Thursday October 11, 2007
On RAGBRAI, we have a saying: If you’re not having fun, lower your expectations. In China, I’m calling it the grilled cheese phenomenon.
After I’d been here a few weeks the school gave me a small part of my relocation/airfare money. To celebrate, I bought butter. Butter is 20RMB at my market, which is only about $2.50, but for a grocery item it’s pretty expensive. I used it to cook myself eggs, potatoes and toast. If I had black pepper, it would have been perfect.
That same weekend Lindsey came over and I decided to make grilled-“cheese” sandwiches. The only cheese available in my market is tiny packages of what I assume is cream cheese, and individually-wrapped processed American cheese slices. It is even more expensive than butter. Additionally, all bread in China is slightly sweet (maybe unless you find a proper Western bakery), even the wheat sandwich bread I buy. On top of that, I only have a wok on a hotplate, so I had to be really vigilant about not letting the sandwiches burn, although they still cooked too quickly to allow the cheese to melt. So I microwaved them a few seconds to melt the cheese.
We ate our almost-burned, slightly soggy, slightly sweet, fake cheesy grilled-cheese sandwiches while sitting on the couch, eating off plates on my folding chair (I don’t have a table).
And it was one of the best grilled-cheese sandwiches I’ve ever had. Also the worst, but delicious.
Coffee, pizza, margaritas, tortilla chips, Jim Carrey movies… the bar isn’t set high. Though I think Chinese waitresses must be confused why foreigners keep ordering coffee, since we all grimace at the first sip.
Yesterday the grilled cheese phenomenon happened when my lone American student gave her speech to the class. It wasn’t a good speech, but! Naturally spoken English! Dramatic emphasis! Pauses between sentences! Like music.
I’m already anticipating the reverse culture shock: searching Chinese restaurants for scallion pancakes, actually attempting to make good tea, scouring Asian groceries for red bean and soy bean ice cream bars, finding strange comfort in absurd game shows and operatic Chinese melodramas on TV.
2 Comments
October 24, 2007 at 4:19 am
we also have a saying on ragbrai, “you can’t drink all day unless you start in the morning.”
do they have that in China?
October 24, 2007 at 6:17 pm
so true. speaking of which, that sounds like a plan for next weekend.