Made it to Guangzhou

Jackie, her cousin, and I made it to Guangzhou last night.

This morning the three of us went to a hospital where a few dozen girls were getting checked out for their coming visa interviews. It was surprisingly quick, only about two hours in total. We have to go back there pretty soon to get the results so we can take them to her interview Wednesday morning.

We don't have anything to do with the visa tomorrow. I don't we really have anything planned except shopping though. Although Guangzhou is one of the biggest cities in China, I don't think there are too many interesting things for a tourist to do.

For lunch today, we ate some "typical" Guangzhou food: seafood and vegetables, roasted chicken and pidgeon, and a couple other vegetable dishes.

I took a couple photos of the more interesting pieces of the meal:


Pigeon, including the head


Chicken head


Seeing all these bird heads around, I got curious about them. Jackie and her cousin assured me that eating its brain would help my brain. As you can see from this picture, the area just behind the eye had just been eaten by me.

I'm sure we'll continue to eat interesting food the rest of my time here. I'll be sure to snap a few more photos of what we consume.

Xi'an Now Grapefruit-Friendly

In the past when people have asked me what I miss most about America while living in China, my response has usually been: college basketball and football, good Mexican food, and grapefruit.

Although I still have trouble finding the chance to watch college sports and eat good Mexican food, my grapefruit fix has been filled.



All I have to say is, "Having Walmart in Xi'an is awesome."

Several months ago I found the 100% grapefruit juice . Then one day I randomly found the grapefruit face wash. Finding these grapefruit-based products were pleasant surprises, but I was still lacking the the ability to actually purchase an unadulterated grapefruit.

But then in January when my friend Taylor was here, we went looking for exotic Chinese fruit in Walmart's auxiliary fruit section. While going through a bunch of fruit I'd never seen before, I saw a sign for 西柚. I couldn't believe it. I never expected to see grapefruit in Xi'an. I bought one so I could see if it was any good.

To my delight, the grapefruit I bought was incredible. Walmart in China carries the "Ruby Red" variety of grapefruit (as opposed to the more light-pink variety), my favorite.

Ever since finding grapefruit a couple months ago, I've had at least a once-a-week Walmart grapefruit-run. They're pretty expensive actually, about 11RMB a piece, but I think that they are completely worth it.

Now if only some Mexican immigrants would relocate to Xi'an...

Has Western Fast Food Hit a Wall in China?

It appears that the Chinese population is beginning to realize that western fast food is unhealthy and too expensive.

From The Los Angeles Times:

Reporting from Shanghai -- Down an alley from a KFC, McDonald's and Pizza Hut in Shanghai, Li Hong sat inside a dingy little storefront that serves full-course dinners for a dollar.

Her tray was filled with cabbage, carrots, potatoes, a chicken leg and rice, plus soup. A Western fast-food meal would have cost her three times that much, said the young woman, who works as a sales clerk. "Why should I go there?" she said.

In the U.S., fast-food chains often thrive in tough times. But not so in China, where Western quick-service food isn't the cheapest stuff in town and, in target markets like Shanghai, there's too much competition. Plus, a growing number of consumers see it as unhealthful.

Read On

Reacting to the competitive and deteriorating market, McDonald's has cut prices significantly in China.

McDonald's Corp. (MCD) is slashing menu prices by nearly one-third for some items in China amid the country's sputtering economy.

Among the new offerings is an "Everyday Super Value Meal" that includes combo meals for 16.5 Chinese yuan ($2.41) and some individual items for CNY6 ($0.88).

McDonald's said these new prices and meals will save customers up to 32.6% off previous prices.

The fast-food giant is also offering a loyalty card that gives customers 20% off certain meals at the company's 1,050 China locations.

I can't say that I'm that surprised that Chinese people may move away from eating western fast food as much as they have been.

First, western fast food joints in China aren't cheap. In America, when you eat the crap that fast food places serve up you at least don't have to spend much money. That can't be said for China.

In Xi'an, a bowl of my noodles (臊子面) from my favorite little restaurant costs 6RMB. The sandwich (肉夹馍) that the restaurant also serves costs 3RMB. And then a bottle of Fanta costs 1RMB. So at this place, I can spend 10RMB and be absolutely full on delicious food.

There are literally thousands of restaurants all over Xi'an serving noodles, dumplings, fried rice, and other Chinese staples for between five and ten RMB a plate.

For comparison, the cheapest meal at the KFC down the street from my apartment is 20RMB. And more often than not, spending 20RMB there won't fill me up. McDonald's might be a bit cheaper now, but it is still at least 50% more expensive than the little restaurants that dot Xi'an's streets.

In addition to being more expensive, the food served at fast food restaurants is obviously junk food. I believe that Chinese people eat healthy compared to the people from middle America where I grew up. Nearly every Chinese person I've met is at least conscious about the benefits of eating a balance of fruit and vegetables. They generally don't eat as much of the greasy and fatty food which are staples of American "cuisine."

There are so many more western fast food restaurants in Xi'an now compared to when I came here three years ago. There are three KFCs, two McDonald's, one Pizza Hut, and one Subway all within about a twenty minute walk from my house. McDonald's and Subway are not as ubiquitous as KFC, but I've seen a lot of signs advertising their opening of new restaurants for the coming year.

KFCs, on the other hand, are everywhere in Xi'an. I cannot emphasize how many you will see if you take a bus from one part of the city to another. I can think of at least two places in Xi'an where there are KFCs on each side of the street facing each other. In my opinion, KFC has over-saturated its market here. I don't see how there is room for growth in Xi'an for the company.

