Understanding China

Though Starbucks proliferates in many Chinese cities, even intosome historic sites, Chinese still drink a lot more tea than coffee.
Tea to Chinese is just like wine to French. It is the symbol ofthe culture and manifested to every corner of China.
There are many types of teas, out of which three types are mostpopular – green tea, black tea and scented tea
The price of tea can range from $1000 a pound, largelydepending upon its quality, taste and brand.
I personally love LongJing – a type of green tea. The bestLongJing is made from early spring buds before the raining season inHangZhou.
Chinese usually don’t use tea bags. They put tea into a cup andadd boiling water. They drink tea as it is without adding any sugar/milk.
After you put good LongJing into a glass, add water and wait5min, you can clearly see little buds standing at the bottom of you glass.
At the mean time, the water becomes green and gives outpleasant smell. What a treat!

Chinese love snacking. If you ever have a chance to walk intothe Shanghai No.1 Food Store, you will know what I mean.
This store sells all sorts of snacks popular in Shanghai. Let’salso don’t forget that every province has local snacks.
Two extremely types of snacks in China are sunflower seeds anddried plums – snacks of all time and across generations.
Seasoned and roasted sunflower seeds with shells are somethingChinese girls are very fond of. It is a great way to kill time : )
Dried plums can come in different flavors and shapes -snowflake plums, lovers’ plums, sour plums, crisp plums etc.
They are preserved using large amount of sugar and salt. Veryunhealthy food, but a good treat for your mouth.
Meat jerky is also very popular – from pork jerky, beef jerkyto fish jerky. They also come in different shapes, forms and flavors.
Unfortunately the US customs prohibit travelers from carryingany meat products. Otherwise you could take some with you.
They are much more tasty than the typical beef jerky you canfind in grocery stores.

If you love Chinese food, you have probably tried Sichuan Chicken. But you might be disappointed to know that this dish is a US invention. Sichuan is a province in the southwest part of China, adjacent to Tibet. This place is famous for spicy food – plenty red hot peppers. The spicy food is a result of extremely humidity in the province. Chinese believe that eating hot peppers can keep humidity out of body. Hot peppers also have a large amount of vitamin C, which is believed to be responsible for perfect skins of Sichuan girls. The other reason is because of the lack of sunshine in the region : ) There is another seasoning very popular in a Sichuan dish:black peppercorn – something look like black pepper from a distance. Black peppercorn causes numbness around your lips. It isdifficult to imagine why anyone would enjoy it, right? But they are verypopular.

Chinese eat a wide variety of foods, thus enjoy a much more balanced diet. In addition, Chinese strongly believe “food remedy”. They would eat certain food, hoping to cure minor health issues. For example, pears for cough, livers for anemia?green beans for ulcer. When I was little, I had eaten a lot of fish heads which were believed to improve intelligence of children. Here I am! I think the food variety is partially due to poverty. When you are poor, you have to eat everything. Gradually, they become norm. Nowadays, Chinese are richer and more health conscious,especially the older generation. Some local delicacies still exist such as snake soup, star fishkebab and scorpions,etc, but they are more like occasional treats,

Vegetarians have a hard time traveling in China as meat is ubiquitous in every kind of food, even veg dishes.It is true that there are 1.3 billion customers in China. Most MNCs are competing for the 5-10% of them.

Fortune cookie is invented in the States. Don’t ask for it in China.