Cheese, Bread or Chicken

September 5, 2009

Today's Question: Which of the three is not to be found in Shenzhen: cheese, bread, or chicken?
Sofia, Isabel and I went with two of my teaching colleagues from the University to one of the big shopping areas in Shenzhen called Hua Qiang Bei. We took Bus 43 for forty-five minutes then transferred to the metro and rode for another 45 minutes. Hua Qiang Bei has more stuff than I've ever seen, ever. Enormous electronics stores, five and six story department stores with hundreds of little shops inside, the Women's World Market, the Foreign Clothing Trade Market, Gomz Electronics, McDonalds, KFCs, shoe stores, cosmetics stores, line the street on and on and on for miles and miles. Size-wise, the clothes in the stores work a little better here for Sofia and Isabel than for me. My dairy-fed Northern and Eastern European ancestors endowed me with more of a derriere than most Chinese. Plus, I'm just bigger in general but even extra-large wasn't cutting it.

We got lunch by pointing at food in an underground supermarket beneath one of the department stores. Three side dishes came with my rice. I couldn't tell exactly what was in each of them, but one was tomatoes with egg, one was something that tasted like squash with a chunk of meat, and the other was tofu with a sauce. I plunked the chunk of meat in my mouth and crunched. "Uhhh, this is boney," I said as I removed it from my mouth with chopsticks and delicately set it on the lid of the styrofoam container. After a few more mouthfuls, I traded dishes with Sofia. She's vegetarian but I didn't expect her shriek, "It has a beak. That's a beak. A beak, Mom!" On closer inspection, I confirmed that she was right. I had indeed chomped down on a stewed chicken head, but I didn't swallow.

Answer to Today's Question: Chicken is everywhere. Cheese and bread are nowhere. Chicken feet were on the menu in the University cafeteria this evening. No one chose them, at least not in our family.

Boiled eggs are a standard breakfast in China, often boiled in tea. Ours are just plain water boiled, but in the teapot, our single cooking implement. When I came back from the neighborhood market this morning carrying my flat of eggs - the second in three days, our neighbor stuck his head out and warned me. "I told your husband shopping is better at the Rainbow Market. High quality guaranteed. Don't shop at the corner market. Some things can be . . . fake." I was a little taken aback. "I bought eggs" I said, wondering how someone could fake eggs. "Probably okay." "I bought carrots and peppers and plums." "Fruit is probably okay. Don't buy meat. Meat can be a problem." That I can understand. I don't think I'll be buying meat anywhere, Rainbow Market or neighborhood market. Fake or not, I'm not sure I'd know what I was getting.