Fear the Western Food
A few times I have encountered some Chinese people who really fear Western food. While this is somewhat funny, given the ridiculous popularity of such fare as McDonald's and KFC, it seems to be somewhat related.
There is a belief that Western food will make one fat. Certainly, there is a lot of truth to this, as evidenced by some of the overweight foreigners that live here and the expanding waistlines of those who frequent McDonald's and KFC. However, all Western food seems to get painted with the same brush.
For instance, my friend Katie will make something for dinner, like stuffed peppers or a simple vegetable soup, and her Chinese ayi will not touch it. Even if Katie shows her that all the ingredients that went into it, shows her that they are no different than what they eat on a daily basis when the ayi cooks, her ayi will not touch it at all. She is afraid it will make her fat. This is all the more amusing to me because Katie and her husband are really skinny people.
On Friday, when we had Myles first birthday cake of the day, Randy made some coffee to go with it. My Chinese teacher actually likes coffee, and really likes the coffee we brew in our home (on Friday since it was Randy, it was Brazilian). She recommended to Myles' teacher that she try some then if she had never had coffee before. Li Laoshi said she had never tried coffee because she knew it made people fat. She was surprised that my teacher, a fairly thin woman, drank it so often. My teacher laughed and told her that it wasn't coffee that made people fat; it was what they put in it. We showed her the skim milk and, being Chinese, she didn't need more than a sprinkle of sugar in her half-cup. Li Laoshi was really surprised that coffee tasted good.
The whole fat/thin thing here in China fascinates me. There are more dimensions to it that we have in the US. On one hand, everyone over the age of forty-something remembers vividly the years of starvation. When I am invited over to a friend's house, often the mother or an aunt pushes food on me and Myles. They are trying to be hospitable, but afraid we might not get enough to eat. "Have you eaten? Have you eaten enough?" are common greetings, not just questions asked after a meal. On the other hand, a lot of people under, oh, 30, are obsessed with not getting fat. Some of my Chinese friends that are also expecting or recently had a baby say things to me like, "A surgical delivery gets you skinny faster," and "Nursing makes you fat." It is so odd to me that they are only a generation away from starving, and they are obsessed with body fat.
This fat/thin thing even extends to children. At our first apartment in Shekou, one of the janitors frequently commented on how chubby Myles was. She would squeeze his arms and mention that her own child's arms were closer to the size of the broom handle in her hand. Of course, this made me self-conscious about whether I was feeding him too much of the wrong thing. Then when we moved to our current garden, one full of more affluent Chinese people, I started to hear comments about how skinny Myles is. Same child, different comments. What a difference a few hundred thousand RMB in annual income make to a Chinese person's perspective.
There is a belief that Western food will make one fat. Certainly, there is a lot of truth to this, as evidenced by some of the overweight foreigners that live here and the expanding waistlines of those who frequent McDonald's and KFC. However, all Western food seems to get painted with the same brush.
For instance, my friend Katie will make something for dinner, like stuffed peppers or a simple vegetable soup, and her Chinese ayi will not touch it. Even if Katie shows her that all the ingredients that went into it, shows her that they are no different than what they eat on a daily basis when the ayi cooks, her ayi will not touch it at all. She is afraid it will make her fat. This is all the more amusing to me because Katie and her husband are really skinny people.
On Friday, when we had Myles first birthday cake of the day, Randy made some coffee to go with it. My Chinese teacher actually likes coffee, and really likes the coffee we brew in our home (on Friday since it was Randy, it was Brazilian). She recommended to Myles' teacher that she try some then if she had never had coffee before. Li Laoshi said she had never tried coffee because she knew it made people fat. She was surprised that my teacher, a fairly thin woman, drank it so often. My teacher laughed and told her that it wasn't coffee that made people fat; it was what they put in it. We showed her the skim milk and, being Chinese, she didn't need more than a sprinkle of sugar in her half-cup. Li Laoshi was really surprised that coffee tasted good.
The whole fat/thin thing here in China fascinates me. There are more dimensions to it that we have in the US. On one hand, everyone over the age of forty-something remembers vividly the years of starvation. When I am invited over to a friend's house, often the mother or an aunt pushes food on me and Myles. They are trying to be hospitable, but afraid we might not get enough to eat. "Have you eaten? Have you eaten enough?" are common greetings, not just questions asked after a meal. On the other hand, a lot of people under, oh, 30, are obsessed with not getting fat. Some of my Chinese friends that are also expecting or recently had a baby say things to me like, "A surgical delivery gets you skinny faster," and "Nursing makes you fat." It is so odd to me that they are only a generation away from starving, and they are obsessed with body fat.
This fat/thin thing even extends to children. At our first apartment in Shekou, one of the janitors frequently commented on how chubby Myles was. She would squeeze his arms and mention that her own child's arms were closer to the size of the broom handle in her hand. Of course, this made me self-conscious about whether I was feeding him too much of the wrong thing. Then when we moved to our current garden, one full of more affluent Chinese people, I started to hear comments about how skinny Myles is. Same child, different comments. What a difference a few hundred thousand RMB in annual income make to a Chinese person's perspective.
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