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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: Do you eat well?
If you do, how do you do it?
If you don't, well.....you must be in China.
And that being the case, what's your body telling you?
8 years 49 weeks ago in Health & Safety - China
My school is about an hour outside the city and lacks any form of transportation, so I'm essentially trapped here M - F. I have no kitchen in my apt., so I have to eat all meals at the school canteen. The cooks are all from the local village and apparently only have about eight dishes (all Chinese) in their culinary repertoire. Of course, they saturate all of these with low grade oil and high sodium sauces. As a result, I've been ill for many months and suffer from high blood pressure and abdominal pains. My only respite is on the weekends when I take a shuttle into the city and eat at the five star hotels or one of the handful of Western venues. Only another month left of this and I'll transfer to a school in a different province.
expatlife26:
That sounds awful, why don't you get yourself in a better situation?
hi2u:
There are no better restaurants outside of your school you could eat?
Quinn68:
I made the mistake of not checking out the campus before I signed the contract. Once I arrived, I realized what a horrible mistake I made, but I am following through with the contract, nonetheless. The program that I'm in pays quite well, so I just had to suck it up for the past 9 months, knowing that I can transfer to another high school in the program after it's over.
Quinn68:
There is literally nothing outside my school except a coal refinery and a landfill. I have to ride my bike for an hour to get to the nearest store. I'm pretty much forced to get a hotel in the city on the weekends because the canteen is closed (the students all go home). I've come close to doing a midnight run on this place, but I know that I can be in a better environment the next school year within the same program.
dongbeiren:
That's one of the most awful living situations I've heard of. The only worse one I can think of was someone who had to dodge bandits and gangs on his way to his uni classroom. So there is no store or supermarket on campus for the students? Surely there's somewhere for them to get their junk food.
Quinn68:
There is a small store on campus; only processed snacks like vacuum sealed chicken feet and shrimp flavored chips. I only go there to get bottled water and, if I miss dinner at the canteen, those little vacuum sealed sausages. There is an old mountain village near the school, but I don't like going there because the roads are narrow and the locals are always burning garbage on the sides of the street, black smoke everywhere. I have to wear a face mask when I ride my bike or the dirt and dust will get in my lungs. I had a meal at a small eatery there once and got violently ill. I'd rather go hungry than eat there again. It is a Spartan existence, indeed. I try not to think about my situation too much and just approach everything stoically.
I try to eat well. Most meals the wifey cooks. A mixture of Western and Chinese with laowai characteristics. Tonight it is pork steaks with homemade apple sauce and mash. Last night it was BBQ ribs. Tomorrow will be chinese I am sure.
We go out to eat on weekends usually. Be it lunches or dinners.
I also mix in the crap food as well. Pizza and Micky D's. It makes me happy.
royceH:
You're doing it right. I'm not. Body is starting to fail. I've got to try harder. But not so easy where I am. At least, in my wife's case, she does her best to spare me oil, at home or out.
mike695ca:
Yeah I hear ya, Where you are I can only imagine how hard it is to try and prepare stuff from back home. Luckily we have options in the south.
royceH:
But I can have some Uyghir bread and vegemite and some instant coffee. Going to do so now as I wait for the clock to speed up to beer time.
It can be a killer, what with Beijing time and all that....
I can't sing or play an instrument, buTT....I can cook. I rarely eat outside in China. Dishes? I rarely wash the dishes.
'Artists' shouldn't wash the dishes.
OT: I set up the meeting with photographer this Sunday. She'll take a pic of my 'beast'.
royceH:
Or have haircuts....or showers even...
Re your beast.....do you hold it in one hand or two?
Be interested in the photographer's response when you ask her to take your picture like that. Harr!
icnif77:
'Hold it in one hand'! Both.
I can do any 'activity' with water, except washing the dishes. It must be some 'aversion' from my previous life.
'add-it': Few students recognised me&'beast' last Saturday in my gear, and at our next class, I asked if someone could take a pic. I told them, posters on anon board think, I'm making it up stories about the 'beast'. LOL
She volunteered: 'I can. Sunday morning!'
She's gifted designer (women clothes), and wants to continue studies in Cali. She fancies photography, too.
I always eat out, but I manage to eat well. I always eat at the same few restaurants because I know they're cleaner than average and eat lots of vegetables and tofu. About once a week I'll eat at a nice buffet. A few times a month I go to HK and pig out.
My school is about an hour outside the city and lacks any form of transportation, so I'm essentially trapped here M - F. I have no kitchen in my apt., so I have to eat all meals at the school canteen. The cooks are all from the local village and apparently only have about eight dishes (all Chinese) in their culinary repertoire. Of course, they saturate all of these with low grade oil and high sodium sauces. As a result, I've been ill for many months and suffer from high blood pressure and abdominal pains. My only respite is on the weekends when I take a shuttle into the city and eat at the five star hotels or one of the handful of Western venues. Only another month left of this and I'll transfer to a school in a different province.
expatlife26:
That sounds awful, why don't you get yourself in a better situation?
hi2u:
There are no better restaurants outside of your school you could eat?
Quinn68:
I made the mistake of not checking out the campus before I signed the contract. Once I arrived, I realized what a horrible mistake I made, but I am following through with the contract, nonetheless. The program that I'm in pays quite well, so I just had to suck it up for the past 9 months, knowing that I can transfer to another high school in the program after it's over.
