What it's like to date a beijing dude

No, I will not be having noodles for breakfast

Food is cultural experience. The land where our ancestors lived was suitable for some crops, and not hospitable to others; our mothers fed us particular foods as we grew up, and the chemistry of our digestion has come to expect these select flavors at different times of day. However you care to explain it, humans just want to eat what they have come to know.

Prior to coming to China, I had not considered myself a picky eater, but now I embrace being perceived as "picky" as a regular experience. The fact that my eating habits are something that is observed and commented on by others is one of my least favorite things about living in China.

As an example, every day like clockwork, I have cereal with banana slices and milk at my desk while I read the news. My colleagues call me mai pian (wheat flakes) in recognition of my consistency. Why do I have the same thing every day? Because it is delicious and I am used to it.

This kind of steadfast adherence to eating a particular food at a particular time of day has baffled my boyfriend. He insists that "any kind of food can be eaten at any point during the day" and believes he can enlighten me to this fact. To my ears and stomach, this idea seems blasphemous and just downright wrong.

While he is generally able to adhere this, I have seen him balk and get a little picky about his food, but only when we have been outside of China. We were in the United States once and I had picked out an old-fashioned Americana cafe for breakfast. Pancakes, scrambled eggs, orange juice - I was in culinary heaven! Perhaps he was feeling tired that day, or we had been away from Beijing for too long, but he just wasn't feeling it. Noodles, long and thin, was what he really wanted.

Needless to say, we had an early lunch that day. When you are spending a lot of time with a person, you inevitably end up eating most meals together. Thankfully oftentimes we can find things that we both like, but there are still misses.

Sometimes he has a taste for something that I don't eat, like shrimp or pig feet or sea cucumber, and I can tell he is disappointed we can't share this (or at least disappointed he can't order it). It is a small thing, but over time it's best if we can share in all of life's joys, large and small.

Hopefully in the future we can continue to try new dishes, and find more food that we both enjoy.