Flesh and bones

Being a vegetarian in China is sometimes adding to the curiosity of being a 'laowai'. Interestingly enough, when I was living in the north, it never really posed any difficulties, there were always plenty of veg dishes around and people usually accepted my choice without further questions.

Here in the south, on the other hand, it seems to be a much stranger thing to most people. Many, many times have I had waitresses look at me with a completely blank look when I have said "no meat and no seafood". Quite often after thinking for a while, they say something like: "I guess it will have to be green vegetables then." It takes a little prompting to find out about all the other veg, various kinds of tofu and so on.

And even then, you must make a point of telling them over and over, please don't put any meat in with the tofu, and please please no meat in my coffee (sometimes it really feels like this is how far it goes!). Even some of the sweet cakes here have meat in them!!!

And still, at least 4 times out of 10, one of the dishes will come with bits of meat in it. And when you point it out to the waitress, usually the reaction is yet another blank look.

Or, "well, we'll just take it out then".

Or, "this is not meat, it's just a little beef"

hmmmm.

Guangdong (Canton) people supposedly go the furthest with this. There is a saying in Chinese that Guangdong people eat anything with four legs except for tables, and anything that flies, except for airplanes. No wonder that is where SARS got started, too.

I think all this adding meat to everything business might have something to do with the fact that only a short time ago meat was not easy to get hold of. I remember my students in Baoding telling me how when coupons were used to get any food items, meat was a very, very rare luxury. So, once a year, on Chinese New Year, all the people would be given a little meat. While the others were making festival preparations at home, the kids would be sent out to queue for the rare treat. This time of year in the north can be biting cold, and after hours of standing outside, their hands and feet would be close to frostbite. And when you finally got to the head of the queue, you would never know which bit of the animal you would end up getting. So, in the end, the festival 'meat' for the common people might just as well have been a couple of ears or a foot.

So I guess now they are making up for it. And they are doing it well, too!