Submitted by Samantha Scharf on the 2016 winter session program in China sponsored by the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice..
It’s hard to talk about a program to China without talking about the food. I pride myself in being pretty adventurous when it comes to trying new foods, but on this program, I find myself being more reserved than normal. This is largely due to the fact that I’m trying to get by with my sesame allergy in what I consider to be one of the sesame capitals of the world (I say largely because I know that even without my allergy, I still would not have eaten the fried scorpion on the stick).
This was something that I had anticipated before coming to China. Before arriving, I had asked a few of my friends who live in China about the sesame seed (and sesame oil) situation and everyone I asked said that it’s an expensive oil and hardly any restaurants use it. Still, I was not convinced, so I did the worst thing one could possibly do in this situation and take to the internet. There were countless blogs and websites filled with personal experiences of traveling to China with a sesame allergy. In just a short few clicks, I had undone all of the positive work my friends had done and become a stressed out worry wart. What had before been anticipation for one of the most exciting moments of my life turned into fear and anxiety over what I was going to be able to eat and how I would be able to even learn if something had sesame in it.
Fast forward to over two weeks of being in China and here’s what I have learned. Yes, my friends were right. Virtually no restaurant uses sesame oil, leaving me free to pick anything off the menu that the chef has decided not to sprinkle with sesame seeds (because that is still a big fad here, however, that’s not nearly as big of a problem as they’re very visible, making it easy to spot what I can and cannot eat). However, there have been just enough instances where the food did have sesame in it (in a non-visible way) to keep the anxiety levels up.
Overall, it has been pretty easy and straight forward to learn if I can eat something. We eat most of our meals as a group and Dr. Sun (the professor leading the program) is able to ask if the restaurant uses any sesame oil. There are also two students on the trip who speak Chinese (as well as two TAs who are from China) and when we go out in smaller groups, one of them are always kind enough to ask for me. This has led me to develop a system where I only order the same meal from a restaurant every time I go because I know I can have it without having to drum up any drama. It’s not a perfect system, and it certainly doesn’t hold with the traveling mentality of constantly trying new things, but it works.
Although there has been food I haven’t been able to try, the food I have gotten to try has been phenomenal. It has been amazing to discover the different types of dishes made here in China. I wish I didn’t have a sesame allergy and that I had the freedom to try any new food put in front of me. But that’s not my reality and in the spirit of making the best of an unideal situation, I’m glad that I didn’t let my anxiety about handling my allergy stop me from trying new things and that I am able to have this opportunity to push boundaries and experience things I never thought I would.