In keeping with the Chinese 'danwei' or work unit system the Chinese employees at the publishing company were housed by the company. While we half dozen foreign editors had apartments in the company building, the Chinese editors were bussed in from a dormitory building in Tonghua. Three meals were provided in the canteen with tea trolley fare morning and afternoon. The extract below is about the canteen food.
I thought I had seen dofu in all its forms until one day I was pleased to see a tray of my favourite breakfast food, scrambled eggs, being stirred around by the chef. Mr. Liu was a stocky middle- aged man with slumped shoulders and an air of melancholy; the result, no doubt, of years of struggling with limited raw materials. As I waited in the queue, clutching my metal tray divided into sections, he pointed a ladle at the ‘egg’ mix and said, ’Dofu!’ So that was yet another kind – disguised as scrambled eggs! No wonder it didn’t taste like egg, which I had put down to overcooking and the flavour-hiding spring onions or shredded green peppers which were mixed in. However, I helped myself to this and some chipped potatoes, not fried but cooked until soft in oil and soy sauce gravy.
As I ate in front of the big TV screen at one end of the canteen, mopping up gravy with a steamed bun, I watched Chinese employees file in, and called, ‘Ni Hao!’ to the ones I recognised as my office colleagues.
This was a good ruse on the company’s part, I thought. A bus brought the employees from the dormitory building in the city, but it arrived a good hour before8am , the
official time for starting work. Breakfast, including queuing beside the food trestles, took no more than twenty minutes. As with the rest of the company impositions,
they took it without complaint.
At lunch there was always soup, but it appeared to be just warm water into which some vegetable stalks and herbs had been thrown and left to stand for a while. It made me think of Ivan Denisovitch’s daily fare in Solzhenityn’s gulag story, but at least it wasn’t the only course. The accompaniments to the main dishes, which were stewed versions of local vegetables with scraps of meat or fish, were trays of dark and salty pickled vegetables, and I didn’t have time to acquire a taste for these, although I tried from time to time, as they seemed to be popular.
Dessert consisted of fruit with the bruises cut off, usually apples. I hardly ever saw a fat employee - in fact most were very thin. On the other hand, they were healthy, and almost never off sick.
One thing I didn’t like was the widespread habit of eating raw garlic. This was placed on a ledge near the long tables, together with a bowl of chilli paste. Whilst chewing garlic cloves is no doubt highly beneficial to the health, it made for uncomfortable episodes at my desk in the afternoons, as one or another of the Chinese editors came to consult me about some grammar point, leaning close to explain and point a finger.
I thought I had seen dofu in all its forms until one day I was pleased to see a tray of my favourite breakfast food, scrambled eggs, being stirred around by the chef. Mr. Liu was a stocky middle- aged man with slumped shoulders and an air of melancholy; the result, no doubt, of years of struggling with limited raw materials. As I waited in the queue, clutching my metal tray divided into sections, he pointed a ladle at the ‘egg’ mix and said, ’Dofu!’ So that was yet another kind – disguised as scrambled eggs! No wonder it didn’t taste like egg, which I had put down to overcooking and the flavour-hiding spring onions or shredded green peppers which were mixed in. However, I helped myself to this and some chipped potatoes, not fried but cooked until soft in oil and soy sauce gravy.
As I ate in front of the big TV screen at one end of the canteen, mopping up gravy with a steamed bun, I watched Chinese employees file in, and called, ‘Ni Hao!’ to the ones I recognised as my office colleagues.
This was a good ruse on the company’s part, I thought. A bus brought the employees from the dormitory building in the city, but it arrived a good hour before
At lunch there was always soup, but it appeared to be just warm water into which some vegetable stalks and herbs had been thrown and left to stand for a while. It made me think of Ivan Denisovitch’s daily fare in Solzhenityn’s gulag story, but at least it wasn’t the only course. The accompaniments to the main dishes, which were stewed versions of local vegetables with scraps of meat or fish, were trays of dark and salty pickled vegetables, and I didn’t have time to acquire a taste for these, although I tried from time to time, as they seemed to be popular.
Dessert consisted of fruit with the bruises cut off, usually apples. I hardly ever saw a fat employee - in fact most were very thin. On the other hand, they were healthy, and almost never off sick.
One thing I didn’t like was the widespread habit of eating raw garlic. This was placed on a ledge near the long tables, together with a bowl of chilli paste. Whilst chewing garlic cloves is no doubt highly beneficial to the health, it made for uncomfortable episodes at my desk in the afternoons, as one or another of the Chinese editors came to consult me about some grammar point, leaning close to explain and point a finger.
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