A Pig Eat Pig World

(He insisted on the picture. Yay for balanced diets...)

We were supposed to go to Shanghai today, but since I got a stomach virus yesterday (great timing right? me: -_-, but MLIA. sigh), we pushed back our trip by a day. Instead, I slept for much of the morning/watched Friends =). In the afternoon, my uncle, cousin and I all cut our hair cut (although I’m not really sure why my uncle got his hair cut because he’s kind of losing his hair…if I were him, I’d be afraid that my hair would never grow back after I got it cut…it’d be like Homer Simpson getting his hair cut…)

[completely random side note, but I was talking to the guy cutting my hair and he said that when they learn to cut hair, they don’t even learn guy haircuts. They only learn how to cut hair for women because of all the diff styles because cutting hair for guys is the basic haircut, but it’s harder to cut hair for guys because most of them just have it buzz cut, and when you buzz cut it, it’s easier to notice bumps and uneven spots in their hair, whereas because girls have so much more hair, you don’t have to be as precise. Interesting isn’t it?]

Anyways, right next to where we got our hair cut was this store that sold pork. The store was kind of like Locopops except instead of a simple bare store (cash register, “menu”, and a chair or two) and freezers of only popsicles they had freezer/fridge things for various cuts of meat from the various parts of a pig, with prices ranging from 30 to 150 yuan a pound (about, tech 500 g), and baozis were 30 yuan each, which is ridiculous. For 10 some yuan, you can get a set (TEN) of fresh made pork baozis from the grocery store that taste just like they should. 30 yuan is an unheard of amount to spend on ONE baozi, especially when I thought the baozis we got from Dintaifeng (see Weekend of Top 10’s) for 9 yuan each were already a rip off.

We bought a 600 g of pork @ 120 yuan per half kilo (far left one) and ordered 4 baozis. One for the each of us…who knew pork could be so expensive

On the other hand, you could very easily justify their 30 yuan price. A meal at Mcdonalds (sandwich, small drink and (think small) fries? Haha can’t actually say for sure because I only get ice cream cones at Mcdonalds) is about 22-24 yuan. This on the other hand, is a super huge baozi about the size of a shorter and flatter, but wider big mac, with 200 g (haha I just realized that a 两means 50 g) of meat from a black pig, see:

And for 30 yuan, they give you a few sticks of suantai (maybe its suanmiao--part of the garlic plant), a little bowl of green bean (not sure how to translate this b/c its not congee with green beans in it) congee and a stick of doublemint chewing gum (this was a first…), so it’s kind of like you’re buying a whole meal for yourself.

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you which tasted better because I got a stomach flu Monday and have been on a rather strict diet of bananas, white rice, mantou (I assumed this could be toast?), hard boiled eggs w/soy sauce (not the crap at restaurants—the Chinese kind you cook with) and a couple of little 红豆沙馒头(red bean paste mantou). Raw veggies and fruit are a no, and since anything oily is probly even worse, I’m glad I passed on trying it b/c it probly the fattiest stuffed baozi I’ve ever seen.

Like hugge chunks of fat (which is probly why my everyone else said it tasted so good) and pretty sure no veggies at all b/c usually its pork and cabbage.
You might have to click on the picture to see the large white chunks.

For my cousin, who Mary was soo right about—I knew my cousin reminded me of somebody else! Dudley Dursley! Anyways, my cousin was about as ecstatic as a spoiled fat boy who’s about to be given another 30 yuan baozi can be. The idea of possibly eating two was practically making him drool…it was raining pretty hard on the way home and so my aunt and uncle wanted to check out the new home they bought, to see if the roof leaked…Dudley heard and was like NO, 我馋死了！（pretty much, this im dying to eat this/this craving is killing me!） Seriously, I’ve never thought a name was more appropriate.

I did eat two bowls of the congee that came with it, which was one of the best I’ve had in china this summer. (Note that the number of times I’ve had congee this summer can be counted on a crippled Chinese beggar’s hand. 1. Jindingxuan 2. This place 3. The congee place near my office, which wasn’t bad, but only b/c everything else at that restaurant suckkkedd)

Dudley had 1.76 of these huge baozis, 2 bowls of congee, and I think all the lettuce…you know, to balance out his meal.

So you might be shocked to hear 1.7…what happened to the last 0.3? since when could a fatass like him not finish the last third of a super expensive baozi? Since never, because he actually finished. What happened was that he insisted on eating two the second that he realized that I wasn’t going to eat mine (sometime when we left the store), and his mom was like no, def not, you’re too fat. We get home, and he starts taking huggee bites of the baozi and shoveling it down as fast as he could—I think so he could eat the 2nd one because half way through, he starts reaching for the other box and is asking his mom if he can eat it…(reminds me of how my brother used to lick the bottom of the last mantou even if he still had a full one just so I couldn’t have it…) and his mom tells him no, of course not. You can’t eat that much meat. His mom who was preparing other food, comes over to eat hers (b/c “mine” is in front of me). She takes a small bite (think realizing that she won’t be able to eat such a big fatty baozi) and decides that she’ll compromise with him and tells him that she’ll trade his half eaten one for her practically full one and starts to reach for his. Dudley hears, stiff arms her arm that’s reaching across his body, and leans to the side and shoves down two consecutive bites that are as big as his stuffed mouth will let him. Then before he trades with his mom, he takes a big bite of the one his dad is eating…

So that’s like just over 1.7 because of the small bite she had + the big bite he had. By this time, he had gone to watch TV because he said he was “stuffed to death”.

5 minutes later, he saw that his dad had started eating mine and realized that he wouldn’t be able to eat mine for breakfast tomorrow, so he ran over, grabbed his dad’s arm and shoved another bite in. And that’s how you have 1.76 Big Macs.

Technically this picture was staged. The first time he did it was spontaneous and I wasn’t expecting it and didn’t take a picture of him doing it. Can you see the other chunk of meat that he poured on the table?