Food Ethics or We Are All Diseased

I teach a unit in Passages 2 (the highest level book before students decide to do full-time study of either IETLS or TOEFL) about animal ethics, which has a very different meaning in China than it does in America. One of the conversations that I bring up centers around food and why, as a species, humans have a generally agreed upon set of meats that we agree are good and meats that we agree are bad, but there is a large spectrum of grey area of meats that are considered okay by some but not by others.

An open-air market in China

China is filled with open-air markets, and what I’m now referring to as “back alley butchers.” On our way to work, up what we call “Smelly Fish Street” for apt reasons, people hawk live (and often dead) fish, crabs, mollusks, and various other forms of seafood, which occasionally break free only to be squashed by a bicyclists. This predominantly centers around an alley whose main purpose is to serve up various meats, fish, spices, fruits, and vegetables. Many western/developed countries have a huge disconnect between their food and where their food comes from, to the point that when I ask a lot of my American students the origin of their food they tell me, “The store.” As if the grocery store was actually a giant farm that produced the food they consume. It’s hard to feel disconnected from your food when you can literally by the whole animal, as is often the case here.

A pretty typical meat stand. Now imagine 50
of them in a row with more variety.

When I ask my Chinese students why certain meat is off limits, many suggest religious reasons. Very true. Many people think cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and ducks are fair game, but cows are off limits to Hindus and pigs to Jews. I then ask for any other reasons they can think of and they normally suggest that endangered species don’t get eaten. I normally say, “Right, we’re not going to eat a panda.” This normally elicits a laugh, because the idea of eating a panda is so bizarre.

This is when I channel my inner Andrew Zimmern (host of Bizarre Foods and creator of the tagline, “If it looks good, eat it”) and start throwing out different things and test the students' response, all the while playing the Switzerland of meat appropriation and pretending not to have an opinion.  I had an interesting conversation with one of my students about one of my least favorite animals:

Me: “Alright, so what about rats?”

Diana: (yells) “That’s disgusting.”

Me: “Why?” (Mind you, my stomach is churning at the very idea of eating a rat.)

Diana: “They’re so ugly!”

Me: “Does your food need to be attractive?”

Diana: “They eat trash.”

Me: “Okay, that’s fair. They eat trash, so you would, in turn, be eating trash. But we’re thinking about city rats. The big, ugly black ones that live in your trash can. What about rats that live out in a swamp and eat only the grass?”

Diana: “That’s still disgusting.”

I then explained to her about the episode of Bizarre Foods I saw in which Andrew Zimmern travelled to Uganda where swamp rat is a staple because they’re 1) clean, 2) plentiful, 3) cheap, 4) good protein. She wasn’t convinced. I’m not either.

Here are some other things that come up:

Horse and donkey: Most westerns would scoff at these on their plates. Horse is a riding animal, almost close to a pet, and in general doesn’t belong in western dishes. It’s a pretty common food source in China.

Bug kebabs. 

Bugs: Another western taboo. These are a pretty common food source, particularly in Southeast Asia for the same reason as rats are popular in Uganda. Bugs were pretty much the epicenter of every Task 2 Fear Factor challenge, in which terrified Americans competing for half a million dollars would need to eat a cockroach. News flash: Fear is relative.

Turtle: I brought this up to the same student with whom I had brought up rats and she, again, looked shocked and awed because she loves turtles so much. (I honestly didn’t know that before suggesting it.) Anyway, about a week later, I saw five dead turtles for sale on Smelly Fish Street.

Rabbit: This is a sore subject for some because rabbits are pets. But rabbits are also food for a lot of people all over the world.

Sheep and goat: These animals are not necessarily considered by most as “taboo” but I’ve met a fair amount of people who just think eating sheep or goat is gross for one reason for another. As with many opinions regarding meat, it’s sometimes hard to find an articulate explanation.

All the other parts of the animals: Feet, brains, eyes, tail, privy bits, tongue, whatever. Even though I’m not into piling myself a helping, I admire that civilizations, including China, actually use the majority of the animal they’ve slaughtered.

Dog: This is a polarizing meat, and I tend to save it for the end of the conversation. Many of my students shudder and think it’s disgusting – which is the way I feel because, to me, dogs are loyal friends and companions – but I’ve had a handful who think, or used to think in the case of one, dog is a scrumptious chow (so to speak). And it certainly is sold and consumed here. There are restaurants that specialize in it, and fully intact, shaved dead dogs are sold down the aforementioned alley, a.k.a. Dead Dog Alley.

