Supersize me

Three weeks in China and I'm now an XXL. Life's been good but surely not that good: Chinese folk tend to be on the small size and so when I go to buy clothes I have to think big. I really didn't get this the first time, insisting to the baffled shop assistant lady that I was "M" not "L" (let alone "XL") and yet every shirt I tried on had my belly hanging out in a rather unpleasant way. (That said, there is a habit of Chinese men to roll their tee shirts up above their bellies but below the nipples - let's face it, that would just be undiginified - to cool down in the absurd heat we've been having recently.) Finally I got it; but god help anyone bigger than me. Do they do XXXXL?

Not going to the pub every night and drinking five pints seems to be doing some good as well. Curious, that.

Food-wise, I'd kind of expected to be surprised at how fantastic every meal was. But, not surprisingly when you think of it, some meals are good, some are pretty downright dodgy. It's like turning up in Newcastle and going to Fisherman's Lodge one day and the Greenmarket the next: there's a whole range of stuff on offer. Only once have I regretted a meal from the night before - but I regretted it for a full twenty four hours if you know what I mean...

Here at the school there's a canteen serving three meals a day which is really handy if a little unappetising. Generally we'll go to Cheers of an evening and giggle with the waitress as we navigate blindly through the menu. Bick's got more Chinese than the rest of us but even this is limited to things like "Beef?", "Pork?", "not too spicy" and "NO TOFU!". Somehow we're managing to get some pretty good meals on a good day; and sometimes we end up with a washing up bowl in the middle of the table with luke warm goo and fish heads in it.

But then there's "the Hackman's Place". The Hackmans were American teachers who were here last year and, we're told, they went religiously to this one restaurant in the village on the other side of the university. Sure enough, the food is a cut above the rest. Hell, it doesn't matter what you order, you're not going to go far wrong.

That's not to say that there aren't pangs for the good old comfort foods.

We had cheese tonight.

It was like cutting up a lump of hash in Midnight Express. How did they get that past the guards??

Peanut butter is at a premium. Proper bread is to die for. Coffee? You'd better be prepared to dig deep. But no worries, McDonalds is here (and here and here and here...). KFC is here and Pizza Hut. Harry Ramsdens.

Okay, I made the last one up.

Happily I've not succumbed so far but I'm not so naive to suggest that there won't be a time when ONLY A BIG MAC WILL DO!

Take this weekend for example. We're debating about going to Dufu's cottage - once home of China's legendary poet - or to the giant Buddha statue at Leshan or to Chengdu's famous Daoist temple. But one thing is writ in stone: bacon butties at the ubiquitous Irish bar on Sunday morning.

Now that's what I call culture.

Make mine an extra large.