Two weeks ago, my class had Cooking Week. During this time,
we discussed our favorite foods and I taught the class about 20 food and
cooking related terms. The highlights of the week, however, were when my class
made and ate some Western style food.
For Cooking Week, I picked two simple foods – cereal and
smoothies. My kids are young and we are cooking in our classroom, not an actual
kitchen. So, we needed things that are easy and kid-friendly. This is why I
went with cereal and smoothies. These foods do not need any cooking, kids like
them, and they are quick. Plus, the necessary ingredients are widely available
in China.
For the most part, our cooking activities went smoothly. The
kids really enjoyed it. I did notice that a few kids weren’t really eating
their cereal. When I asked why, they said it was too cold. My co-teacher then
said “I forgot about that. We should have warmed up the milk.” I reminded her
that the kids were eating Cheerios and bananas on a hot day so, the milk could
be cold.
The next day, we made smoothies. Making smoothies is usually
simple but, this involved some negotiation. First, we had to hide the smoothies
from the school doctor. She believes that milk and fruit are dangerous
together. Once that was taken care of, I had to convince the director that the
smoothies really did need to be cold. I wasn’t going to use ice in our
smoothies because the tap water here isn’t safe to drink. I didn’t want the
kitchen to not realize we were going to be ingesting the ice and accidentally
make it with tap water. So, I decided to freeze the bananas for 24 hours.
Freezing the bananas was a controversial decision. Everyone
believed the smoothies would be too cold and make the children sick. In fact,
the director even brought the milk and frozen bananas to my classroom about two
hours prior to our cooking time so everything could “warm up.”
When I planned my Cooking Week activities, I made a crucial
mistake. I overlooked Chinese people’s aversion to cold drinks. They really don’t
like them. In restaurants, I have to specify that I want cold water or the
waiter will bring me a teapot full of almost boiling water.
From what I’ve gathered, there are a few different theories
as to why Chinese people really prefer hot beverages to cold beverages:
- As I previously mentioned, the tap water is unsafe to
drink and has always been. So, maybe the hot water was seen as safer and
cleaner.
- Some people believe that drinking a cold drink while
eating will cause your body to spend energy warming up the drink, thus leaving
the body without enough energy for digestion.
- There is an idea floating around that drinking cold things
will cause the fat in your food to solidify and clog up your insides.
- According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, cold water
disrupts the body’s balance.
Now, I’ve been to other countries with unsafe drink water
(ex. Colombia) and the people there did not drink hot water. They just boiled
their water and then put it in the refrigerator to chill. Or, they drank
bottled water. So, I’m not completely convinced about this theory.
I really can’t say exactly why Chinese people prefer hot
water. I’ve asked a few and all they could tell me was “It’s healthier this
way,” or “Cold water gives me a stomachache. “ However, with summer here, I
wish I knew.
Sheldon and the Chinese have something in common!
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