Much of the western consensus regarding meat has to do with the procurement. But again, this tends to only apply to “non-standard” meat sources. For instance, shark fin, which is appropriated in an exceedingly cruel way, wherein the fishermen drag the shark into their boats, cut off its fins, then throw it back in the water to drown. Our stomachs and bleeding hearts wrench at this, while we wolf down our Big Macs and KFC and Value Time chicken/pork/steak without an iota of thought about where that meat came from. (If you want a non-PETA take on McDonald’s egg procurement, check out this link http://foodrevolution.org/blog/mcdonalds-cruelty/.)

Factory-farmed chicken, which is pretty much every
chicken sold in fast food places and supermarkets
that doesn't specifically tell you it was locally grown
on a cage-free farm.

We get our proverbial panties in a twist because other countries eat different meats that we do, and

somehow we think that, because our diet consists of pork, beef, and poultry, we are somehow superior. But we can't be bothered to delve into the elemental nature of our own food and we continue to propagate fast food chains, have some pretty absurd ideas about what "free range" means, and allow ourselves to buy "value" (read: cheap) meat, like the stuff available at Super Wal-Marts.

So, why is it that some meat is okay and other is shocking? I don’t have an answer, but I think the whole thing is very interesting, particularly as someone who eats very little meat to begin with. For me, my stomach churns every time we walk down Dead Dog Alley (unfortunately the quickest route between our school and King Street, a place we frequent for groceries and restaurants), and not just because of the dog carcasses. The pig’s heads, the huge slabs of ribs, probably from a horse or cow, the full chickens, dangling from the walls by their feet, and the myriad other meats dripping blood along the suppliers’ tables creates a stench that curls my spine. But the reality is still that that is what meat is. It’s not prettily packaged patties that grow in a store. It’s not breaded nuggets we buy at a fast food place. It’s not steak stripped of bones and hair. It’s an animal.

I’m not telling anyone what they should and should not do in the case of meat. I, myself, do partake – I love turkey (D’Angelos, I’m coming for you when I get home), I love squid, I love tuna – and I’m not prepared to give those things up. But, particularly in western countries – America, I’m looking at you – we are in absolute denial about what our meat really is. Part of that, I imagine, is blissful ignorance, but I think it is one of the catalysts for America’s very skewed and – dare I say? – diseased relationship with food. It is exceedingly important, I think, to know the origins of your food, if even for the pretentious reason that knowledge is power and ignoring your foods’ origins is a weird form of self-censorship. And, for the record, no, children, your food doesn’t come from the store.

Special Shops and Meanderings

It's spring here and there are some flowers. As Karen Walker said in an episode of Will and Grace, "Aw, honey, they're almost beautiful."

I've been here ten months now, and I officially have no clothes that fit and very few without rather catastrophic holes. (Donations accepted, thanks.) I am now wearing predominantly an extremely ugly pair of jeans - made uglier by the fact that they're now a size or two too big and baggy in all the wrong places - and yoga pants. I'm rationing the yoga pants, however, because I want them to last. And apparently, I wear clothes harder in China.

So, yeah, right, now all my clothes are too big. Before you all go saying things like, "Oh, how wonderful," a couple of things: 1) Remember who you're talking to; 2) Really think about the next thing I'm going to tell you. I eat 100% more Oreos and KFC and drink at least 75% more soda and alcohol than I do at home. My diet is disgusting. I would say that, because we walk to work, which averages probably about an hour total (to and from work twice) five days a week, I'm getting more movement, but I think the weight loss is mostly psychologically influenced. And, despite it, I'm still too big for pretty much anything in China. I'm a 5XL here.

5XL. I'd have to go to what my students call "a special shop" to find anything that fits. And it's not like there aren't any fat people here. It's just that fat exists in kind of a different way. Actually, I should say that beauty ideology exists in a different way. In America, beauty and health are very much intertwined and we're force-fed this idea that in order to be healthy and desirable our abs must be flat and our thighs mustn't touch, and in order to achieve this we should drink laxatives (SlimFast) and hop onto fad diets and pay billions of dollars to the diet industry all the while being self-deprecating and promising that our future selves will be different, which is it's own special brand of bullshit. BUT we can still walk into almost any store - except, you know, those "super cool" places like Abecrombie and Fitch - and buy plus sizes, or as I like to call them, sizes. In China, beauty and health are mostly separate, but thin is very, very much in, to the point where people who would probably be a size six or eight in America think they're enormous. Especially for women, being waifish with arms that you can wrap hands around is quite sought after. Forget weight lifting. Anyway, consequently (perhaps), the vast majority of stores aren't stocked with larger size clothing.

