The day dawned quietly, without fanfare on the world stage. The day when comparative financial security, stable home and hearth, and most crucial, the recognition that what my mother thought did not have to control my every choice, combined. It was a moment of insight on several levels. One revelation ( on how important a level is yet to be decided) was: I can eat whatever I want now.
To some readers this might be a true shoulder shrug event. BUT I grew up in the "poor children in China" clean your plate post war years; I also struggled for over a decade with buy milk or buy bread decisions as a young single parent on a shoestring, I deplore waste. Food preferences weren't optional for much of my life. My parents did not have a three bite rule ( i.e. If you are still gagging after three bites, you don't have to eat it.) although to be fair, they introduced new foods carefully and in small amounts. My mother ( who has well disguised food issues only perceived as I grew to adulthood) ruled the kitchen. Liver was not on the menu, but strangely lima beans (shiver) were. This indoctrination extended well into my own home...never thought about it really until the great day came.
HA HAH! I don't have to eat potatoes (until recently when I find I crave mashed), lima beans, or coriander. I will never be a tofu eating vegetarian, although I enjoy less and less meat. And I certainly prefer my food to arrive naked, faceless and wrapped in plastic from the shop. Food prep, sanitation and storage are important to me ( those food biology classes at University and later as shome child care supervisor cranked up my squeamishness.)
So here I find on the streets of Beijing all that sends my food alarm bells into overdrive. Unidentified featherless fowl bodies are suspended like clothes on a washline far above the pedestrians but close to the pollution dense streets (more flavor?) Tofu lurks for the unwary on every menu. Meat arrives from the kitchen with eyes and sometimes other bit intact. I did eat these street vendor wonderful little fruits on a stick. They were covered with boiling hot sugar syrup so I figure most the germs died. What a crunch sweet blast of flavor!
Some menu items are made out of , erm, guts. Some things are labelled edible (?) fungus, the consistency of which mildly resembles boiled rubber band. I have developed radar alert for such like things.
Now, truth be told we like most Chinese food. recipes. Sometimes the variations thereof are scary. In Beijing they like it spicy. No, I mean they like it hot. lip searing intestine scarring hot. My friend Laurie would die and go to heaven for the chili paste. The food radar usually alerts for chilies ..but these cooks are sneaky. The other morning a grilled tomato with lovely melted cheese looked for all the world like it came from London... via a good long soak in pepper sauce we found to my tongue's shriveled dismay.
We have mostly been able to navigate around pigeon soup complete with decapitated head with beak and eyes, sea cucumber in all its gelatinous ukky glory, and abalone which Himself will eat but did not pass my three bite test.But when someone else is doing the hosting and choosing we have to depend on pure good luck.
Take noodles...I give up. No chopstick skill. And I prefer not to be the table entertainment chasing my food over the plate. of course everyman here slurps their noodles. I am still my mother's child enough to know that having a noodle beard hanging out of my mouth over a little bowl it not happening in this lifetime. Of course someone runs for the fork...but I know me and noodles. It is an eating event reserved for home only even with western utensils.So they know now to order clumsy here dumplings--but please not 5 kinds!!!!!!!!
The Chinese restaurant menu has possibly 200 dishes on it. We choose maybe two and our hosts urge us to order more more more. No no no. Everyone shares what they order, but it is still always too much. I am glad to see that doggie bags are common here so the waste is mitigated somewhat but I see nearly full plates of food go into the bin at most meals. Makes me nuts because I know with a few hundred yards there are folks who have never seen the inside of a restaurant and would love this fresh food. The children don't look like they are starving but still...um the children in Africa are.
On the other hand, nothing of the animal is wasted. We went to have Peking Duck at this very famous place.Everything is used. yes, even the webs. And so as the guest of honor, Himself found himself with half a duck's head neatly cleavered in twain upon his plate. Not one to turn down odd food, he did eat. He lived to tell of it. Uck.
