Food, Markets, and Phones

Food is important to everyone everywhere--but it seems, more so in China.

There are so many cafes and restaurants on most city blocks here in Beijing, offering such a wide variety of tasty dishes.  I get the impression that people here care about their food, and have an opinion about it.

And some eat almost everything that's historically been important (or at least available) in their daily diet, using many parts of animals (for example) which Americans would often toss.  But food which once might have been eaten out of necessity has been kept by many out of preference and taste.

Food here seems less mysterious in its origins.  There are so many open-air, public markets for raw fruits and vegetables (not already packaged), and meats which are hanging in front of you, with a butcher you can ask for the specific cut you want (if you speak Chinese).  So in markets like these (these photos are from warm-weather Hong Kong, not winter Beijing) we see people at indoor markets picking through the fruits and veggies they want, which have been piled up on large tables for their choice.  People here often can see, and handle, what they want to buy.  

At the large, second-floor market near where we are staying, one can also buy fresh fish of many varieties, fresh enough to still be alive.  In the photo at right we see some of the market's fish tanks, assuring freshness and the shopper's choice.  At this market there are also bins and bins displaying a wide variety of grains, beans, and other essentials for from-scratch cooking (below), many I've not seen before. Would we had a stove!

All of this doesn't mean everyone shops everyday and cooks at home every night, of course.  There have to be many who don't, given the cafes on most every street!  But in big cities like Beijing (25 million+), with the squeeze on affordable housing, some have less room to cook, and many people find they are working outside the home to keep up (sometimes barely) in a modern, urban commercial economy when they no longer grow their own food or have an adult at home all day.

Another factor in the changing demographics of family life has been China's one-child policy (1979-2015), which made it difficult for most families to have more than one child.  Given the traditional preference for sons, and the available technology to determine the sex of one's fetus coupled with abortion, the policy meant that many more boy than girl babies have been born in this past generation.  Many of those boys are now young adults, and there are too few women available to marry.  It's not surprising that I've seen some cafes filled with men rather than the suppers their wives might otherwise have cooked. 

In a pinch, those rushing home can stop at one of the small places offering some sort of take-out food, here steamed buns with a variety of possible ingredients, either vegetarian or minced meat (pork, beef, or chicken, or perhaps lamb rather than pork if the cook or shopper happens to be Hui or Uigher (two Muslim groups in China).  

   Below is a popular soup served at a Muslim cafe near Minzu University, with a largely ethnic minority student body here in Beijing. 

Food rationing ended in China in 1993; the greater prosperity over this past generation has meant hunger is less common than it once was, even part of the Western stereotype of what life in China essentially involved.

   Yet there are many who have not yet prospered, particularly in rural areas, often older farmers, but also even the children of parents who've migrated to the big cities in search of better pay and perhaps an urban lifestyle.  Migrants, of course, do not always find what they had hoped for, and work for low pay and live in challenging housing.  The government here in Beijing recently tore down some tracts of low-income housing occupied primarily by migrants, whose legal status in the city is weak, and the land sought for more lucrative purposes.

 In the title for this post I promised to
mention something about "phones" as well as food.  While we in the U.S. are often concerned about all of our new gadgets and media, something which might take up too much time, or displace our relationships, or even re-wire our brains.  What do we see here in China?

On the steps of an old cathedral in the former Portuguese colony of Macau, we see a bride to be with a "Sorry, I just have to take this call" look on her face.  

But, surely, this is a momentary aberration, and the ceremony would have continued on, showing the triumph of love over phone-curiosity?

Or...at left, we see an American woman, my very own wife Barbara, using her cellphone on, of all things, the Beijing subway--surely the perfect place to strike up a conversation with a person who is bound to turn out to be a new friend?  

We can only hope that the other passengers, virtually all of them on their phones, have been temporarily misled by the American's example.  And neither she nor her husband will be crass enough to point out that all these cellphones were likely made in China.

Sending this by social media, I remain your faithful correspondent.  Bruce