories, and there was a neat escalator leading from one floor to the next. The one at the Bubugao would actually clamp onto the cart so that it didn’t roll backwards, and was an inclined plane. We should start building up rather than out. I found really cute and comfortable shoes at Wal-mart, so that was really neat.
Comparatively, shopping is fairly similar, though there aren’t as many grocers with meat and whatnot throughout the town—it’s primarily downtown. There was a small store near our apartment that Jeff and I would visit occasionally to get noodles. They were a lot like ramen noodles, but they come with dried vegetables and little bits of meat and spice. I miss those, too. There was a little tank for children to ride just outside the little store—the Chinese are very proud of their military. As Christmas approached, they actually changed the music that the tank played to “Jingle Bells”. It was hilarious watching a child ride that tank…
China
has a lot of KFC’s, McDonald’s, and Pizza Huts. The items on the menu are
different than they are here. For instance, the quarter pounder with cheese
has cucumbers instead of pickles. And the chicken sandwiches are significantly
spicier. Jeff and I generally went to McDonald’s when we did eat fast food,
and would have ice cream afterward because it was one of the very few places
with ice cream worth buying. Dairy is not all that big in China. Cheese,
milk, and butter aren’t very common.
Stores sold Christmas decorations. There were really neat wands available at the Bubugao with Santa Claus on them. I was surprised by how much Christmas we saw, actually. Then again, the Western world has influenced a lot of Chinese life. There were a few stores that proudly displayed Western-style toilets prominently in their display rooms, actually.
If a price is not written on something at a store, you are encouraged to haggle in price for it. Many people find this a fun game, looking to get a bargain. I don’t like it, and I’m not very good at it. That’s why Jeff and I enjoyed going to stores with set prices. It was hard knowing how much something was actually worth while haggling. Of course, while in Beijing, it was kinda fun at the Pearl market…
Sorry...I just thought with the captain issue in question, I'd throw
in my name for consideration.
Pintel