I can't imagine that Chinese people's tastes for western fast food will evaporate overnight, but I'll be curious to see how much growth is left in an economic crisis for restaurants that serve food without nutrients and charge twice the amount of a normal Chinese meal.

Bone Dry

The other day, a few of my friends and I were trying to remember the last time it rained in Xi'an. We couldn't. We figured it had to have been in November or October.

From The Associated Press:

BEIJING: China has declared a top-level emergency for the country's worst drought in five decades that has hit eight wheat-growing northern provinces and left more than 4 million people without proper drinking water.

The crisis was raised to a level one emergency from level two late Thursday, the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief said on its Web site.

That means the Flood Control and Drought Relief office takes control of the relief effort. It also triggers help from railway, civil aviation and other transport departments.

The announcement said rainfall in many parts of northern and central China has been 50 to 80 percent less than normal, and that 4.29 million people and more than 2 million livestock were without proper drinking water.

Read On

Doing a Google search right now, I'm having trouble finding any data about Xi'an's precipitation. Just from living in Xi'an though, I can tell you that it hasn't been here raining at all.

Living in a large city, this isn't that big of a deal. It is surely a bigger deal for farmers living out in the countryside who depend upon falling rain for survival.

This drying of China is nothing new. Northern and Northwest China are currently being crushed by a massive wave of desertification. The Gobi and Taklamakan deserts in China's Northwest frontier are spreading to other parts of the country very quickly.

North China's desertification, droughts, and, general, drying out is a very serious problem. Combining these phenomena with the melting glaciers in the Himalayas and their falling water tables and it's hard to see where China is going to get its water in the future.

The powers that be in China recognize this fact. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao has gone so far to say that "water scarcity threatens the very survival of the Chinese nation."

Humans need water to live. It thus makes sense that a country needs to water to survive as well.

China, particularly Northern China, simply must come up with a way to hydrate itself.

Flat Red Bull

I've never been a big fan of Red Bull. But the Chinese versions of the drink is particularly foul. For whatever reason the drink is uncarbonated and completely flat. It is like drinking cough syrup.

The drink seems to have caught on over here though. I see the drinks in every convenient store and super market as well as in night clubs as a mixer.

Tainted Instant Coffee and Milk Tea

The rest of the world, rightly, doesn't want anything to do with Chinese drinks.

From Bloomberg:

Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Seven instant coffee and milk tea products made in China are being recalled in the U.S. because of possible contamination with melamine, as health fears increased worldwide over the safety of Chinese dairy exports.

The Mr. Brown brand mixes are being recalled by King Car Food Industrial Co., based in Taiwan, and were made by China's Shandong Duqing Inc., the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said today in a statement. The agency said consumers shouldn't use the products.

The recall is the first announced by the FDA since milk tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical, was tied in China to the deaths of at least four babies and the illnesses of an estimated 53,000 children. The 27-nation European Union yesterday banned all imports of dairy-based Chinese food products for children and infants. India also has placed a three-month ban on diary products from China.

"The FDA is still in the process of determining how widespread the distribution is of Mr. Brown products in the United States,'' said Stephanie Kwisnek, an FDA spokeswoman, in an e-mail.

Read On

I'm trying my best not to drink any Chinese dairy products.

Thankfully, I don't drink instant coffee any more. I only drink the real thing. I do drink milk tea from the store sometimes, but that is Lipton brand. I won't be touching any of the Chinese brands of that kind of stuff any time soon.

That Milk Scandal

I've been seeing a lot of this in the news and hearing a little bit about it from other Chinese people. Seems to be quite serious.

From AFP:

BEIJING (AFP) — China's cabinet ordered an all-out effort Saturday to save babies poisoned by contaminated milk powder which has claimed the lives of four infants and sickened thousands more.

The State Council said sick babies should be given free medical treatment, ordered more checks on the dairy industry and vowed to punish those responsible for the scandal, the state Xinhua news agency said, quoting a statement.

The government has already announced the arrest of 18 people for their roles in the contamination of milk with the industrial chemical melamine.

Four babies have died and more than 6,000 are ill after drinking tainted infant formula, and the government said this week that regular milk, yoghurt and ice cream were also affected.

Read On

Not that I'm a huge milk and yoghurt drinker anyways, but I'm certainly watching what I eat and drink these days.

Honestly, I've always been grossed out by China's milk. Some of my western friends in China drink this "milk" that comes in little plastic bag-like containers that just sit outside little store fronts in the hot summer sun or whatever season it is. Considering that I've never been that big of a fan of America's "normal" refrigerated milk, there's no way I was ever going to try this unrefrigerated preservative filled junk.

Thankfully Xi'an is a big enough city that I can buy Wisconsin's very own Land of Lakes sharp cheddar or mozzarella imported whenever I want. Jackie's learned how to make a pretty wicked pizza with this cheese too. Something I'm very happy about.

Sour Gummy Worms

As many of my friends from back home know, I'm a huge fan of Trolli's sour gummy worms. These gummy worms along with nacho cheese, flavor blasted sunflower seeds, and a few other kinds of junk food are some of the things I miss most about America.

Seeing that not even every American supermarket or gas station has these sour gummy worms, I never thought I'd see them in central China.

Well, a small convenient store near my house just started stocking these sour gummy worms for 5 mao a very small package. Trolli brand at that. So soft, sour, and nice.