An anecdote: Around August - so, a while ago - I asked one of my students where I could find leggings. I rather stupidly hadn't brought any, and I thought it would behove me to have a pair or two. Her mother was a shop owner, so my student said she'd ask her mother if there were any "special shops" that sold leggings. She reported back to me that I could "have them tailor made." Fucking leggings. I can buy them for $6.00. Tailor made. Jesus.

So, anyway, I am now stuck with my hobo-esque wardrobe, which grows more bedraggled everyday. It's spring, as I said, so I can hopefully start wearing skirts and dresses soon, but I bid adieu to my last functional pair of tights several months ago.

I am very much looking forward to Cumby's-hopping and refilling coffee for $1.09 while buying some new tights and jeans. I will then eat a bagel. Perhaps a turkey grinder. That's the plan.

Oh, also - and on a completely different topic - does anyone know when George R.R. Martin is planning on finishing book 6 of A Song of Ice and Fire. I mean, seriously. Okay, so I've never written an epic series, or anything, but there are things that need to be clarified. So, if somebody runs into him, tell him to get on it.

Big Fat Wonderful Cat

Typical Samson, snuggled up on the bed.

I saw your photo online. I went to meet you in Springfield. You were wary at first. I sat on the floor and tried to play with you, but you didn't care. You sat under a desk. I stayed on the floor and talked with Quinn for a while and asked questions about you to the person whose desk you were under.

Eventually you came out. Still wary, but you rubbed yourself on my back and gave me headbutts on my elbow.

You didn't cry once the whole way home.

The cat family.

For about two days you lived under the bed, nervous about your new surroundings -- somewhat interested in Desmond (who was moreso interested in your special food) and rightfully cautious of Emily whose bark is much worse than her bite. When you came out, you found a place on my pillow and you pretty much only left it to enjoy your place on my couch. Or my chair. Or my lap.

Samson's 16th birthday party.

I'd always wanted to adopt on older cat because it didn't seem fair to me for any animal to spend the rest of their lives in a cage, waiting for permanent love. I honestly didn't think you were going to last so long.

I'm so glad you did.

Here is the truth: I have had some wonderful cats in my life, but you are the best of the best. I don't know who you are -- whose soul inhabited and created your life -- but you are the most unbelievable companion.

Even people who don't really like cats like you. And those people who already liked cats love you. Because you are a cut above.

I don't know why your previous people let you go. I can't imagine why they would have. Who could

Samson and Jake sharing a head-butt moment.

willingly give up that face? Those eyes that look at you with pure love? The dog-like way you follow people around? And the big white paw that reaches up to you, demanding affection? The way your enormous, pillowy belly points upward as you roll around on the floor, your back paws clenched in a comical, endearing way. And the occasional spryness with which you manically chase a toy mouse, a ball, or nothing at all, and then promptly return to a cuddle session.

You have the worst breath ever. But it doesn't matter because a headbutt from you makes everything better.

Pillow time. 

Every time I took you to the vet she told me you were too fat. That always made me laugh. Like I was going to put my 17 year old cat on a diet. One time, she was snipping a matt away, and she accidentally nicked you and you ran into my arms. I thought that was the sweetest thing. I still do.

I'm so sorry I'm here right now instead of by your side, even though I know that you actually love Megan more than you love anyone else in the world. You were a serious consideration for me to stay. I'm so sorry I couldn't.

More than any creature I have ever met, you thrive off love. So know, remember, realize how very loved you are.

Keep my pillow warm and furry and enjoy the kisses of the spring sunshine.

Christmas isn't complete without a family photo.

Eat your Chobani and stay with us, Samson. You may be ready to go, but we're not ready to let you.

All in a Day

It's finally happened. It took ten and a half months, but the inevitable finally occurred: I got hit by a bike on my way to work.

Let me paint a picture for you. There is a sidewalk. The sidewalk is loaded with parked scooters and bicycles, vendors selling toenail clippers and smelly food, somebody doing open-air welding with construction parts all around, there are cars parked every which way. I cannot walk on the sidewalk. There is a bike path. The bike path is teeming with pedestrians, bikers, people on scooters food vendors, small trucks, and pretty regularly cars that honk incessantly like you're walking on THEIR bike path.

There is a blue truck parked, blocking half the bike path and it's hard to see around it. Because of this, people should make an effort to slow down, be slightly more conscientious.

They don't.

The parked blue truck is longer than I thought it was. I saddle up next to the side of it. An older man on a bike comes at an alarming speed around the truck right in my direction. I shimmy to the right to try to avoid him. He points his bike at me. I continue to shimmy to the right, but a little faster and he does, too, apparently not as concerned as me about the encroaching impact. This is mostly because he's gazing off into the horizon, seemingly unaware that there are too many people trying to squeeze past this truck. I've almost made it to the curb, but I really, really, really want to avoid stepping on the sewer grate, festooned with various pieces of trash, discarded food, and generally weird, wet, smelly things. Just as I try to lunge for the curb, he hits my left leg.

