Skip to main content

Burger King

One of the biggest treats in China is a genuine Whopper from Burger King with your American friends! I recently learned there is one 10 minutes from my school, a discovery that would have made me very fat if I had found it earlier this year. The food taste EXACTLY like it does back home, which is shocking but wonderful. However importing all those ingredients makes the food relatively expensive. So, like the pizza-hut, they class the place up and market it as a fancy restaurant. There is a Starbucks style atmosphere with cozy booths and hip art painted on the walls. They advertise business space and encourage business meetings and interviews to be held in one of their private rooms. It’s an adventure every time we go.

One day when it was very crowded and the manager came up to me and my friends and had us sit down. Then he sent over one of the workers to take or order! Mind you, there is a line of Chinese people at the register, but we were somehow chosen for the VIP service! They brought our food out to us and everything, we were shocked. But you know we enjoyed the star treatment.

The last time we went the front section was all decorated in purple balloons. We all laughed at what it could possibly be, business dinner, wedding ceremony, holiday drama. All of which would not be impossible guesses. As we finish our dinner, we see the blocked off section start to fill up and a man walking around in a moose costume! None of our guesses where correct, we had to get a closer look.
It was a burger eating competition! “had I but known!” we all shouted. A man asked us if we wanted to play. I looked at the frightened faces of the current participants at the thought of competing against us. I declined but we all agreed that if we hadn't just eaten, we could have totally beaten the whole room! The challenge was one burger, 2 people, 1 hour! LAME! Ok maybe the burger had like 15 patties, it was in a little red basket and the 2 people were on either side... with plastic gloves. They do a count down over the ridiculously loud microphone!

(For some reason the volume setting on all Chinese equipment has 2 settings; inaudible and deafening. They always prefer deafening. I am taking cell phone ring tones, MP3 players with no head-phones, walking down the street with a megaphone shouting sale prices for their stolen goods spread out on a blanket. I am surprised anyone has any hearing left!)

But back to the Burger eating competition - They were eating like it was so hard after 2 bites! I really think they were doing the healthy eating count of 20 chews before you swallow your food. I don’t get it, the men at my school can shovel down their whole lunch in one bite. And I am sitting there 30 minutes later still trying to pick the bones out the fish so I can get a chopstick full of meat! But give them gloves and a burger and all of a sudden they act like there are at a country club Sunday brunch.

I couldn't watch the whole thing, we took our picture with a very happy moose, and left.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

No room at the inn: Shanghai edition

About a year ago my husband and I decided to take a babymoon to Hangzhou and Shanghai. Yes, babymoon is a real thing where expecting couples take one last vacation together before the baby comes. Genius idea that I wish I could take credit for. I was bummed because I was too pregnant to fly back to the US like I had planned but figured a 3 hour flight to Shanghai was safer than an 18 hour flight the DC! Surprisingly, after 7 years living in China I had still never been to 2 of the major tourist attractions, West Lake or the Shanghai Bund. We decided to spend a few days in each city and take a bus between the two.   West Lake was beautiful but the main attraction of walking around the beautiful scenery in the heat and rain was not a good match for my wobbling state; especially with my pregnant bladder and distance and numerous stairs between each public bathroom. We arrived in Shanghai after what seemed like forever on the bumpy bus and I was so glad to be back in a major city. We

10 Things China made me love about America

These things may not make the thanksgiving list of the average American, but they are definitely on my lips every time I come home for a visit.   The things I comment on missing seem to be strange to my friends and family, who then roll their eyes at yet another story beginning with, "where I live in China..." Nevertheless here are some simple joys my life in China has made me love in my homeland. 1.   Hot sink water Washing your hands in cold water during the winter makes the surprise of warm tap water all the more delightful. This comfort would be seen as a wasteful luxury in China where most homes have only one water heater for the shower and even that is only turned on 10 minutes before you hop in the shower, and then switched off immediately after. 2.   Outside air I have noticed the difference in air quality moving around the US between city and country, but even the big city air seems glorious compared to China. Not to say that all of China has the pollut

Make yourself at home, but don't touch anything

Not long ago I got this text from my husband, "My sister called, she's at our house. My dad let her in." I was automatically filled with questions; Did you know she was coming? How long is she staying? Did she bring the kids? Is everything ok? His answer, "I didn't know and I don't know." As if that would satisfy my unrest! Now I like my sister in law, Meimei, she is probably my favorite of the in laws. She makes an effort to speak to me directly even though my Chinese is not good enough to keep up with the group conversation. She is kind and playful. Her 2 children are sweet to me and mostly well behaved. I enjoy her visits but cannot understand why she would show up unannounced when it takes at least 4 hours to travel here! And she is a repeat offender. The most intrusive occasion was when my daughter was less than a month old and Meimei called from the bus, announcing she and her 2 small children were on the way. I was st