Dieting Tips in China I don't really have a weight problem, other than the fact I'm totally obsessed about it. Not that I actually exercise or anything, but I'm always concerned about gaining weight. The rest of my family tend toward the butter-ball, and I'm apoplectic with the idea that I might someday have to waddle while on planet earth. But since I don't actually *do* anything about my phobia, I guess I qualify as a kind of passive-aggressive anorexic. It's with that in mind that I summarize my helpful tips for dieters while in China. Yes, I've been there. Tip #1: Don't clean up the plate. I'm sure you were all told as children to finish all the food on your plate. Forget it. In China, it is an important sign of hospitality to serve more food than the guests can possibly consume. If you should come close to finishing the food on the table, the host or hostess will go into a blind panic ordering more food for everyone. I've even had this happen after the desert was served: more main courses were rapidly presented, and nobody ate a single bite. For hospitality reasons, a formal Chinese banquet typically has 15 to 20 courses, and it's rare to finish any of the plates. To put this in perspective, a banquet would be considered skimpy if at least a pound of food per person were not thrown away. Even at the state-run workers' cafeterias, where you get lunch for about 60 cents, nobody finishes the meal. So save yourself the calories, and let the commies feed their garbage cans. To summarize, in China a doggie bag is something you use to procure key ingredients for your next meal, not take leftovers from the last one. Tip #2: Before eating, ask what the ingredients are. No species is off-limits to the Chinese. Particularly inquire about the substances that cannot be immediately identified as vegetable. To be helpful, chefs will often put the cooked head of whatever- it-is on the plate to give you guidance as to the protein ingredient. But if the head of whatever-it-was is too large for the platter, or was used to decorate a different dish made from different parts of the same animal, you'll just have to ask the host, "Is this Yak, Camel, or Cat?" Even if there is a beak or other recognizable cranial remains on the platter, you still will want to inquire about the cast of supporting characters in the dish. At a single meal, I've eaten rooster tongue, sea slug, and ox stomach. Foreknowledge of this is a great way to stay slim. Tip #3: Ask yourself troubling questions about the ingredients. An effective way to slow down your eating is to ask yourself questions like, "how come this (organ) of that (animal) is white but has red lumps in it?" or "I wonder what the purpose of those (bumps/strands/suckers/membranes) was when the (animal) was alive and slithering? If you have ethical issues, ask yourself this question: "Do insects count as vegetarian?" Tip #4: Get your palate all set for some really spicy Szechwan food. For most of China, all the dishes are bland and fatty. Push your expectations way up for the spiciest stuff you ever had in San Francisco or Santa Cruz, and you'll bore your palate to a thinner you while on the road in China. Did I mention that the food is both bland AND fatty, and that the only vestiges of flavor are in the fat, or in the gravy which is also 90% fat? Tip #5: Drink some rice wine. A couple of sips of this will cure you of any desire for alcohol. Unfortunately, the Chinese are quite good at beer, which they serve cold and often. Do what you can to stay away from the beer. Tip #6: Check that things aren't moving around. I had a dandy lobster sashimi-like thing the other week...and his claws and antennae were still moving as I nibbled gingerly on his tail. As I was reaching with the chopsticks for my next bite, he was snapping his claws at me. Thinking about how the food still might be alive should slow you down some. Tip #7: Don't skip dessert. Very few Chinese desserts have much in the way of fat. Of course, they left out the flavor too, but at least it is a guiltless dessert that you won't want much of. Often it's mainly green glutinous material or a soup made with honey and kidney beans. Tip #8: When eating at their attempted Western restaurants, pay a lot of attention to the details. By observing carefully, you'll find yourself fascinated by the incongruities and forget to eat. Western things exist in China only to impress Westerners, and the Chinese seem to model the amenities on early James Bond movies. Since they are replicating a movie impression, there's nothing behind the image. You'll feel like you're living inside a real- life movie set. The natives don't ever use the Western stuff, so they can't ever notice the "holes". Like a 500-room hotel with conference rooms and lobbies and shops and not one single clock, public phone, or restroom in any of the public areas. Restaurants will have silverware that is preposterously heavy and ill-balanced, or wine glasses that are straight out of 1960's gas-station giveaway. Tip #9: Listen carefully to native conversations. The acoustic environment in China's restaurants leads to discussions at screaming levels, saving you countless calories. Spoken Chinese, particularly in the south, is almost sung, with nearly constant intonation even when there isn't any syllabification going on. Since you need quiet to digest, you won't be able to eat as much in a noisy place. If you really need to lose weight, try munching in a steel mill sometime. Tip #10: Listen carefully to the music. Even before the conversation starts, the restaurants supply a solid base of cacophony. The hotels pipe old Muzak tapes into every room, including the restaurants. You can't turn it off anywhere, even in your own room. In addition, the classy places add an overlay of live performances. The Shangri-La, probably the finest hotel in Beijing, has a pianist playing western music in the lobby 16 hours a day. When one of the live-performance songs stops, the middle part of the piped-in music seeps into your consciousness. This leads to some really incongruous medleys. The incongruity is magnified by the fact that their selection of popular tunes is firmly frozen in the period of the cultural revolution when all artists were sent to 5 years' hard labor. That would be 1971. Mao probably mandated a nationwide music appreciation campaign and musician training blitz in preparation for Nixon's visit, and the Chinese bureaucracy has followed that same musical directive ever since. Given the history of the cultural revolution and Tianamen square, it's easy to understand their hesitancy to innovate. But the impact of this is armies of violinists, legions of pianists, and carloads of singers whose Western repertoire is stunted, at best. The French restaurant I nibbled at last night had a particularly effective distraction to prevent eating, thanks to their excellent, if loud, accordionist. I have to admit that his interpretation of "Life is a Cabaret!" was the most soulful I've ever heard from a squeeze-box, but he sandwiched it between a Neapolitan folk song (normally played on a mandolin) and the Minute Waltz (normally played, slower, on a piano). As I preoccupied myself with this, I was able to avoid the dangerous cream of mussels soup. When you are trying to diet in the US, you can apply these same principles of aural distraction by bringing two boom boxes with conflicting rap music with you to restaurants. Whether they throw you out for noise, or let you stay and nibble, you'll lose weight for sure.