A Chinese Face, An American Stomach

I may have a Chinese face, but I'm guilty of having a foreigner's stomach.

Sanitation standards in China are virtually non-existent, but since I'd come to China before, and frequently ate at the notorious street stands, my body had developed a reasonable amount of immunity to the food. The first week here, several students fell ill from eating the street stand food, but I was spared. Our director sent us e-mails warning us about the pervasiveness of digou you (literally, sewer oil) a cheap form of oil made by filtering out used oil from sewers and then treating it with chemicals. I'm pretty sure I've eaten copious amounts of digou you, but luckily, never fell ill.

Call it karma, but my American stomach finally protested. This past weekend, a group of CET students and roommates went to Zhou Shan, a beautiful island about 5 hours away by bus, where the sky is clear blue and you can watch the clouds on the beach. The thin layer of smog that covers Hangzhou does not plague Zhou Shan, I could finally breathe.

On Saturday, we spent the morning at the beach, swimming in the ocean, breathing fresh air, and relaxing. In the afternoon, we went little crab catching. While crab catching, one of the Chinese roommates introduced me to this tiny green slimy oyster-like thing that grows on the rocks. All you have to do is chip its shell open with a rock and voila, delicious slime! Being a huge fan of raw seafood and often judgement-impaired, I of course tried one, decided it was appetizing, and had a second one. So far so good.

And then five hours later, the green slime finally attacked, ripping apart my stomach, draining all of my energy, and leaving me profusely sick. Luckily, Chinese people always have heaps of home remedies for every disease possible in their homes so I was in good hands. After a wretched night, I woke up rejuvenated in the morning, and went mountain climbing. Everything was back to normal, though I did avoid all shell-like creatures for the rest of the trip.

So while traveling around the world trying all things new and wonderful, exercise caution. Green slime-like things, and less scary looking things, can attack. Lesson learned, and now for some photos!

The beach (the golden rod is Monkey King's weapon of choice)

The sunnier version

Delicious food!

Seafood galore!