Could he have just kept going straight? Yes. Could he have gone right? Yes. Could he have actually looked up and/or ahead to see that I was right in front of him? Yes. Did he care? Not one iota. In fact, he didn't say A SINGLE THING - not that I would have known if he were apologizing anyway, but the fact that he didn't kind of gives you some idea of the frequency with which this probably happens - and just drove away merrily as I muttered some curse words and brushed the dirt of my black pants.

White Chick in a Wheelchair

Being in a Chinese hospital is a bit like what I imagine it would be like to be in a free clinic where copious uppers and downers and steroids are distributed. There are swarms of people – twin boys wearing matching shirts with rabbits in heart-shaped glasses; an old woman with sensible but ugly shoes who walks with a cane, a 30-something with a gaudy purple rabbit fur jacket, a young mother with a long torso and proportionately short legs who teeters on 5-inch heels while her toddler grapples for her hand, another toddler with a hot pink baseball hat on sideways whose mother hands her a Smart Phone to keep her entertained. There were just so many people. I imagined that, at home, if I was in a place with the sheer number of individuals at the hospital, at the very least, I would recognize at least ten of them – I would probably know more. But here in this sea of faces, not one was familiar.

I had said, “We can’t walk like this,” meaning double-wide in this people-circus, which Helen thought to mean I couldn’t walk at all, so she got me a wheelchair and parked me in front of the fire extinguisher while she went to get our number, like when you’re waiting at the deli. This was, as it turned out, the last convenient place she parked me.

She drove with reckless abandon otherwise – a bit like Chinese traffic – and saddled me right up to the walls so that I had to pull my bad foot in and hold my knee up by my chest. She hit two people and one person hit us – just sideswiped us because she wasn’t looking where she was going when she was entering a room – and Helen would park me in the middle of a crowded hallway so she could ask questions, very few of which were answered adequately. Hospital staff sent us to an area on the first floor were we were told to go to the fourth floor when they should have sent us to the fifth. On the fifth floor, we were told we couldn’t be served so we would have to go to the ER. The elevators were slow and could barely accommodate a wheelchair and a person. Between flashing their current floor numbers, a two-letter message appeared: “FU.”

People were generally fascinated by me ad gawked at me. Everybody asked where I was from and if I spoke Chinese and were terribly amused when I uttered a few remedial words. When the doctor asked, I asked Helen to explain to him that I could count, introduce myself, ask what something is, and buy beer, which I suppose gives me the functionality of a drunken two year old.

Two doctors touched the top of my foot and asked if it hurt. I explained the ailment to Helen who in turn translated it for the doctors, but, you know, second-hand diagnosis, and, they told me I was probably fine but sent me to get an X-Ray anyway. After I got my slides back, they took a precursory – almost flippant – look at them, decided nothing at all was the matter, which still didn’t explain why I couldn’t walk – and told me not to wrap it, which I didn’t understand because even the flimsy gauze I’d had on it prior was a huge relief. The told me it wouldn’t work, and wouldn’t even issue me a bandage. I tried to reason with them via Helen, which got messy and confusing and just resulted in the doctor shaking his head repeatedly.

As Helen wheeled me out in her own special, manic way, she said, “Okay, we do this way: I will bring you the crunch.” She meant a crutch, and it turned out, she actually meant a three-footed yet still unsteady cane with a built in stool to accommodate the world’s smallest butt, which I guess beats the pillow I had been using to slide myself around the apartment.

Every Girl's Dream

I was trolling Facebook this morning when I stumbled upon this lovely gem of an internet meme:

Click "Like" if you think women have more options than this. I'm not getting into who posted this because I'm not interested in finger pointing (that doesn't solve anything) but all I imagined was that this person - this woman - must get out of bed in the morning and think, "Hm...should I have a bagel or the Slim Fast? I should probably have the Slim Fast so I won't get fat so I can be more attractive to men."

As if women don't have any options outside of worrying about men and their weight. Not to mention how conflated the two ideas are. This meme advocates a very clear patriarchy in which men imagine women dream about falling in love and women claim to dream about staying thin. But why would they need to stay thin if it weren't for being appealing to men? And stop it with this "every girl" thing as if we all share the same values because we have vaginas. And, this is petty, but if I need someone to click "Like" to agree with my opinion, I don't think my perspective is strong or valuable enough to last.

