Food

I doubt this will be the last entry on food but it is one of the big obstacles to living in Hong Kong. It is not that most food is strange (a lot of chicken and pork with rice), its that eating it frequently make the diet unusual. American stomachs are not really made for Chinese food three times a day. It took a little over a week to get my stomach to settle. Chinese food back home in the States is not really Chinese food. Some of it is close, like sweet and sour chicken (only its better here). However, there are no egg rolls (spring rolls are rare) and no fried rice. There may be a regional difference that I have not discovered yet but there are also few noodles. The food on campus is very cheap (about US$1-3 for a meal) but like any where else, is no where as good as off campus. Most food on campus is bland. The drinks are something that one would not expect to be different. There is pop, both Pepsi and Coke, but is not as common and there are not many choices. In Hong Kong cold drinks cost a lot more then hot drinks (often double) and I am not sure why yet. Tea is very common and milk is no where to be found. In general though, meals do not require a drink. At restaurants and at the dinning halls (called canteens) maybe one in five people actually order something to drink. Another very uncommon sight is napkins. Very few restaurants provide them and they cannot be found in the canteens.

There are some places that have attempted western food, and their success is comparable to Americans' attempt at Chinese. One of the canteens advertised a special on French food. The "sandwich" was a hot dog. On the tour the other day they feed us spaghetti. The noodles were right but the sauce was more of a strange paste. One night we did try Mexican (the only Mexican place I have seen so far). It was very much a juxtaposition of culture. Americans ordering Mexican from a Chinese. It was sort of Mexican, the chips were greasy and I am not sure how that happened.

Some might be wondering why I have tried to revert back to western food so quickly. The answer is when your stomach feels like it is going to kill you for eating such foreign things so frequently, you need something every now and then to ease yourself into the cultural. It is probably cheating but I think I understand what "American" food is much better now.