11/07/23 - Chinese people can eat super simply by cooking some dumplings or wontons.
An askreddit question, “Old people in China spend most of their day cooking. Is this a phenomenon exclusive to China?”
The top-voted reply reads, “Chinese food is way too hard to make.
I worked overtime once, and started chatting up the cleaning lady, and she said that the best job she’s ever had was the half a year she spent cooking and cleaning for a white person.
There’s not much to say on the cleaning from. The white guy came alone to Shanghai to work, so everything was super simple. It wasn’t hard tidying up.
But when it comes to food, the cleaning lady’s face had a dream-like nostalgia to it when she told me.
She said that every day, the white guy eats a dish of meat and two dishes of vegetables. He buys pre-washed and pre-chopped vegetables. All you have to do once you get home is just take it out of the packaging.
All of his vegetables are universally boiled in water, or just eaten raw with prepackaged salad dressing. Sometimes, he doesn’t even bother with the salad dressing. Just sprinkles salt on raw veggies and eats them.
As for eat, whether it’s beef or fish or whatever, just throw it into the pan to grill, then sprinkle on some salt. No oil, no smoke, almost no cooking.
Then the white guy went back home to his own country and the cleaning lady was super sad. She wished all her employers were like this.
This cleaning lady was from Sichuan, and she often makes Sichuan cuisine for her employers. She says it’s super tiring and a ton of hassle.
Another story. A couple of years ago, I went with a friend to Germany to visit his son, who’s studying over there.
His son is living as roommates with a local German young man.
When we went, for the sake of saving money, we negotiated with the German young man whether or not he could go back home and live for a couple of days, and we’ll sleep in his room and pay him money.
The German guy thought about it and agreed. But he doesn’t want money, he wants to come over and eat the Chinese food we’ll be cooking.
We agreed, of course. He was super into Chinese food, and we were really happy he was so enthusiastic. So we asked him what he usually eats.
He opened the fridge and showed us package upon package of dinner rolls inside. And he says that he eats this kind of bread every day.
I asked him if he eats it every day, won’t he get tired of it? Isn’t he in the mood to try something else?
He pointed to the jars he had inside and said, “Of course I switch things up. I’ll use strawberry jam today, ketchup tomorrow, apple sauce the next day, and when I’m sick of sweet flavours, I’ll use pickles.”
Supposedly, he’d lived for over a decade like this.
Honestly, if we changed our culinary habits a little, it would make our old people’s lives a lot easier too. My parents cook in my house, and I often feel bad about it, so sometimes I’ll cook too.
To be honest, it really is exhausting, especially in the summer. It’s like a form of torture to stay next to the stove all day.
As for my answer, I hope all the pinkies [derogatory term for Chinese patriots] hold themselves in check a little. Because they’re probably eating their parents’ cooking too.”
Comments say, “Then just eat bread??”
“If all I can eat every meal is just bread and milk, then what’s the point of being alive?”
“Don’t overassociate things. This has nothing to do with Chinese food being a hassle, and western food being simple. Name the actual dishes. If western people want to eat a fancy meal, it’s also a hassle to make. And Chinese people can eat super simply by cooking some dumplings or wontons or noodles too.
An askreddit question, “What’s the pickiest eater you’ve ever met?”
A blogger posts their own response, “My wife. She refuses to eat watermelon, because she thinks it’s overly sugary and isn’t tasty. We were together for years and she refuses to even try out some watermelon.
Later, I pulled a chilled watermelon out of the fridge and talked her into trying some, and she was shocked. It was the first time she found out chilled watermelon is so delicious.
Her family was poor when she was growing up. They had watermelon, but only the kind that’s been sitting in the sun all day. It’s hot and sticky when she ate it, so she never liked it.
She hated tomato and eggs, says it’s too gamey. So I improved on her family’s tomato and eggs recipe, and added a bit of chilli peppers. Now, tomato and eggs is her favourite dish.
She doesn’t like meat, especially not fatty meat. I asked her why, and she said she doesn’t like to eat hot meat. It’s gamey and greasy. Her hometown is from Qinghai. They serve meat that you tear into with your hands, and bring it out boiling hot to the table. When you’re using hands, of course it’s extremely gamey. As a result, she slowly stopped liking meat.
I improved on the recipe for twice-cooked pork: remove gamey-ness from beef, cook it, and let it cool. Add chilli peppers, garlic sprouts, and garlic slices and stir fry on high heat. Just before serving it up into a plat, add a little bit of vinegar.
Now it’s her signature dish. Sometimes she eats it for several days in a row. She even especially uses brisket to make it, because it’s tastier with a little bit of fat.
I’ll actually spend effort removing gamey-ness from meat, so she likes almost everything I cook. But if other people make the same dish, she’ll go right back to being picky.
Later on, whenever I want her to try some food, I’ll tell her, “Just try it. If you don’t like it, you can spit it right out. I don’t mind.” Now, she almost never picks at her food anymore.
Ten years ago, I thought she was a horrible picky eater. Now, I’ve changed my mind. She’s not a picky eater. She just hadn’t met someone who was willing to cook food the way she liked to eat it.”
Comments say, “Your wife just likes chilli peppers.”
“Then tell me how to make green onions in a way that doesn’t make me want to throw up.”
“She’s not a picky eater, she’s just from a poor family.”
“When I was coming home from uni one year, I had too much stuff—chargers, old alarm clocks, headphones, all kinds of little trinkets that I had nowhere to put, and I didn’t want to throw away. So I stuffed all of it into a thermos and stuffed the thermos into the middle of a roll of paper, and wrapped a charger around the outside of it. Then I wrapped the whole thing up in tap and sealed both sides with electrical tape. Felt like I was a packing expert. I was so proud of myself.
