Original Content and Photos by @solarguy
What students and teachers get to eat in Chinese Public Schools is tons better than what you probably thought. You might wonder why it can’t be done in North America.
(watching an episode of Annoying Orange I found with Chinese captions and took of youtube.)
I have been teaching in China for 5 years the past 4 were consecutive and I’ve only been home once since I got here. I do enjoy it here and for many reasons, school lunch is the one of the least reasons but I thought I’d point them out anyways since they are interesting compared to what I grew up being offered in high school. My primary school was too small and rural so I brought a lunch back in those days.
For the past 3 years I have been teaching at public schools, primary and high school. The grade system is different here but the grades would be the same as grade 5 to grade 11 in Canada, primary the younger ages of course. The school systems are really different too and I will get into that in another post but for now I will explain my job a bit and why it maters for my lunches.
(it's heavy on the veggies, usually 3 items and rice sometimes fresh seasonal fruit)
I get sent to many different schools throughout the week. My schedule is consistent thankfully though I go to 5 different locations a week; three primary and two high schools. I teach the same students 40 minutes each lesson once every week. So in a week I literally teach over 600 individual students. The classes are a little bigger than in Canada with between 30 and 45 students depending on the schools popularity and location. The better schools have more students and they cram them pretty full.
My lesson schedule each day is pretty tight but the working days are short, 8am to 2:30pm mon to fri all weekends and holidays off. Lots of quality free time to pursue my hobbies and find private lessons which pay a 'hallofa' lot more per hour and allows me to network with a variety of types of people. Anyways, more on that later.
(they also get a light soup everyday but I always skip it cause too MSG gives me headache)
So I get to eat the school lunches free every day. The students are obligated to pay 120RMB per month (20 meals), paid in full in advance, which is incredibly cheap compared to if they were getting comparable food anywhere else like at home or a restaurant. Different schools have different distribution/service systems. I have noticed that the more popular schools downtown have workers that bring the lunch on carts and leave them outside the classroom by the door just before lunch. Other schools have a cafeteria that has servers and the students stand in line and eat in large hall that provides chopsticks and a tray. The workers will wash the dishes.
(often its good old fashioned mystery meat, mutton, beef or pork it all tastes the same)
The students that have food brought to class serve each other. The food will come in a few large containers so one student will monitor each item and serve the others. I have never once seen bullying, hoarding or any type of greed while the students take care of themselves. It’s probably one of the most civil moments of the day outside of math class. I’m very impressed, nothing like summer camp around the campfire fighting for a shmore. No one goes hungry, everyone has enough I rarely see leftovers but I know they can go to the kitchen and reload on items, especially rice. Afterwards the students rinse their tray and leave it to be properly cleaned by the workers.
I’m sure you can compare this with whatever you did growing up in North America. I point out North America and not Europe or UK because I know that many European countries can top North America’s school lunches with their eyes closed. I also know that lunches are getting better but I have not been exposed to it so I can only compare to the frozen foods they reheated at my schools in the mid 90’s.
(yes, a gun showed up top of that search, see what i searched. omg, lol)
(where's the maple syrup?)
All student and teachers eat the same things in all the schools I teach at accept one which is considered Dalian’s top middle school and has tons of funding. They have a bigger selection in the teacher’s canteen then all the schools I’ve been too. Though it really depends on the daily menu for me to say it’s consistently better. Remember I only go to a school one a day a week and it’s the same weekday. I once got served dumplings, which is supposedly a treat, 3 days in a row by chance at 3 different schools. Lol
(this was a special lunch for teachers only on Teacher's Day, not a holiday but we get some gifts and good lunch. I'm not sure if I would consider Hogs foot a special treat but the crabs were nice. Dalian is a coastal seafood city.)
(teacher's canteen at a well funded public school, better than the private school I taught at)
The students laugh when I say I look forward to and like eating the school lunch. They mostly prefer home cooking, who doesn’t. I’m a bachelor and a hot cooked meal I don’t have to think about is perfect for lunch. Saves me time and money. I would probably spend 20-30RMB if I went out which is still less than $5 bucks but I’d have waste time in restaurant getting it.
I hope you found this article interesting and unique..
任何时候来投票都行 我所有的票数是100％ 倡导可持续发展的未来
Please see other posts of my Life in China 请参阅我在中国生活的其他邮件
@solarguy/a-truly-haunted-place-i-discovered-in-the-hillside-of-dalian
@solarguy/dalian-china-summer-s-end-canadian-style-bbq-bbq
@solarguy/go-topless-and-support-international-women-s-rights-day
Other posts from my Sustainable Future Series.
@solarguy/prickly-pears-they-ain-t-just-for-eating
@solarguy/growing-organic-spirulina-at-home
@solarguy/bio-fuels-for-carbon-capture-using-algae