But then he was born and raised in a country where every bit of the pig is used except the squeak.
His mother would have competed with him to eat it. My mother would have died right there at the table.
I just go quietly quakers.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Schiphol, where you do not want to be handicapped.
It all started when Himself was invited to Beijing, no actually, it started with the announcement of a conference in China summer of 2012. Of course, I got on board immediately, as China is high on my list of loved places. We had discussed taking Thing One and Thing Two along because we could show them Beijing on one end of the visit and Shanghai on the other and perhaps Xi'an in between. When this invitation came, I suggested that we tack this other invitational "sabbatical" on to the end of that conference/ family visit, send the kids back to University, and stay on for whatever The Great Minds wanted him. Well, the great Minds wanted the meeting to happen well before next summer' s end so here we are. And I get TWO trips to China!
It has been a frenetic few weeks leading up to this visit. We have been burning the candle at both ends to clear our desks and leave tidy piles behind. A few nerve raveling bumps, as usual, but finally we kissed our teary eyed Sweetpea goodbye at the bus, loaded up our carefully measured and weighed baggage, and promptly found ourselves in the molasses slow evening rush towards the Amersfoort train station. We missed our train. Thirty minutes later we did the luggage into the train rhumba and off we went to Schiphol.
On of the nice things about Schiphol is that we are KLM elite flyers so we get the red carpet. One of the worst things about Schiphol is their cavalier and nearly always unsatisfactory assistance valet service. So, while checking in is efficient and often lineless, the wheelchair folks let us down badly, This time was the worst.
I have been told by a valet that the philosophy of the assistance service is to do the least they can for their customers "so they don't take advantage." Isn't that just stunning? Imagine coming to the Netherlands for the first time, with a handicap, and being treated so shabbily. What a first impression. I am ashamed. So, even knowing their track record, this episode was prize winning in its awesome consumer unfriendlyness. This time we were walked from the cheerless and uncomfortable assistance waiting area through Immigration, which is not that far, and since we go through the fast lane I don't have to endlessly stand, a main concern for me. So far so good. We got on the go cart went to security where it took forever and a day because Andries the Anarchist set off all the alarms. Well, yes, by the time he carries all the equipment and wires and electronics and stuff it does look worrying to security- and then he had a USB stick in his shirt pocket which made us even longer there.
By now our go-cart driver decided that she needed to go to another gate for a pickup because our delay might make her pickup think she wasn't coming.She did apologize saying that the scheduler had her booked very closely. So there we were whizzing right by our gate on the way to go get someone else. She parked and went off to collect the customer. We waited. and waited. Suddenly all in a rush our valet runs by at speed because she needs a wheelchair. She disappears. We waited. and waited. and then waited. Our girl rushes by with wheelchair, followed by another go-cart and driver WHICH IS EMPTY , AND PARKS AT THE GATE. Our frazzled valet vanishes with wheelchair. We wait five solid minutes. We can see our gate and our plane leaves in 20 minutes.
We finally decide enough is enough and waddle the way back to our to our gate. Luckily, the shuttle to Paris is not a big long lines kind of departure. So the standing was do-able. Luckily, I thought to inquire while on the way to CDG, a confusing a HUGE airport, if a wheelchair would be awaiting. Mind you, we had reserved one for all legs of the journey AND had email confirmation with us. The oh so French staff were so apologetic. Schiphol had assured them there were no wheelchair folks. Ah HA. But yes, they arranged, it was there, and Madame and her trusty valet were off through the cavernous Paris CDG terminal. So solicitous, so polite, and even apologetic when they had to switch valets- which valet wheeled me right to the plane entry with a smile and a steady elbow.
Schiphol is such that I don't remember a valet coming out to the baggage terminal-- but every where else this is normal. Beijing was no different. We again were in the express lane, no standing, and he even helped Andries with the baggage! Immigation went smoothly. Then we were met by two welcoming University students who were to take us to the University hotel by taxi. The valet actually stood there until the taxi was loaded and I didn't have to stand in line at all. Now THAT is a real blessing to me. and is the way handicapped folks should be treated.
