Today's journey involved my recent exploration into trying to eat healthy in Beijing. When I first got here I'm going to be honest...I just wanted to eat what was the 'easiest'. The question on my mind was always, ‘what can I purchase and eat with the least amount of embarrassment, Chinese language interaction, and or cooking preparation in our little rooms without a kitchen, any cooking supplies, or even a proper sink’. Then I started to venture out into exploring the cuisine Beijing has to offer. Korean BBQ's, Hot Pots, Jiatza, Restaurants with exciting Chinese dishes. Once I successfully mastered those I figured it was time to stop eating whatever I wanted and start trying to eat healthier.
Two weeks ago I started these efforts by switching out coke for diet coke and laying off the delicious ice cream that you can buy anywhere for relatively nothing (well at least reducing the amount of ice cream...every once in awhile you have to give in). While this effectively cut out all of the sugar in my life I decided it was time to start eating better than the greasy carbohydrate laden cafeteria food and the preservative enriched non-refrigerated sandwiches from the CBD. First goal…master the accent of the cashier at the fruit store near my house so I could start eating fruits. After a couple of embarrassing misses…I think I finally have her accent down. Enough so that I’ve been able to get 3-4 fruits into my diet for the last 5-6 days. Super success! Woohoo! Now comes the hard part-vegetables.
The problem is that the little fruit store does not have vegetables…so for these I would have to venture out to the Merry Mart. It should be noted that after many great adventures in the Merry Mart, I recently stopped going there…almost altogether. We discovered that the little stores (CBD) behind where we live are so close and so cheap that unless you need something specialized (like vegetables) there is no need to head all the way over there. But, I decided that the walk there and back would give me some good exercise…and I really wanted to start getting a few vegetables into my diet as well.
So I set out Monday night on a trek to the Merry Mart with healthy eating in mind. What I really wanted to get were ingredients to make a good salad. Eating a salad for lunch would be a great way to get my vegetables right? Well, the vegetables at the Merry Mart are certainly plentiful…and cheap! You can get pretty much whatever you want. I decided on a couple of tomatoes, a red bell pepper, a yellow bell pepper, a little tiny bunch of lettuce, a little bunch of cilantro, and some carrots. The other thing that you need to keep in mind is that the food here spoils SOOOO quickly. In the back of my mind I am thinking that even with refrigeration…3 days…tops on this produce. My last find at the Merry Mart…salad dressing! I had to search for it but eventually found some in the French foreign food aisle. It was a Caesar salad dressing that looked delicious (i.e. highly fattening)…but I decided it was essential…and really the goal was to be getting the vegetables into my diet.
I didn’t have time to make the salad Monday night, or last night because I’ve been extremely busy…so today during lunch I knew it was pretty much my last shot. So I went to my room excited at this possibility. After carefully washing all the vegetables in my little sink (with bottled water) I started going about trying to dice, slice, and assemble this salad in my little tiny room with my little tiny cutting board and knife. Well…I managed o.k. using the top of my refrigerator as a table and the little tupperware bowl I bought pre-bundled with a bottle of diet coke a while pack (love the marketing here). Before I knew it I had a delicious salad. I never thought my body would crave a salad, but who knows…anything is possible in China. I was excited about eating a good salad, not buying too many vegetables, being able to construct everything in my tiny little room and was cleaning everything up and putting everything away when it happened.
I had just finished washing off the rest of my red bell pepper to put into the fridge for a snack later and noticed that the sink had filled up with water. Not a big surprise. The sinks here do that all the time. In about two hours or so the water would slowly drain. So I brought the pepper out to my fridge and was putting it away when I heard ‘WOOOSH’ from the bathroom. This can’t be good. I go the bathroom to find that the sink has completely drained itself…all over the floor. Crud. How did that happen. I don’t know. I turn on the water and it goes right down the drain…until the drain meets the floor and then it all comes out…right onto the floor.
Salad…success. Sink…failure. Shoot. (Note: This is not the first time I have had problems with a sink...see Figure 1 for details.
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| Figure 1 |
That’s where my journey ended. I decided my room was not meant for me tonight so I went to my office…emailed someone about my sink…and finished writing a Calc III exam. I have faith that they will fix it quickly (Sidenote: It has been a day and a half...still no fixed sink :-( faith gone in the quick fix).
But, on a better note. Enoch and I decided to apply for an apartment. I guess we are first on the list…so if somebody moves out, we can move out of the guesthouse and have…a kitchen!!! A glorious kitchen! Yes, that would be amazing. Also, the apartments are super nice…so I’m crossing my fingers that this arrangement works out…soon. Hopefully by the spring semester. I guess that is all for now. The moral of the story is this…don’t take things for granted in the States. It is so easy to eat healthy there compared to here…but I just resisted it for whatever reason many many times.
O.k. off to try to recharge my phone which has apparently run out of minutes and text messages.
Zaijian,
Gary
Learn Chinese: Ni Hao Arrr (Apparently Beijing slang for 'You are stupid'.)
"anything is possible in china." - Gary
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