Job Discussion Forums

Broca · Joined: 21 Dec 2003 Posts: 3 Location: London

Hello everyone,

just landed in Baoding, Hebei, to teach for a year at a girls middle school and cannot get enough of the street food, hao chi. There are seemingly dozens of snack options, from curious pancake omelettes with chopped frankfurters, sweet bean paste and lettuce, to the infamous donkey burger. Having raved about these delights ad nauseam, I was taken aside by a fellow teacher and gently informed of the dangers of Hepatitis C, which afflicts a great many livers in this great land and for which there is no prophylactic. So far, I have no symptoms, but it may already be too late. Am I being unjustly paranoid? Some wise advise from older China hands would be much appreciated.

Lanza-Armonia · Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 4:28 am Post subject:

I think the paranoia is setting in. A load of teachers have been here before us and I can't remember hearing any stories of teachers dropping to the floor half way through a class cuz they had a HepC fit. Mind you I wasn't looking Twisted Evil

.

The best meal I have had to date was in a workmans' like tent, where we have a mini wooden BBQ thing with meat on a metal stick. For 10 yuan, I had two beers, some bread and a loada meat. It was great. Still no HepC.

Was I the lucky one <damn you Broca, you've got me thing now Exclamation

>

Enjoy all the Chinky food you can. Cuz back home, it costs a FORTUNE!!!

LA

whitjohn · Joined: 27 Feb 2003 Posts: 124

I've been eating the cheap and delicious street food here in Kunming for over a year and haven't even had a bellyache! Go for it. Your friend probably eats at KFC or McD's yukkk!

Kurochan · Joined: 01 Mar 2003 Posts: 944 Location: China

I thought Hepatitis C was usually transmitted through sexual activities and bodily fluids. (Although of course, I'm no doctor.) Before I came, I read a warning about avoiding by being scrupulously careful in sexual encounters, and by avoiding hepatitis A and B by getting innoculations before I went. Those are the ones you usually get by eating and drinking contaminated materials, I believe.

Kurochan · Joined: 01 Mar 2003 Posts: 944 Location: China

Here are some excerpt from the blurb about hepatitis in my Lonely Planet:

Hep A: Transmitted by contaminated food and drinking water. If you get it, rest, drink fluids, eat light meals and avoid fatty foods. You can be vaccinated against it before (or after, depending where you are) you go.

Hep E: Also transmitted by contaminated food and water. Especially serious in pregnant women. No preventative vaccine.

Hep B, C, and D: Spread by infected blood, blood products, or bodily fluids. These strains of hep can cause long-term liver damage, liver cancer, or a long-term carrier state. There is a prevantatve vaccine against hep B, but none against C or D, so protect yourself against risky situations.

lagerlout2006 · Joined: 17 Sep 2003 Posts: 985

Some people think this is the safest food. After all it's cooked in front of you and if it was poison you would know immediately. Upset stomach might be the biggest worry not a fatal disease.

By the way LA you won't keel over from hepatitis--it will creep on you and cause problems in 30 years.

Roger · Joined: 19 Jan 2003 Posts: 9138

They ran several reports on processed foods from mainland China on HK TV over the past couple of months; it's shocking.
Jiaozi containing animal fat from diseased pigs; ditto (if I remember well) for mooncakes. Butchered animals lie on the floor where workers tread in their shoes...
As for hepatitis, one of the most prevalent ones is normally caught when eating undercooked seafoods.
Chicken is not fried but steamed - here come your health enemies.

Broca · Joined: 21 Dec 2003 Posts: 3 Location: London

thanks for the posts, which were reassuring or at least informative (Roger). I didn't realise that Hepatitis ran so far into the alphabet - letter E seems the problem.
But in any case, I will keep chewing on the chihuahuas etc... won't touch Macdonalds or its ilk either Whitjohn, having read Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, but this probably has as much to do with taste and politics as health considerations. I'll keep buying the laozhi from the girls down the street until I go a strange yellow colour.

p.s - the urban Chinese don't seem to have an obesity problem despite vast plates of food being served in the restaurants. And i seem to be losing weight despite stuffing my face at every opportunity.

Lanza-Armonia · Posted: Thu Mar 04, 2004 11:38 am Post subject:

Ta Largy! I didn't honestly know what the feck Heppy was anywho!

LA

quanxie · Joined: 11 Feb 2004 Posts: 91 Location: The Sticks

2 years here and I have had all kind of foods at dirty little hole in the walls with no serum level diseases for me.

I was wondering how was the Donkey burger?

Phil

jg · Posted: Mon Mar 08, 2004 1:17 am Post subject:

arioch36 · Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Posts: 3589

Broca · Joined: 21 Dec 2003 Posts: 3 Location: London

Donkey meat is rich, dark, sweet and fragrant. Phil, I don't know how they prepare the burgers in other parts of China, but in Baoding the chef will dice the meat finely on a wooden round, stuff the greasy mixture into a wheaten bun with his bare hands and reach across the barricades of nameless offal on his window shelf to give you the finished product. Yum

arioch36 · Joined: 21 Jan 2003 Posts: 3589

When I tried donkey meat, I was pleasantly surprised. It was a Xi'an restaurant. Contraries to my desires, I liked it. On the off-job forum someone dissed it. I wonder if he really tried.

The dog meat I tried tasted terrible, even before I knew it was dog meat. Who know where they got it from. The losre in last night's fight?