I guess if I had to work within this dichotomy, I would choose to make every girl's dream: "To exist in a mindset free of weight and gender stigmas."

But really, women - astonishingly enough - have the capacity to dream, worry, wonder, and otherwise verb about many things apart from these two societal norms. Here are some potential dreams of some women (feel free to add your own!):

To solve world hunger.
To have a family.
To be millionaires.
To start and run a successful business.
To learn karate.
To bake a three layer cake.
To go sky diving.
To touch her toes.
To run a marathon.
To write a book.
To teach math.
To cure cancer.
To sew a quilt.
To never ever see another meme like this one.

Movement and Me

Lately I've had a prolonged case of the Februaries. The general apathy mixed with a kind of overwhelming funk. I tend to get the Februaries every year, but this year, so far away from everything I love and amassed in an almost constant, chronic phlegmy-cough inducing smog, it's been particularly bad. 

When March comes, I normally like to get out and take a few deep breaths of the hint of spring hanging high in the air. But when I did that here I just coughed on the fumes.
A bit like a caged lion, I've been pacing around the apartment, loathe to go outside and loathe to stay in.  

Today, Jake went to to play basketball with a friend and for a bit I sat around feeling sorry for myself and generally bored. I thought about doing Pilates, but I'd done it for three workouts in a row. I thought about doing Zumba, but every time I do worryingly large chunks of hair fall out. So I sat in front of the computer and sighed.

Finally, I opted to do something I don't normally do: kickboxing. I did two kickboxing workouts, then a light weight/high repetition Tae Bo. I was sweating a lot and chunks of hair were, as expected, lining the floor, but I was feeling really inspired, so I created four new Zumba routines. Two and a half hours later, my muscles were shaking and I smelled like sewer, but I felt fucking awesome.

That was a really roundabout way of saying this: movement rocks. I wasn't a kid who liked movement for several reasons. Firstly, my own preferences; I preferred to do something else than be active. Secondly, I only ever moved with the intention to lose weight from the ages of probably 10 to 20, and the results were minimal. Thirdly, other people. I didn't feel comfortable moving because I got made fun of when I did it. As I've said before: hypocrisy is ugly. You can't tell me I'm unhealthy and then ruthlessly torment me for practicing healthy habits. Make up your damn minds! Anyway, at least in this department, I've decided that those people, to put it crudely, can suck it. They do not have any jurisdiction any longer on my relationship with movement.

I know a lot of you are either going to roll your eyes or want to rip out my throat when I tell you that I actually enjoy working out. Sure, there are days when it's a struggle or a chore, and there are days when the couch is more alluring than my sneakers or my yoga mat, but most days I love the  feel of sweat beading on my forehead, the feeling of my heart pumping blood through my veins, my muscles contracting and pulling, the oddly sweet rush of water that quenches my dry mouth. More than that, I love how relaxed and accomplished I feel afterwards. 

Now, at the end of the day, I firmly believe that your health is your own business and nobody has a right to tell you what you should and should not do with your body except you, but I strongly encourage you to find a movement that you like. I know a lot of you are like me and have had a bad relationship with movement because of other people and because you've only ever worked out because you want to be skinny. If you can get past these things - for me, the first came pretty easily, by joining Curves and an African dance class, but the second required (still requires) a continual reminder that my health and my body size ARE mutually exclusive - your feelings about movement and working out might have a complete overhaul. Especially when you keep on mind that all movement is good movement. We get told quite a bit what movement we should do, and those change about as fast as diet trends. So I say find a movement you love. Find many movements you love. And throw away all your Jillian Michaels workout DVDs (unless you really like being bullied while you workout. In which case, why are you reading his blog?)
I'd also like to share some advice I recently read. In this culture, we're bombarded with misinformed and financially-motivated messages of health and beauty, most of which encourage us to give up things In order to achieve what the proverbial "they" think is the gold standard. No cookies. No cake. No chips. No pizza. No wine. No.. If you believe in reverse psychology (or you've ever dieted) you know that every time you look at that candy bar/bag of chips/whatever it is you want and say to yourself, "I can't have it," you want it more. AND THEN you have it and feel GUILTY,  which probably makes you want more. The advice I read turned that around and suggested that we try adding things. Have another glass of water. Have another piece of fruit. Have another serving of vegetables. Add another 5, 10, 15 minutes movement to our day. 

As I said, ultimately your health is your business and you can do whatever you want to do. As for me, I'm really sore, so I'm going to park it on the couch and rummage through the fridge for something for dinner. You can choose to sit here and read more of blog. You can go out and take a walk. You can dance like a champ to your Paul Simon album. But remember to move for you and not for anybody else.