Blueberry and Mango October 16, 2008
Posted by Christina in China, Musings.Tags: China, chips, food, pizza
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The honeymoon is over, China. It lasted quite a while- over two weeks of new sights, new sounds, new smells. Two weeks of gorging myself on rice and steamed vegetables and instant coffee and peach juice before trudging down the gray dust-coat, crowded street to buy the fresh vegetables lost its exciting flair. I’ve been craving pizza and a latte with the same intense desperation as a child staring at a cookie jar that’s been placed, woe to him, at the top of the fridge. Pizza and a latte. Hell, I’ll settle for real coffee. Two of the easiest foods to get in Chicago- or anywhere in the U.S., I imagine. I bet there’s a Starbucks inside Mount Rushmore.
But no, no. Not in wee Anyang, city of some hundreds of thousands. I find this shocking. Hasn’t Pizza Hut infiltrated Asia along with McDonald’s and KFC? Oy. All my students know about pizza so I want to yell Where the hell do you get it?! Surely the local KFC doesn’t serve pizza? (Why isn’t there a local Pizza Hut?) Ah, they deserve more credit. My students are actually quite well informed- asking me questions about the U.S. election and how I’m affected by the credit crisis. They know about pizza, even if they haven’t tasted the complete perfection that bread, mozzarella cheese, and tomato sauce (with hints of oregano and basil) create in your mouth.
So Chris and I are stuck here longing for the day we go into a Pizza Hut in Beijing. You know it’s bad when Pizza Hut sounds like the best pizza ever created.
So no pizza or any kind of Italian food. Not even spaghetti. The supermarkets sell a variety of noodles, but none appropriate for tomato sauce. For the sake of my well being (how much rice can a person take?) I’ve decided to make my own noodles and pasta sauce from scratch, as pizza will pose a problem since we don’t own an oven.
I took a solo journey to the hypermarket, Dennis, to buy olive oil. I had to blow dust off it to check the experation date but, thankfully, I still have a few months. As I meandered through the aisles, not lingering too long as it’s nearing 5 and time for the post-work crush of pushy, impatient people, I’m struck by several rows of Lay’s potato chips. Hmmmm… salty chips. I rarely ate the things except at BBQs when the vegetarians are left with hamburger buns and chips for dinner. Somehow, finding this familiar, Western brand was reassuring, a comfort to my pizza-longing heart. It was by no means a substitute, but I know what to expect from Lay’s and it was with that confidence that I attacked the shelves, looking for the “original” flavor but only finding things like, ”Seafood Spicy Flavor.” ”Pork Spicy Flavor.” What the hell? These aren’t potato chips! I practically flung cans off the shelf, but could only find “Chicken Spicy Flavor.” Damnation!
I picked up my broken hopes and begin to move on when something caught my eye: a lavender bag of chips with the Lay’s logo. Underneath the logo: “Natural & Cool Blueberry Flavor.” BLUEBERRY Potato Chips? Next to it another bag: “Natural & Warm Mango Flavor.” MANGO? There are pictures of chips on the front of the bag so yes the fruity flavored things inside are definitely chips. But Blueberry and Mango? Seafood and Pork flavor made a little sense but mixing sweet fruit with salty potatoes? Now I had to try this.
And Chris and I did. I didn’t know what I expected to happen when I tasted a blueberry chip, Nirvana I suppose, but what I tasted was blueberry muffin but saltier. And in chip form.
“I don’t know about this weirdness,” I said, slowly swallowing the chip-muffin.
He nodded but said he preferred the mango chips, as he didn’t have any associations with mangoes so the sweeter flavor didn’t bother him. It did me. Not nearly as sugary as blueberry but sweet enough to repulse- like drinking peach juice with a mouthful of salty chips. It’s just a bad idea- whose idea? Do the chinese actually enjoy blueberry chips? Curiouser and curiouser.
At least I have my olive oil and spaghetti… we’ll see how that goes.