So, I got arrested at Beijing station. After the investigation, they went out of their way to print out their X-ray scans, and had the deputy police chief show it to me himself. He said that they asked several explosive experts and they all said it was an extremely well-made IED. They almost blew it up just to be safe.”
Comments say, “I got “arrested” at Beijing airport because our checked luggage had a big bag of batteries next to a car radio. The cops saw I had a kid and my dad with me, and instantly looked less nervous. They opened the bag and checked it, and helped me pack everything back up afterwards.”
“I’ve brought an infrared thermometer through Beijing subways and got surrounded by people, pointing at me shakily and saying I’ve got a gun.”
“Just got back from Tibet, and TSA said I had a drone in my bag (a lot of places there ban drones because it’s right on the border), so they stopped me and opened my bag. It was my Switch T_T”
“I never had much contact with my MIL before, until I was 9 months pregnant and my MIL came over to help us with the baby. She even went and got month-sitting nurse training specifically for this. After she came over, one time, she helped me wash my underwear. I honestly felt like the whole world was ending. It was my darkest moment as an introvert. Even now, typing this up, I still feel like it was an unbelievable event.
My dream at the time was for people to all live in giant, transparent bubbles. You can’t see the bubble, but you can feel it. People can’t get too close to each other. Then the term “boundaries” came out, and I realised that what I wanted was boundaries.
But from the point of view of my MIL, she’s just trying to be helpful. She’d always felt bad because she hadn’t been able to financially support us much, so she’s always trying to help us in other areas as much as she can. If she met a DIL who just wants everything done for her, they’d get along great. But that’s not my personality, so my MIL often feels like there’s nothing she can help with. I’m sure she not happy about it either.”
Comments say, “This reminds me of my grandma. I had clothes drying in the yard that got blown onto the ground. I was napping, and she came in and shook me awake to tell me, “Your clothes fell on the floor! Go pick them up!””
“It’s too much helping wash your underwear. I can’t accept anyone touching my underwear.”
“My worst moment was just after giving birth and the doctor came over to visit and wanted me to spread my legs so he could check my genitals. That’s when my MIL happened to walk by, and she specifically doubled back to take a peek. I would cry every time I remembered this while sitting the month, and I absolutely hated that hospital. They don’t draw the curtains during examinations at all, or make anyone leave. And this was a private hospital in Beijing.”
“A lot of weird biological reflexes are taboos written into our DNA.
A lot of people have a natural fear of snakes, because a lot of our ancestors died to giant pythons in ancient times. A lot of our ancestors witnessed their tribe people be crushed to death and swallowed by giant snakes. That caused this fear to be solidly engrained into our DNA.
Men are afraid of something outside their window when they’re going to sleep. Girls are worried there’s something under their bed. This is because in ancient times, men often sleep below the tree, and women sleep on the branches.
People are more relaxed sleeping during rainy days because most carnivores don’t come outside when it’s raining.
When you nap until the sun is going down, you wake up feeling panicked and lonely, because if you haven’t met up with your tribe by the time the sun is going down, that could be fatal in ancient times.
If you feel like someone smells really good, it’s because your DNA match up, and there’s less of a chance that your offspring will inherit illnesses.
And a lot of niche fetishes, interests, and dislikes are all something your last lifetime, or past reincarnation’s experiences, has brought to you. It’s all engrained in the DNA of your soul.”
Coments say, “I’ve got a friend who claims to really hate people with wide jaws. He’s all like, maybe I was murdered by someone with a wide jaw in a past lifetime.”
A compilation of how important it is to own a car:
“When it was time to go grave sweeping for Memorial Day, all my other relatives drove their own cars with their own family. Only my family was split one by one into everyone else’s cars.”
“When you’re visiting relatives at New Years and watching your family get split up into different cars, you’ll know then how great it is to own your own car.”
“Why is it necessary to own a car? One time, we were at a banquet, and my aunt’s car was full so she suggested my dad ride in the trunk. At that moment, I decided to buy a car.”
“For me, it was a company bond-building outing. Everyone had left by the time I was done, and I almost had to walk back, because we’d went to some deep mountains. Later on, the CEO of the company passed by and asked if I couldn’t find a ride, and gave me a lift back to the factory.”
“The day I bought my car, I posted it to my social media account, and my crush who I’d friended an entire year ago upvoted my post for the very first time.”
“If you have a car, you’re a lot more confident riding your scooter around.”
“It’s true. I just leave mine in the garage all the time, but it makes me feel better about riding a scooter around.”
“True story, happened to my friend. He didn’t have a car, and his kid fell urgently ill. His neck and face was all purple, felt like he was suffocating. My friend was off work at the time, but the ambulance wasn’t going to get there in time, and there weren’t any taxis available. Thank god his kid turned out alright. This is a true story!”
“Yeah, earlier this year, my daughter had a 39 degree fever in the middle of the night. Sweat was pouring off her like a faucet. We live in a small town, so there’s no Uber. The greatest thing about buying a car is that when your kid’s sick, you can go to the hospital whenever you want, instead of having to wait for daybreak.”
“Last year, during covid, my baby was only 3 months old, and he started burning up at 10pm at night. I was out of state, and didn’t dare to ride the train back home, and there wasn’t any buses running. I had to go through my entire friend circle before I found someone willing to lend me their car. As I drove home, I told myself I absolutely had to buy my own car.”
“The most useful aspect of a car is keeping the rain off of you.”
“And keeping the sun off of you, so you’re not sweaty and messy all summer.”
”A son achieves wealth through his father. A father achieves pride through his son. In a connections society, your car is your whole family’s name card.”
“No one’s gonna mention rush hour? Before I had a car, I get out of bed at 7:30AM. With a car, I get up at 6AM.”