Night out, Zhuzhou
I spend more time eating and less time running than at any point in my adult life, and yet I have become more resistant than ever to the pull of gravity, a walking, talking human chopstick, liable at any moment, in a gust of wind, to float skyward like a runaway kite. A daily diet of oatmeal, noodles, bananas, oranges, apples, rice, fried eggplant, Japanese tofu and boiled cabbage, even in portions suited for Humpty Dumpty, does nothing for the cause of girth expansion, or even girth maintenance.
And so it was that I, with Manabu, approached our Friday evening jaunt into Zhuzhou City, destination McDonalds, with the savage zeal of a crow. In America, a trip to the Golden Arches is accompanied by profuse apologies to my conscience and my blood vessels; in China, I am a giddy child, eager to see Ronald and the Hamburglar, recognizing that a Happy Meal is my best ally in the battle against weightlessness.
McDonalds parked its two-story, neon-lit rump exactly in the center of Zhuzhou City about five years ago, I'm told. People here speak with pride about it, and I can understand why: it's a symbol of progress, an acknowledgement that, on the global map, the great capitalist empire has determined that Zhuzhou City is a colony worthy of exploitation. Everyone's seen McDonalds in the movies, and having one in your town makes you feel more a part of the rest of the world, I think.
The marketing strategy is clear: instill in young Zhuzhou McChildren a lifelong addiction to Big Macs. The ground floor of the two-story restaurant is occupied by the same billboards, the same registers, the same production factory, and the same fake smiles on each and every teen-ager wearing a light-blue button-down McDonalds shirt, as in every other McDonalds all over the world.
But, adults may only place their order on the first floor, not have their meal. Every table is occupied by children, all wearing pointed black hats and shining silver capes, the capes making them look either like marathoners just finished or potatoes about to be baked. Of course the hats and capes have Golden Arches emblazoned all over them, and I think they're supposed to be some kind of McWizard outfit.
An adult McDonalds wizard woman, also dressed in black hat and silver cape, sings cheesy sing-along songs through a microphone, all in praise of Ronald McDonald, with accompanying arm gestures, and the McChildren follow along. Periodically, a hot-fudge sundae, or a steaming apple pie, or a cheeseburger, will be held up and given away to the first child to successfully state the phrase, "I'm lovin it," into the microphone. This phrase, I'm told, is McDonalds' global marketing effort-du-jour, basic and easy so that McChildren all over the globe can use it to start their own McAddictions.
Meanwhile, Manabu and I sat upstairs and fed our own McAddictions. I ordered a Big Mac extra-value meal. The French fries are the same as anywhere: morphine-laced, salted potato twigs, deep fried and sublimely delicious. A look beneath the sesame seed bun of the Big Mac, however, reveals something not seen by me before: a round patty, paper thin, sawdust-brown, juiceless, looking even less like food than an American Big Mac. Even more startling was what lay below the burger: a square slice of orange plastic, the closest resemblance to "cheese" I've witnessed in China. The sawdust burger did little to satisfy my zeal for girth expansion; ever hopeful, I thought that the plastic cheese maybe, maybe is loaded with calories and devoid of nutritional value.
By some chemical enhancement, the Big Mac tasted the same, equally delicious, as an American Big Mac. I was struck by how unconsciously I shifted back into American eating ways. After three months of eating with nothing but chopsticks, I thought nothing of stuffing my mouth full of hand-held burgers and fries, and drinking Coca-Cola.
And I realized again how much more efficient a food-delivery procedure we have in the West. With chopsticks, eating an extra-value meal would consume a solid 20 minutes, as French fries are particularly laborious to the chopstick-wielder. With my hands, it took about six.
And I also realized that the act of eating with chopsticks, in itself, burns calories. There is a lot of motion involved in dipping the sticks into the dish, often located at arm's-length, stabbing the desired food, steadying it over the bowl, and then transporting it from dish to mouth. This process is repeated over a hundred times every meal, as all dishes are shared communally. In other words, because there is no personal plate, you must extend the arm a greater distance to procure the next bite. Further, each bite is considerably smaller than it would be with fork and knife, and each bite requires probably four times the effort. So, you're getting fewer calories per arm's trip to mouth, and expending more calories in the pursuit of each bite. Which explains again the ancient Chinese secret: eat with chopsticks, look like chopsticks.
The Zhuzhou City McChildren, thank God, are finally breaking away from the old ways, given the opportunity to start young their McAddictions, and the invitation to continue subjecting themselves to capitalist exploitation, and girth expansion, via fake McFood, for the rest of their lives.
On the way home, our cab driver was cruising along a service road beside the highway. Suddenly, a man in a green bicycle rickshaw came into view from the right side, about five feet in front of the cab. Our cabbie veered left, slowed slightly, and plowed into the rickshaw. The rickshaw driver went flying off his bicycle, into the street, and heads of cabbage, which he was transporting, spilled everywhere. Manabu and I laughed more out of amazement than glee, and the cabbie kept going, yelling at the fallen rickshaw driver as he lay on the road, surrounded by cabbage.
I found it fitting that, on the first and only night I decided on an alternative to Chinese food, in an effort at girth expansion, cabbage still crossed my path, as it has every other day of my time here. And I realized that, like it or not, I will be chopstick-boy as long as I'm in China, and on my two months' summer vacation in the States, I will, every night, eat a tub of butter.