Meeting the Family June 15, 2008
Posted by Christina in Musings.Tags: extended, family, pizza
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So funny thing about meeting your boyfriend’s family. The extended family. They aren’t as bad as they’re supposed to be. Supposed to be because, well. Boyfriend did spend a bit of time complaining about his “crazy” relatives. And who doesn’t dread meeting any and all people connected to someone you love? Crazy or not. You have to deal with these people and it will be so much nicer if you like each other. But all the old high school insecurities come out: do they like me? What if they don’t like me? What if I spill something all over myself or fall down the stairs or accidentally wet my pants?
I was a tad nervous as we pulled up to the pizza place (soooo very posh) to meet the aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins of my boyfriend’s family. I was playing it cool. Stoic face: check. Sweaty palms calmly at sides whilst entering the tiny banquet room crowded with 1,004 of boyfriend’s relatives: check. Oh. God.
In about five seconds I was introduced to all of them: Mary and Bob and Dan and I have no idea. Sweaty palm to nice dry palm. Oh, god. I’m the girl with cold, wet hands! That’s what they’ll say about me! I settled in my seat and gnawed on a greasy pizza trying not to think about it while gripping my diet coke with two hands so it didn’t accidentally slip out of my hands.
After several minutes stuck to vinyl chair, feeling entirely awkward, like everyone’ eyes were feasting on their new victim, I was, naturally, overwhelmed and completely unsure of what to say to these people besides “Ha! Pizza yummy!” After several minutes without anyone pouncing, I began to unwind and listen to the pleasant chitchat around me: families exchanging memories and catching up on each other’s lives. Made me want to be around my own family a little.
They were perfectly nice to me. Sure, lame jokes passed back-and-forth and stories were told that might have been a tad too intimate for a person they just met. I was prepared for these aggressive people who would badger me with intense, personal questions about my family and judge me if I was good enough. Well, there probably was a bit of that judging going on, but the discomfort level was fairly low. I guess I have to get to know these people a little better so they can decide to hate me or not. They gave me a bottle of Pinot Grigio and dessert to go so… that’s a good sign. Right?
Violent Monkeys? March 18, 2008
Posted by Christina in Musings.Tags: cuddle, monkeys, pizza, sex, violence
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How will the world end? In millions of years the sun will gobble the earth, or an asteroid collision in 50 years, or will we blow ourselves up in a mere…ten? Is it inevitable that people will destroy one another? Are humans innately violent?
I have mixed feelings about this. In my darker moods, I’m convinced we’re nothing more than squishy robots at the mercy of our firing neurons creating foul tempers and a propensity for punching.
I read this article on Discover’s website that explored this issue. It described, among other things, a group of notoriously violent primates who, once the particularly aggressive members of the group died, the whole group, including newly born males, where much more peaceful. Also, primates who live in an environment where their basic needs (food and sex) were routinely met without aggression, that group lived much more peacefully. Even males would cuddle and groom each other.
A couple other scientists interviewed in the article noted that in societies where women held equal positions with men, the rate of violence in in that society dropped. Also, there’s a correlation between greater education and economic opportunities for women and a lower rate of violence within that society, probably due to lower birthrates and a more stabilized population.
But even evidence from the earliest homo sapien tribes indicates that they lived in a culture of violence. Weapons found in graves and scratches and scrapes on bones indicate “war wounds.” And then there’s things like history classes, World War II, the ten o’clock news that illustrate our immense capacity for violence. Our daily lives, when we feel that rush of anger and our fists itch to punch something.
There are plenty of other factors, what ifs, and maybes to this question of inevitable violence. But the monkeys even adapt to a their circumstances and tone down aggression when it’s not necessary to their survival. Just because the first humans thousands of years ago were violent doesn’t mean we can be. Remember, they didn’t have iPods, pizza, or take bubble baths. We’ve come along way since then. We don’t have to fight other groups for food, or to survive the day. No, our lives are not at all like 10,000 BC.
So say there is conclusive evidence, someone discovers a violent gene perhaps, that shows humans are inherently violent. This is not permission or an excuse to start a fight or another war. Because, as violent as we can be, we’re also just as capable of peace. And I wonder if the real problem is we forget that sometimes.
