INSIDE THE CANTEEN

"What exactly", Montana bravely asked me on the telephone a few weeks back, "do you eat there?" It was a good question. Many Chinese people admit that it is true what the Japanese say of them, that they will "eat anything with four legs except for a chair". I eat nothing with any legs at all if I can help it, but in a country where beef or pork is added to tofu dishes as a matter or course, strict principles will only leave you malnourished. Without going into excessive detail, I eat ok here. Visits to foreign grocery stores keep my cupboards stocked with familiar, reasonably healthy foods, Jessica cooks up lots of great dishes with locally grown veggies, and we go to our favorite sushi restaurant about once a week. But since much of my life revolves around school, what I eat sometimes depends on what I can find in the Tsinghua canteens, or "shitang (食堂)". Yes, that is what they are called. Maybe I should just stop now.

This semester I've had my four hour block of classes from 8am to 12am, which means I can go home for lunch. In the past, I've usually packed lunch more than half the time, but I still eat in the canteen about once a week. Cafeteria food in China is heavily subsidized and so the meals are extremely cheap, even by China standards. They are also served on a familiarly vast scale. Tsinghua claims to house the biggest student dining hall in Asia, and boasts that the school's canteens provide meals to 35,000 people daily. Of course I'm not entirely sure I should trust these statistics, coming as they do from a newsletter which states:

"Chicken cubes with peanuts, braised pork joint, cabbage with sweet and sour sauce, uncongealed bean curd -- these are just a few of the hundreds of delicious dishes you can enjoy in one of Tsinghua's student canteens..."

This is the biggest cafeteria I've been to on campus and one of the closest to my school. I don't know that this picture captures the enormity of the place, which easily seats hundred of students and faculty.

Number 7 cafeteria has a real barracks feel. They serve the legendary carrot dumplings here.

The following meal is from one of the classier (and pricier) cafeterias on campus, dubbed "wan ren (万人)", or '10,000 people' in reference to its multiple floors of food dispensing facilities.

Marinated cucumbers, rice, bag o' yogurt, and tofu.
Cost: 3.6RMB (about 50 cents)

On the left is a meal you make by pointing at the items you want (in this case several kinds of greens, tofu, and glass noodles) which are placed in a metal tray and boiled for several minutes in a salty, spicy brew before being served up with a peanut-y kind of sauce. It is actually pretty tasty, but very, very salty.
On the right, dumplings. They had meat in them but I ate them anyway. I love dumplings.
Cost: 3.60RMB (about 50 cents)

Also, from wan ren, salad of red cabbage, soup of spinach, egg, and glass noodles, and entree of tofu and veg (do you see a theme here?)
Cost: 7.5RMB (about $1)

This was my least favorite meal of the bunch. White rice with a serving of mixed greens (plus chunks of unidentifiable animal parts) along with a serving of a traditional dish of egg and tomatoes (which tastes nothing like any American combination of eggs and tomatoes on account of the added sugar and MSG).
Cost: 4.10RMB (less than 60 cents)

I shared this meal of tofu, greens, broccoli, and a heap of carrot dumplings with my classmate Jason. I don't remember how much we collectively paid for it, but I do remember that because it was shared, it was delicious.

Wait, that was a lie. Mealtime with friends is pleasant indeed, but cafeteria food -- not so much.