Last night we went to a hotpot restaurant. Hotpot is a local custom and involves a large table with a huge vat of boiling broth in the middle. There is an inner bowl and an outer bowl. The inner bowl is just broth. The outer bowl is broth mixed with spices and, especially, Szechuan peppers. This is the Szechuan province, after all, and it is known for and proud of its spicy food.
In hotpot you order a bunch of different meats and vegetables and, in courses, either dump them into the broths to let them cook or hold thin pieces of meat in the boiling broth to cook it between your chopsticks. Sometimes you reach (with chopsticks or a ladle) into the pot and – surprise! – something from a former course comes out. Little bits and pieces of some of everything mix together and cook up so that, by the end, the broth is an amalgam of everything thrown into it during the course of the night.
For me, this was a big hurdle. The first course was some type of whole bottom feeding fish and leeches. I passed. But the damage was done. Anything else that went into the mix was going to be infused with what just went in. Could I push aside the fact that my upcoming beef would be boiling in whatever came before it? Now, mind you, our hosts were keeping quite tame. Andreas (my colleague, and a far more extensive world traveler than I) went a few years ago and they had monkey brain in the hotpot. There was nothing like that tonight. Pork went in soon after, as well as pork dumplings, beef (2 kinds), mutton, sweet pork balls, cauliflower, tofu (2 kinds as well). It was spicy, and very good (at least the things I ate…) and I did a marvelous job of pushing aside the fact that all of my tofu and beef was marinating in pork and leech juice…
Eating, in China, is a different experience.
First off, there are no real main courses. There are hot and cold dishes. They are brought out continuously and, in general, you order 3-4 cold and 5-6 hot dishes in a meal, plus some type of noodles or rice. The preparation for a single dish can be extensive – so 8-10 is unwieldy in a home. But you get to try several different options at any one sitting. It is a much more participatory arrangement. I just ate from my chopsticks, but I stick them into the bowl or plate to grab more. So does everyone else. Can you imagine how THAT would go over in America? If I stuck my fork into the salad, ate off it, then stuck it back in? In China, this is the norm. You share, you serve each other, there’s no “this plate of food is mine” – it’s a collective, shared experience. There is something very nice about it.
Second, when you eat together in a group, you eat in private rooms. I’ve been told, by some of our hosts, that it’s in part because Chinese people are very loud and noisy and this facilitates conversation with your own group better. The Chinese also take meals very seriously, and want to make sure you are enjoying yourself. At most meals our hosts are walking around, making sure our glass (of beer or otherwise…) is always full. And since toasts are a big part of meals, there is a lot of refilling to do. There is also a lot of truth in the fact that deals, in China, get done over food. You don’t want others hearing your business. You also don’t want others to know if you’re meeting with the government, or if you do, what you’re discussing. Private rooms help facilitate that.
Finally, there are the toasts themselves. Business gets done over meals. And what seals deals, and shows the depth of your relationship, are toasts. They are expected and they are plentiful. Your host makes the first toast – to your partnership, long history, new friends – and everyone drinks up. Then, toasts get made in roughly the order of the importance of the people in the room. Those slightly below make toasts to those above them – their wisdom, health, help in career advancement. And you drink up. There are some rules (at least, I have been told…) – if a woman toasts a man, he has to drink up. If someone says “Gambe” – which means “bottom’s up” – you have to finish your glass. They drink a lot and take it as an affront if you don’t drink deeply (or so I’ve been told – I tried my best not to offend my hosts at any time during the drinking…). Only an “I’m driving” (drunk driving carries a 15 day stay in a jail like facility) or “my doctor says I shouldn’t” works to get you out of the expectation, woman or man.
As to the question I posed at the beginning? The answer is, clearly, a resounding “No”.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
We went out to a county hospital today to see a demonstration of their telemedicine project. In China there are 3 levels of healthcare hospitals and clinics: township (clinics), county (small hospitals – a county hospital might serve 3 townships with 200,000 – 500,000 people overseen), and city (large hospitals). You enter where you are – if you live in the countryside, you have to go to your township clinic. If they can’t treat or identify the issue, they refer you to the county hospital, etc.
In Szechuan there is a highly developed medical record system which is tied in to a telemedicine project. Doctors can speak to each other to consult or teach up and down the continuum. X-rays, MRI’s, and records are shared instantaneously through the same system. It is quite impressive. We have been looking for something similar to test the ability to connect our partners around the world so that they can remain in touch and a greater level of training and consultation can take place.
What has amazed me throughout this trip has been the clash of old and new, modernity and tradition. We were in the Chinese countryside – an hour from the city – and the hospital and city were rudimentary, by any Western standard, but we were using the peak of medical telemedicine technology. The room we were in had no air conditioning, the paint was peeling, there were 4 walls and a desk – but the level of care and treatment, and the knowledge by the medical staff, was extremely high.
There are no easy answers, things are not black and white in China. Just when you think you have it figured out or pinned down, you are surprised. It may be, that from an outsiders perspective, things are like that in the States as well and this is just a cultural issue. But I don’t think so. I think this is part of the culture clash – the explosion of modernity – that is happening here. The government decided internet access is a high priority, so everyone gets internet access – countryside, farming villages.
Tomorrow we leave for Beijing for the night and then fly home early Friday morning!
No comments:
Post a Comment