My Chinese cooking class

Now, for those of you who know me well, don't have a heart attack or anything but because of the sheer amount of free time I have here, I decided to sign up for the "Healthy Chinese Cooking" class offered through the community center. In general, I don't cook. And especially in China because first of all, we don't have an oven (it's pretty common here not to have an oven since the Chinese don't bake). And second of all, imported ingredients are expensive and hard to find and I can't read the labels on the local stuff to figure out what it is which really limits my ability to plan a dinner menu.

I think I've mentioned this before but real Chinese food is totally different from the stuff we can get in the States. For the most part, it's much less greasy and fatty and they use a lot of fresh veggies and spices. Some of things that I've learned to cook in my class include a fresh spicy shrimp salad with lemongrass, pork ribs steamed in lotus leaf, and steamed clams with ginger.

Below are some photos from class:

Dana, our excellent teacher!

Fresh ingredients- ready to go for class.

Spinach and pine nuts flavored with chinese cooking wine.

Live river clams ready for cooking.

The finished product- clams with ginger, chilies, and green onions- yummy!

Swine flu from a Chinese perspective...

Let me tell you, China is having a field day with the swine flu pandemic. After the SARS epidemic which originated in Asia, they are thrilled to be dealing with a virus that didn't originate in this country! Now, it is a well known fact around town there that during SARS, there were several cases in the Shanghai; however, to this day the government denies that there were more than a handful of cases. Apparently, rumor has it that they were hiding the patients in an old government hospital. So, it is no surprise to anyone that the only confirmed cases of swine flu here in mainland China have ONLY infected foreigners or Chinese citizens who flew directly back to China from the US or Canada. I have yet to hear of a case where a chinese person infected another chinese person on the mainland.


Now, in China's defense of this claim, they have put some interesting precautions in place. For instance, if you enter any type of clinic or hospital, there is a masked nurse at the door to check your temperature. If you have a fever, you are directed out of the hospital and straight to a local "fever center" where you will be examined and tested for the swine flu. While I don't relish the fact of having to go to a government run fever center instead of my western style hospital, it does make sense to keep it under control and it's an easy way for the government to monitor the situation. Thumbs up for this one (although I pray the kids don't develop a fever)!


The next precaution that has been enacted is that all international flights coming into the country are boarded by men in hazmat suits upon landing. They then use a fever detecting ray gun and check everyone on board. Here's the bummer though- if you have a fever, you are automatically quarantined as are all the people sitting 5 rows ahead and behind you. Now, I am not clear on this but I've heard stories of the feverish person coming back with a negative swine flu test and yet they've kept the foreigners in quarantine for up to 5 days anyway. If the feverish person tests positive for swine flu, then everyone around is kept in quarantine up to 7 days. My issue with this methodology is that they don't account for all the people in the airport, the airplane bathrooms, and the flight attendants that came in contact with the sick person. And now the US State department is warning people that China seems to be randomly quarantining foreigners. I am already super nervous about our trip back to China after our summer vacation and just hoping that nobody around us is sick! Can you imagine what it's like to quarantine two kids under the age of 5?


Check out the picture Sev took on his cell phone camera on his way back from Taiwan:


By the way, we are heading to the US in early July so I am not sure how much more blogging I will get to before & during the trip. I'll try to send some updates but if I don't get to it then I promise to return after summer vacation! Thanks for reading!

Shanghai Headlines

First off, I have to apologize for not being able to blog for awhile. The Chinese government has decided to block Blogger, so I have not been able to update for the past 2 weeks. In fact, I am only able to write this blog using anonymous surfing (don't ask- Sev's a techno geek).
Anyway, I know because I don't work, a lot of people think my life is stress free. True, I don't have work stress, but life in China is a stress all onto itself. As an example, I'll share some recent headlines from the local english language newspaper "Shanghai Daily". Keep in mind, that these three headlines are all from the same day.

1) Investigation of local produce finds up to 15 different types of pesticides- apparently, the local government went around to some local grocery stores and the wet market and tested several pieces of fruit and vegetables. On any given sample, there were up to 15 different pesticides on just one piece of produce, several of which are banned. Now you know if something is banned in China, it's gotta be REALLY bad stuff. I have since decided to try and buy only organic but over here, you can never really be sure if it's really organic or someone decided to slap an organic sticker on it because they know the foreigners like it!

2) Hand, foot, and mouth disease on the rise (again). I mentioned this in a previous post but the very common hand, foot, mouth disease has mutated in China and in some children, it develops into a fatal case of meningitis.

3) City investigation shows unacceptable levels of rat infestation in local grocery stores. The investigation focused on local grocery stores and found that the rat infestation was up to 10% in some stores (with the acceptable level at about 3%). This is wrong on so many levels, I don't even know where to begin. First off, why is there any acceptable level of rats in a grocery store?
And you be wondering how they determine the level of infestation- by examining the amount of rat poop, nests, and teeth marks throughout the store. They even found droppings on the counters where bread is sold. Although my favorite Carrefour was not part of the investigation, several of my friends have personally seen rats in the store so I can guarantee you that they have at least a 10% infestation.

So yeah, I am sometimes a little stressed about living in China which has lead to an obsession with getting cancer from our vegetables, compulsive hand washing, and inspecting my groceries for teeth marks from rats. Of course, you could argue it's no worse than worrying about the things most Americans worrying about these days: swine flu, the government taking over the banks and the auto industry, and job loss. It's just a different kind of worry.