One way I’ve been dealing with my re-entry shock and our isolation is by experimenting with cooking Chinese food. I didn’t cook Chinese when I lived in China, because I could so easily and cheaply go out to a restaurant or use an app and have the food show up at my door. When I cooked, I made western food, because that wasn’t as easy to come by. But now, I miss Chinese food, so I have to figure out how to make it myself. I’ve been mostly pleased with how my dishes have turned out, and I’ve been learning things along the way. My parents are being really good sports at trying whatever I turn out.
Mapo tofu, smashed cucumber, egg and tomato, and broccoli with chili
Another thing I’m doing during this period is working through a re-entry workbook, to try and help me process the changes to my life. The questions I worked through yesterday were about food in my host country. One of them was “What role did food play in your host-culture’s customs and values? How did these food customs and values affect you?” These simple questions led me to some realizations.
Salt-fried pork and peppers, sour and spicy buckwheat noodles, stir fried cabbage, silken tofu with soy sauce
The basic way of how you eat together is very different between China and the U.S. If you go out to eat with a group in China, you eat family style. It doesn’t matter if it is a really formal banquet or a casual meal with a friend: food is shared. And usually whoever made the invitation takes the lead in ordering and paying. In more casual situations whoever is ordering might ask for suggestions or order foods they know the people eating enjoy. But I ate many meals where I had no idea what dishes were going to show up.
Pork and cabbage dumplings, Chinese broccoli with chili, and lotus root with ginger juice
Even when there is discussion, one of the keys to ordering a meal in China is to order a variety of different dishes. You don’t want all pork dishes or all spicy dishes or so on. So if you let each person choose a dish, even with the intention to share them, you usually don’t end up with a satisfying mix. When you do it this way, everyone tends to pick meat or special dishes, and no one orders the stir-fried greens that you need to round out a meal. If there is discussion, whoever is ordering usually tries to take the tastes at the table into account, so if most people don’t like spicy food, they won’t order spicy dishes. So eating is more communal and a place where you might not get everything you desire, because the meal for the whole group is more important than any one person’s desires.
My seasonal and local take on a Hong Kong dessert: rhubarb sago for Mother’s Day
As I thought about how these customs and values affected me, some light bulbs started to go off in my brain. This value of the group being more important than the individual is a value of Chinese culture in general. And this difference in values explains so many of the VASTLY different ways that Chinese citizens and American citizens have responded to very similar coronavirus-related restrictions. As a person who is shaped by both cultures in significant ways, realizing the contradiction in values that leads to very different actions helps me to understand why I feel so out of place and frustrated.
Di san xian (literally “three fresh things from the ground”), pork and peppers, spinach and peanuts, peas with chili
I’m not exactly sure what to do with that. Its a challenge of reentry, figuring out who you are as you change cultures again. It seems like the Chinese value has taught me something about the life of faith. Loving your neighbor as yourself, thinking of others more highly than yourself, and bearing each others burdens are all Biblical concepts. I’m thankful for this way that China has formed me to be more like Jesus. And it makes living in the U.S. more difficult, because I don’t fit in the same way. I don’t have a neat end to this story. But for now, I’m happy to have identified the discomfort, even if I don’t know what to do with it.
Resources for learning to cook Chinese food: Every Grain of Rice cookbook Omnivore’s Cookbook website The Woks of Life website Red House Spice website
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