Cauli-sausage! Yum!

Boiled peas and carrot cubes might be easy to make, but they taste like wet socks to kids and not much better to adults. If you have children there’s a way to get them addicted to vegetables and I believe Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese have the solution.

The #1 best way to get kids to eat vegetables is to connect them to their favorite meats. Try cooking sliced pork, sausage, steak, or chicken with almost any vegetable you plan to serve. Blurring the flavors of these two foods will get any meat-eater to eat all their veggies.

If you’d like help with the first dish, try my great Cauli-sausage recipe.

Green Tea To-Go

All of my guests who have visited China notice the basics: delicious food, hospital people, beautiful landscapes, questionable hygiene, and ancient customs. One aspect of Chinese culture I often get asked about is tea culture. One specific part of the tea culture has been left untouched on AL.ME for years: Green Tea To-Go! So today I finally weigh in on an ancient custom that has been born through thousands of years of medical practice and remains a cornerstone in modern Chinese culture.

“Green Tea To-Go” is what I call the green tea containers which are ubiquitous among everyday Chinese (usually men). Bus drivers, office workers, teachers, and government officials can be seen carrying this simple hot beverage container with a strainer all day long. With all the benefits of (green) tea, it isn’t hard to grasp why they are so tea-crazy.  It has also become more obvious why they are so excited all the time. (Psst, they are high on green tea!)

For some, it is an addiction. They drink it at every breakfast, with lunch, and in the afternoon; They top off the bottle with steaming hot water every chance they get. It’s not hard to understand why… hot water is available everywhere, 24/7. You can top it off at your office, in the bus station, in the markets, and even in the police station! My recent visit to a PSB in Guangzhou proved that you can keep getting your fix practically anywhere! And when you’re surrounded by it, you’ll have difficulty shaking the habit. (i.e.:Dunkin’ Donuts lovers in much of the USA know what I’m talking about…)

Throughout my years in China I have also chosen to replace most of my coffee drinking with tea. I’m a product of my environment, for better or worse. Green Tea To-Go probably does more good than harm and should be considered as a reasonable way to cut-back on other drinking habits that we might develop over time.

Get some loose tea and a portable bottle, and then try it! Tell me how it goes

Duck, Pork, and Cabbage with Rice = $1.69

Good food on a budget is a specialty not only in China, but across the developing world. In countries which have recently joined the world economy, or only within the past 20-30 years, local food traditions have stayed strong. And although Western food is becoming more popular in these countries, their preference for local traditional dishes is unlikely to change in the near future.

The one common remark that students studying abroad make about their experience is that food doesn’t meet their standards. For example, the pizza, pasta, sandwiches, and salads option that fill cafeterias in the US provoke a homesickness that is unavoidable. Looking at the common dish I had for dinner last night, could you blame them for missing home?

Right outside my apartment is the “Sichuan Room”, a Cantonese-style Sichuan restaurant which serves amazing food at a low price. When I’m tired after a long day of work or study, I find comfort in a short visit to this restaurant. When I’m not interested in the $.25 options in the university cafeteria here at JNU, I take a two-minute stroll to a nirvana of tasty food.

Greens, Eggs, and Meaty Cauliflower = $.79

Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese all enjoy their local food more than foreign styles. Their dishes are full of vegetable, meat, and fish options. Although we in the US consider these cuisines to be non-native, and therefore an occasional experience, it would be much healthier if we started following more of this kind of tradition.

Check out my Asian recipes in AL.ME’s Cooking section!

North Korean Woman in Uniform

What is life truly like in North Korea?

We often default our answers to “full of misery and poverty,” or at least I usually do. It would be a surprise to see smiles in a place many Westerners consider to be a cold, unforgiving dungeon. But in this place which seems to be sealed off from the rest of Asia, and the world, glimpses of internationalism can still be found. Children play, common people go to work, elite students may learn English, and so, the Pyong Yang streets resemble a typical city in modern China.

Of course, the pictures you are about to see have been officially produced, censored, and posted in the news section of the most popular Chinese website, QQ.com (Chinese Link). I found them simply by signing into the 400 million+ member IM service and clicking their News pop-up. These are images that at least a few hundred-thousand people have seen within a few hours, and probably millions more by the end of today. This is the perception that Chinese have about North Korea.

So, what is life truly like in North Korea? Well, I guess it depends on which news site you prefer to read…

Click to visit slide show on QQ

Fire Cupping (bá guàn)

Back in 2005 I thought I was going to die… literally, it was the worst Flu I had ever experienced. Maybe it was from the new environment in China, or perhaps it was a random winter bug! No matter where it came from, it kept me in bed very achy muscles. I couldn’t get out of bed to visit the bathroom- it was that bad. I quickly decided that I would need help or else I’d be a goner. At the time I was dating a Vietnamese girl who was studying at the Southern Yangzte University of Wuxi, which is what I called home for the first month I was in China. After a distress call she immediately came to my apartment, flipped me face down, and started scraping my back with a washed coin. She poured White Flower Oil (白花油) all over my back during this process. It sucked. It burned. And I could be forgiven for thinking that she was helping the flu kill me even faster!

Back Scraping (guā shā)

After about 15 minutes of this I actually felt a bit numb. I could tell that my back was fully swollen red. The medicinal smell had already soaked me to the bone. This was my first experience with Gua Sha (刮痧) and I was hoping I would never need to go through that pain ever again. A few years later I noticed glass cups being used on some guests at a local spa. I also noticed big round dots on the backs of beach-goers. When I probed further I realized they got a procedure done called Ba Guan (拔罐). As you can see in the first picture of this post, Ba Guan uses suction to pull tight on your skin. This, according to thousands of years of practice, extracts impurities from your skin and blood. When you are feeling ill for a few days with symptoms such as tiredness, upset stomach, cough, sore throat, or even acne, you may consider having one of these two procedures done. It is not magic, however, it is imperative that these techniques be part of a healthy lifestyle. Remember, most Traditional Chinese Medicine is part of the cure, not a silver bullet.