The birds and the bees

When she was a little girl and first learned of the birds and the bees, my wife probably said "Eeew!" or something to that effect. I'm sure that was nothing compared to the reaction she gave when I told her about some of the restaurants our hosts have shown us in Beijing. At home, the dish in the first picture would have launched 1000 lawsuits in a KFC, here in China it's what's for dinner...with a side order of baby bees.

When we went on one of our excursions last weekend, our friends passed the time by explaining how the people in the Guangdong Province eat really weird stuff. Stuff that would make baby bees look like popcorn (and taste like chicken). Fortunately that place is 1200 miles away...

People here loooove to take us to "fancy" Chinese restaurants so I spend time with a lot of menus full of scary pictures and strangely worded descriptions. As far as I can tell, there does not seem to be anything called "Sweet and Sour Pork" in China and "Kung Pao" is not a type of chicken familiar to any waiter I have met. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a little adventure in my food and the likelihood of me ending up vegetarian for even one meal is completely trumped by the same denial powers that allow me to enjoy hotdogs at home. Eyes, beaks and heads (either in whole or in half), however, are Kryptonite to these powers and I really don't need to see what my meal was thinking when it crossed the road for the final time.