When in Rome

The Chinese have an idiom 入乡随俗 (literally enter the countryside, follow custom) which has a meaning effectively equivalent to “When in Rome, do as the Romans”. These past days I have both abided by that guideline and ignored it.

Thursday, several classmates refused to give up their annual turkey feast, and since cooking anything resembling Thanksgiving was impossible in our kitchen of two woks with electric stoves, a microwave and something that claims to be a toaster oven, we ended up going to an Irish pub, which had put out a pretty decent spread, and having a quite enjoyable meal, finished off with drinking beers from the convenience store outside the pub, because inside the prices were outrageous.

Friday a bunch of us went on a trip organized by our residential director Jeremy, to Anji, a nearby town surrounded by bamboo forest, where the bamboo fight scene of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was filmed. We stayed in a fairly modest hotel, where we were given dinner and allowed to make a bonfire. At dinner, each dish was announced to us as it was placed on the table, and as the second one hit, every one of us did an audio double take. Sure enough, the woman toting the plates around had announced that it was dog meat. I tried a bite, and it was ok, but a bit dry, and not as good as the rabbit they brought us. I mostly ate vegetables because I needed something a bit lighter.

Saturday we hiked around in the woods, and I was thrilled to have been able to find real whole wheat bread and to have bought real monterey jack cheese, and thus was able to have a rather authentic trail meal, supplemented by sharing some other people’s gorp and peanut butter. By the time we’d dragged ourselves home last night, I could do little other than shower and crawl into bed.