11.18.2004
Oh, crap!
Last night we made the trek--that is, we walked down the street five or six blocks--to the Outback Steakhouse for dinner. Very Chinese, don't you think? (On our walk, we passed by our local Subway, where you can, in fact, have it your way--I checked. Although I'd recommend staying away from the roast beef--trust me. Go with the ham.)
Anyway, Outback. Why, you are possibly wondering, would we go to the Outback for dinner with plenty of cheaper--and arguably better--restaurants closer to our apartment? (And if you aren't wondering, too bad because I'm going to tell you anyway.) One word: salads, which are in short supply here in most restaurants, which is to say they are basically non-existent. Why, you are again possibly wondering, and again I give you the same I-don't-care-if-you-are-or-not caveat. This time, two words: night soil.
If you are not familiar with that term, here are three words that will explain it: human, excrement, and fertilizer. Yes, that's right. Fruit and vegetables around here are grown with night soil. Maybe not all of them, but since night soil can carry a bunch of lovely diseases--hepatitis or typhoid, anyone?--you just have to assume that pretty much anything you buy is contaminated. For most items, this isn't a big deal--you wash it, peel it, and then eat it like you normally would. ("Normal" being a relative term here, of course.)
Lettuce, however, is another matter, which bring us to the salad issue: how, exactly, do you wash and/or peel salad? You don't of course, which means that the lettuce would have to be boiled, and--while I haven't personally tried it--I'm guessing that "boiled lettuce" does not rank high in terms of taste. Somewhere between Brussel sprouts and, well, night soil itself, I'd imagine--hence the lack of salad of Chinese cuisine.
So, to make a short story even more unnecessarily long, this is why you have to go to either a big Western restaurant (Subway, McDonald's, Outback, and so on) or an expensive hotel to get lettuce you can actually eat. And after a few days of nothing but stir-fried meat and rice, a salad starts to sound pretty good, which should also be added to the "things I never thought I'd say" file. It's not quite as shocking as Homer saying "Hmmm, salad"--unless, of course, it's a donut salad--but it's pretty close. Is it wrong that a donut salad sounds pretty good right now?
Hmmm, donut salad ...
Pictures. I finally got around to uploading the pictures from the Summer Palace. Again, there's only eighteen--including the Long Corridor, the Seventeen-Arch Bridge, and the Marble Boat that I mentioned the other day--which is not that many pictures considering the place is over 700 acres. So if you want to get technical about it (and obviously I do) that's only one picture for every forty acres or so, which I don't think is so bad.
The picture below is an example of what I talked about the other day: photos with random Chinese people. We were at the Summer Palace and this little Chinese girl wanted her boyfriend to take a picture of her with the girls, so I stood behind him and took a picture of my own.
Lisa, Kristin, Forever Nameless Chinese Girl, and Holly
(Lisa and Kristin--besides being happy to actually be named on this blog--are also the mysterious other "two Microsoft recruiters" I've mentioned from time to time.)
Anyway, Outback. Why, you are possibly wondering, would we go to the Outback for dinner with plenty of cheaper--and arguably better--restaurants closer to our apartment? (And if you aren't wondering, too bad because I'm going to tell you anyway.) One word: salads, which are in short supply here in most restaurants, which is to say they are basically non-existent. Why, you are again possibly wondering, and again I give you the same I-don't-care-if-you-are-or-not caveat. This time, two words: night soil.
If you are not familiar with that term, here are three words that will explain it: human, excrement, and fertilizer. Yes, that's right. Fruit and vegetables around here are grown with night soil. Maybe not all of them, but since night soil can carry a bunch of lovely diseases--hepatitis or typhoid, anyone?--you just have to assume that pretty much anything you buy is contaminated. For most items, this isn't a big deal--you wash it, peel it, and then eat it like you normally would. ("Normal" being a relative term here, of course.)
Lettuce, however, is another matter, which bring us to the salad issue: how, exactly, do you wash and/or peel salad? You don't of course, which means that the lettuce would have to be boiled, and--while I haven't personally tried it--I'm guessing that "boiled lettuce" does not rank high in terms of taste. Somewhere between Brussel sprouts and, well, night soil itself, I'd imagine--hence the lack of salad of Chinese cuisine.
So, to make a short story even more unnecessarily long, this is why you have to go to either a big Western restaurant (Subway, McDonald's, Outback, and so on) or an expensive hotel to get lettuce you can actually eat. And after a few days of nothing but stir-fried meat and rice, a salad starts to sound pretty good, which should also be added to the "things I never thought I'd say" file. It's not quite as shocking as Homer saying "Hmmm, salad"--unless, of course, it's a donut salad--but it's pretty close. Is it wrong that a donut salad sounds pretty good right now?
Hmmm, donut salad ...
Pictures. I finally got around to uploading the pictures from the Summer Palace. Again, there's only eighteen--including the Long Corridor, the Seventeen-Arch Bridge, and the Marble Boat that I mentioned the other day--which is not that many pictures considering the place is over 700 acres. So if you want to get technical about it (and obviously I do) that's only one picture for every forty acres or so, which I don't think is so bad.
The picture below is an example of what I talked about the other day: photos with random Chinese people. We were at the Summer Palace and this little Chinese girl wanted her boyfriend to take a picture of her with the girls, so I stood behind him and took a picture of my own.
Lisa, Kristin, Forever Nameless Chinese Girl, and Holly
(Lisa and Kristin--besides being happy to actually be named on this blog--are also the mysterious other "two Microsoft recruiters" I've mentioned from time to time.)