I so appreciated that I am not wheelchair bound. When I must use one, I am often struck by the way the rest of the world treats the differently abled. Huh, and we call ourselves civilized. But we are safely in Beijing, and the saga begins....
It has been a frenetic few weeks leading up to this visit. We have been burning the candle at both ends to clear our desks and leave tidy piles behind. A few nerve raveling bumps, as usual, but finally we kissed our teary eyed Sweetpea goodbye at the bus, loaded up our carefully measured and weighed baggage, and promptly found ourselves in the molasses slow evening rush towards the Amersfoort train station. We missed our train. Thirty minutes later we did the luggage into the train rhumba and off we went to Schiphol.
On of the nice things about Schiphol is that we are KLM elite flyers so we get the red carpet. One of the worst things about Schiphol is their cavalier and nearly always unsatisfactory assistance valet service. So, while checking in is efficient and often lineless, the wheelchair folks let us down badly, This time was the worst.
I have been told by a valet that the philosophy of the assistance service is to do the least they can for their customers "so they don't take advantage." Isn't that just stunning? Imagine coming to the Netherlands for the first time, with a handicap, and being treated so shabbily. What a first impression. I am ashamed. So, even knowing their track record, this episode was prize winning in its awesome consumer unfriendlyness. This time we were walked from the cheerless and uncomfortable assistance waiting area through Immigration, which is not that far, and since we go through the fast lane I don't have to endlessly stand, a main concern for me. So far so good. We got on the go cart went to security where it took forever and a day because Andries the Anarchist set off all the alarms. Well, yes, by the time he carries all the equipment and wires and electronics and stuff it does look worrying to security- and then he had a USB stick in his shirt pocket which made us even longer there.
By now our go-cart driver decided that she needed to go to another gate for a pickup because our delay might make her pickup think she wasn't coming.She did apologize saying that the scheduler had her booked very closely. So there we were whizzing right by our gate on the way to go get someone else. She parked and went off to collect the customer. We waited. and waited. Suddenly all in a rush our valet runs by at speed because she needs a wheelchair. She disappears. We waited. and waited. and then waited. Our girl rushes by with wheelchair, followed by another go-cart and driver WHICH IS EMPTY , AND PARKS AT THE GATE. Our frazzled valet vanishes with wheelchair. We wait five solid minutes. We can see our gate and our plane leaves in 20 minutes.
We finally decide enough is enough and waddle the way back to our to our gate. Luckily, the shuttle to Paris is not a big long lines kind of departure. So the standing was do-able. Luckily, I thought to inquire while on the way to CDG, a confusing a HUGE airport, if a wheelchair would be awaiting. Mind you, we had reserved one for all legs of the journey AND had email confirmation with us. The oh so French staff were so apologetic. Schiphol had assured them there were no wheelchair folks. Ah HA. But yes, they arranged, it was there, and Madame and her trusty valet were off through the cavernous Paris CDG terminal. So solicitous, so polite, and even apologetic when they had to switch valets- which valet wheeled me right to the plane entry with a smile and a steady elbow.
Schiphol is such that I don't remember a valet coming out to the baggage terminal-- but every where else this is normal. Beijing was no different. We again were in the express lane, no standing, and he even helped Andries with the baggage! Immigation went smoothly. Then we were met by two welcoming University students who were to take us to the University hotel by taxi. The valet actually stood there until the taxi was loaded and I didn't have to stand in line at all. Now THAT is a real blessing to me. and is the way handicapped folks should be treated.
I so appreciated that I am not wheelchair bound. When I must use one, I am often struck by the way the rest of the world treats the differently abled. Huh, and we call ourselves civilized. But we are safely in Beijing, and the saga begins....
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