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| Modified Moon-cakes at Meadows |
I went to Meadows kitchen to boil some water and encountered some Chinese girls making mooncakes. They went grocery shopping last weekend and, on occasion of the three-day Mid-Autumn Festival at home, were baking the same as last night a modified version of pork mooncakes from the ingredients and condiments they were able to get. I was invited to have some which tasted like Shanghai Shengjianbao (Pan-fried pork buns).
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| Shengjianbao |
That I’m used to having fresh meat products sold exposed in large chunks in markets instead of packaged ones easy to find here counts for one reason why I only had one bun, but more importantly I've decided to get rid of my meat-eating habit at home, because non-vegetarian foods and dishes cooked in excessive oil, butter, and cheese (in my opinion only) at Wheaton dining halls are not good for my digestion. I gained an extra 20 pounds my first year in the States, but was pulled back in the inevitable social judgments on girls of my age not to be overweight and therefore “physically unappealing” (in East Asian aesthetic context) during my summer stay home. I learned hard, from overburdening myself in freshman year due to daily consumption of Western food too incompatible to my bodily balancing mechanism, that it is an unspoken (well, often times reminded under verbal regulation) responsibility to watch over my weight/health. But it’s always great to have a lovely breakfast with fruit and boiled eggs take-out for rest of the day topped with crushed pepper (bought here but better than Chase chili-garlic sauce).
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| regular breakfast at Chase |
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| my way of egg consumption |
I have to say I'm not surprised that eating Wheaton's food lead you to gain twenty pounds; I'm sure it's not the healthiest, although I think they are trying to make it healthier. You say that you felt the pressure to be thin at home in China. I'm curious, did you feel that same pressure here in the US?
ReplyDeleteI don't feel as much an imperative to control my weight here. My life here almost entirely revolves around Wheaton, where to me there is a great amount of compassion and tolerance as opposed to demeaning judgment on people who are overweight. Whereas at home there is more interpersonal regulation on how one should look and behave due to the limited range of different body types, therefore more unsaid rules on eating
DeleteLovely photos Lauren. I would love to hear more about the health/balance/diet connections in China.
ReplyDelete(Is there supposed to be citation here to show that I'm neither plagiarizing nor bs'ing?: ) I think the regulation on personal behavior is related to a public moral standard embedded in the philosophy of balancing: there is a limit to everything, and it should be manifested through the capacity of controlling our desire and aggression in eating in this case. A balanced physical and mental health status can be measured from one's overall appearance and spirit.
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