Quinn68:
There is literally nothing outside my school except a coal refinery and a landfill. I have to ride my bike for an hour to get to the nearest store. I'm pretty much forced to get a hotel in the city on the weekends because the canteen is closed (the students all go home). I've come close to doing a midnight run on this place, but I know that I can be in a better environment the next school year within the same program.
dongbeiren:
That's one of the most awful living situations I've heard of. The only worse one I can think of was someone who had to dodge bandits and gangs on his way to his uni classroom. So there is no store or supermarket on campus for the students? Surely there's somewhere for them to get their junk food.
Quinn68:
There is a small store on campus; only processed snacks like vacuum sealed chicken feet and shrimp flavored chips. I only go there to get bottled water and, if I miss dinner at the canteen, those little vacuum sealed sausages. There is an old mountain village near the school, but I don't like going there because the roads are narrow and the locals are always burning garbage on the sides of the street, black smoke everywhere. I have to wear a face mask when I ride my bike or the dirt and dust will get in my lungs. I had a meal at a small eatery there once and got violently ill. I'd rather go hungry than eat there again. It is a Spartan existence, indeed. I try not to think about my situation too much and just approach everything stoically.
I am doing well on that part, I love cooking, it has always been one of my hobbies, I try new dishes all the time and let my creativity express itself. It is easier for I live where the rich people also live in my city so there are many shops around selling tons of different foodstuff from the usual crap snacks for the spoiled brats to overpriced organic stuff for the pretend healthy peasants without forgetting the imported food from the West, Japan or elsewhere. My soon-to-be-wife girlfriend is also a great cook.
I eat pretty well.
Trying to adjust my diet as I have been hitting the gym everyday of the week and do a 30-40 minute work-out on top of that at home.
I would say I eat a good mix of Chinese and Western food. My wife is an awesome cook and I am not too bad. There are plenty of good restaurants and I find my way around healthy goods like oatmeal, fruits, vegetables and trying to cut down the drinking.
In China, if you don't know how to cook, you should learn pretty damn fast.
I have just switched about month ago to mostly my own diet and sports.
I came to China 9 years ago with 80kgs of weight. During this winter I have seen the hand on scale is very near to 120 ... Most of the time I ate chinese food, oily and high sodium, as always it is. I complained long time to my wife about her cooking way, she took a slight progress, but still is not enough. So I prepare my breakfast and dinner, plus snacks, only lunch is kanteen, but when there is anything with soysauce, I just refuse it and take the rest. Rice amount I have halved, and pork intake amount is on about 20% of previous levels. I feel much better, my belly is going down, health is improving greatly, now I am slightly bellow 110kgs and counting
Only I wish at home my wife take same approach so our son have better balance of nutrition in his diet. I am working on it hard, but not easy
So yes, I am eating well now.
DrMonkey:
Congrats for the effort, and my best encouragement to keep it :)
Me and my wife both enjoy cooking. We cook everything from scratch. It takes longer but you have more control over what you are eating. Weekends are the best time as you have more time to prepare meals. I have found that most ingredients can be found if you look hard enough so there are few excuses to not eating how you want to eat. At the end of the day it is important to have some joys in life though so we sometimes eat junk food as it does usually taste good.
I've lived alone for the last 15-20 years (mostly), and have been cooking for myself for all that time. While I only indulge in the specials every now and then (eg, Thai, Italian, Indian, etc), I usually just cook myself a piece of meat (I happen to love pork, so that makes life easy in China), and steam a few veggies. That's sort of my staple diet 5+ nights a week,
Breakfast tends to be something with eggs... and usually bacon, maybe onions or mushrooms.
On my days off, my breakfast is so late is it's really afternoon tea
And in my cooking, teh only real vice is the amount of oil I use :( (but I do drink a fair bit of water...)
I came to this country at about 71kg... and while it's gone up slightly (74), I'm still sitting around the same.
I don't exercise :(
Oh, yeah, maybe once or twice I'll go to a western restaurant, and eat something that I wouldn't do at home. And occasionally I'll eat Chinese.
My wife is an ok cook...The MIL can do some mean Dongbei Cai...many things. Love all
the big thing about eating, I think, is about eating at home. Restaurants are for special days. so if you eat at home, you are not gonna make crap. The whole fast food thing is troublesome .... go home, have dinner............... then there is what I actually do, I do eat at home most every day....wife is now cooking 2 separate meals ....... stuff she likes and won't give up and stuff I like, when she knows I won't eat some silly, boney thing that should never be served on a plate. T-Bone ok, hacked up chicken not OK, full size fish OK, little head and tail, with 0.001 meat inbetween, not OK.
I do like going out to local restaurants..... I encourage a different one every time... family has favorites from the past........I like to try new.... not like there is not enough of them... new one..................... I do know 2 now that are pretty impressive and clean and good, but I still want to find more......1 or 2 per month is all the exploration I do.
as long as I have access to this:
and especially this:
washed down w/ a few of these:
*yep, I took the pics
diverdude1:
blocked? I can see them. am I the only 1 who can see them? well, it's just a pic of street side bbq & a bowl of lanzhou la mian... no big deal