American Griswold In China: Fish Heads & No Running Water / Sirota Adventures in China.

[KoKo]

American Griswold In China: Fish Heads & No Running Water


NOTE: This is the third in a series entitled "An American Griswold In China" - a sequence of firsthand dispatches about my recent trip to China. These were written as my trip unfolded, but had to be posted now (a week after I returned home) in order to avoid any potential Chinese government censorship/sanctions for publishing while in China. My wife, Emily, and I were guided around the country by my longtime friend Mike Levy, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in China and who has a forthcoming book about his experiences entitled "Kosher Dogmeat." These reports describe what we saw through the eyes of a progressive and just an average American Clark W. Griswold. You can browse the entire photo and video catalogue from our trip here.

To see the full series in sequence as it is released, go here.

DAY 6: Beyond Thunderdome

We are staying with Jessica and Todd in their Peace Corps apartment in downtown Guiyang, and we slept exceptionally late this morning – for us, that meant about 8:30am, which suggests our body clocks may finally be adjusting to the 12-hour time change. We spent the first part of our day on a leisurely walk to Guiyang’s underground market.

It’s like a big subway station without any train (this city has no subway, btw), but with a Reading Terminal Market chock full of antique vendors. Here you can buy old busts of Mao, ancient coins, 40-year-old Chinese military medals and paper money that the Chinese nationalists (“Taiwanese” in the parlance of our times) once issued.

Adjacent to the underground market is a small network of alleyways with all sorts of street food. Earlier in the morning, Mike ate some of said street food, but I refrained after watching the cook first wipe his hand on a soggy gray-brown rag, then finger the food and scoop it onto the pancake Mike had ordered. I’ve coined my own Chinese proverb since being here: Better to be hungry than sick. I’ve discovered this wisdom from taking in the sanitary – or, better put, unsanitary – conditions of this city and this culture.

Todd’s story of dysentery sounds shockingly rare – he got it from accidentally eating feces from the rat that was living under his sink - but I’m betting it’s not that rare. “Hygeine” and “sanitation” seem to be relative terms here.

As just one example, walk down the street in Guiyang, and you will, at some point, likely find yourself behind a toddler wearing a one-piece with a slit in the back and his/her ass hanging out. If you are unlucky, you will see this toddler crouch down and defecate in the middle of the street, with his/her parent watching with adoration. This is one of the reasons Chinese people have you take your shoes off before entering a house; this is also why you are warned never to drink the tap water here, and why many residents are probably living with some form of Giardia; and this is the reason you eat undercooked forms of street food at your own peril.

Fortunately, when we did eat street food today, we ate Chinese Muslim noodles - a real delicacy, which you can see being made here:

More of PART I and II at........
http://open.salon.com/blog/david_sirota/2009/07/16/american_griswold_in_china_fish_heads_no_running_wate

[KoKo]

1. Kick...

[theoldman]

2. Having been to China I know this is a very biased article.

I never had any problem eating the food, even from food vendors. Before I left the states I asked my doctor if I needed any shots. He said that I was going to China, not India and did not need any. All of the young Chinese that I met were very interested in the US and not just Michael Jackson. If you go to the poorest parts of the US you would not get an accurate of what it is like.

[KoKo]

3. It depends on where you go in China. Sirota was visiting in a poor Province with Peace Corp

friend. His articles have some very interesting observations. Sort of like visiting Appalachia during the Great Depression after living in NYC during the BOOM times.

Just like America...not all of China is equal. And, the ways of the rural areas are not what you get in the Tourist Traps.

My nephew spent a year in China...his parents went over to visit him before he came home. He took them to the poorer areas and they had a hard time dealing with the poverty, food and smells. Were sick the whole trip. And both of them are Ph.D's from Columbia U and U of Rochester in NY. They are not folks who are "uncultured."

[KoKo]

4. ...