American Goggles

"鸭蛋“...

shit. 

That was the only word that could come to mind when I heard that lovely Chinese come out of my "chinese parent's" mouth. 

I recently went to do a "home-stay" with a Chinese family that lives a little outside of the center of Shanghai. They were unbelievably courteous and I ended up leaving with a fully stomach, some great tea, the knowledge of knowing how to make my own dumplings, a bag full of snacks, one coke, and a snoopy pencil case. I would say it was an overall success. I don't fully understand the whole idea of losing face but I do realize that when a guest comes to their house, the sacrifice everything to make that person overly contempt. It was amazing to experience that culture. 

Unfortunately with an extremely courteous culture, there also comes the part of you having to be extremely courteous as well. For those of you that know me, I am not the most liberal eater in the world. Weird meat creeps me out, and I pretty much grew up on chicken fingers and french fries with a lot of ketchup. I quickly discovered you kind of have to throw that out the door when you are in China. Especially at someone's else's house. So this brings me back to the lovely new phrase I heard at their house. 

鸭蛋 is the "ya dan" or duck egg. But these were not just any duck egg, they were the full on Chinese delicacy kind of duck egg. In English we like to call these Century Eggs. Let me help you understand why: 

Century eggs look like they have been fermenting in the earth for about a century or two. Don't worry... it is only a few months haha (I think they said since winter for these.. if I understood correctly). They wrap duck eggs in dirt, bark, lime and whatever else to make the eggs almost petrify. When you take the shell off, the white is actually a dark brown and the center resembles something that has been under your couch for way too long. Check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_egg. Yummy, huh? When I saw it on the table I didn't think much of it, thinking it was a normal chicken egg with soy sauce or something added. Little did I know...

The end of the tale is that it was already in my chopsticks when she said "鸭蛋“ so I had to get it down. As you can see, I am still alive to tell the tale and officially can say I tried something weird.

What really got me about this egg was that after doing some research, I discovered a story where CNN listed this delicacy as one of the grossest things to ever reach their mouths. Let's just say China didn't take that too well and CNN was forced to apologize. While it is definitely not tasty, why would our national news network post that? It got me thinking...

-Why are we so scared? 

For us to criticize other people's cultures is to criticize our own American culture. We may be a breed of our own, but we exist today because of other nations. Chinese people always ask me what American food is and I have to honestly say besides hamburgers and hot dogs, I have NO idea. Everything we eat is originated from somewhere else. Hummus? Greece. Pizza? Italy. Take Out Chinese (although Sesame Chicken does not exist in China...)? You guessed right, Smart Cookie-- China. 

I used my American Goggles when i was in that situation and I shouldn't have. So what if we don't ferment eggs in the ground for months? It is time to drop the barriers and just go for it. I think if I didn't know what this egg was, I still wouldn't be a fan of the taste but at least I wouldn't have been scared of it. It is when I drop the barriers of "trying to experience China" that I actually experience it the most. Just live the life of where you are and go with the flow. Take the Goggles off and don't judge them for their own culture. 

In terms of China, they are the only country in the world that doesn't have a definite start to their civilization. Cool, huh? So why be scared of a culture that has had centuries to try these things out? Bottom line is: if you get offered the egg (or full eel in some of my friend's cases...), take a deeeeeeeep deeeeeep breath and just go for it. Even if you end up gagging it up, at least it makes a good story hahaha

-CAD

Less than 2 weeks to go until sunshine, American food, and a good gym!