Going on day 5 in Shanghai and I am learning new things. Chinese food is not anything like Leanne Chin's or any other American Chinese food. The key take away points are that you better like pork (Think Bubba from the movie Forest Gump - pork noodles, pork dumplings, rice with pork juice, etc) and be careful when chewing any meat as they don't really believe in taking out the bones prior to serving. My first piece of chicken went something like this...chew, chew, crunch, spit. Good thing I had a napkin nearby to spit the bone into but their napkins here are a box of kleenex, weird. So far I have not had any bad reactions to the food (knock on wood) which is good because I am not sure I am limber enough to use the non-western toilets that are at the conference center where we are working. How do they do that? I would need a handrail or someone tethering me (belay on!) just like in climbing.
My chinese language skills consist of two words, I know thank you which is xie xie (pronounced she-eh she-eh) and tai gui le which means too expensive. I learned this one from one of our local employees when shopping at one of the markets. It is fun to barter but you have to be in the right mood and it does take both time and patience. Below is a picture of the larger of the two markets that I have visited.
I went on a factory visit today and I have one tomorrow. It is amazing to see furniture being made from jumbo rolls of metal to finished goods with a combination of both sweat and engineering. It certainly has made me appreciate the environment that I work in back in the states and the life that I have been blessed with. Speaking of which I can't wait to get home to family....and meat without bones will be nice too. 7 more days!
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