Li Qingxi, a student studying in Australia, described her first few days abroad as having three meals a day:
I have eaten instant noodles for three days, three times a day. To save money, I only eat one packet at a time and beat one egg (Australian eggs are smaller than those in China). For me who can choose two dishes at home, how can I carry this meal to the next one? So, although I didn't do anything, I was hungry soon. Because I can't bear to spend money, I can only bite my teeth to fight hunger.
I was really tired of eating instant noodles, so I went to the street to eat a McDonald's. That McDonald's was bought by a classmate with me at night, because I don't know the way yet. On the way, I asked some basic words, such as? Toilet? Do I have to scream? Toilet? . I asked if it could be called WC, but she sneered that it was called a long time ago, and when you said WC, some people would think it was a laundry room or something. When I was eating McDonald's, I was still reluctant to spend money. I just want a small Big Mac set meal. To be honest, I don't have enough to eat.
In foreign countries, breakfast is generally toast (toast), cheese (cheese), bacon (bacon) and milk (milk). After eating all day, many students simply skip lunch, or take some homemade food with lunch boxes to the school to heat it in the microwave oven. Dinner is called dinner in English, right? Dinner? It means the most formal meal of the day.
Of course, you can't always eat instant noodles and McDonald's. If you want to save money and be nutritious, you'd better cook by yourself. Li Qingxi said:
When cooking, I usually do it after the landlord has done it. Because I only cook one dish, I often cook it here before the whole family has finished eating. At this time, the landlord will let me eat at the same table. Look at the family? Man-Han banquet? , and then look at me? A plate of slag? I really feel a little greedy and inferior, and regret that I shouldn't sit at the same table with others.
In the future, I always avoid the time when the landlord cooks and listen to them enter the restaurant. I either read in my room or sit in the living room and watch TV, and I will never eat with them again. It is often after I hear that they have cleaned up their rice bowls that I start cooking by myself.
Alas! Most small international students live in other people's homes, and it is inevitable that they will suffer a little.
Do you really know how to cook and buy food yourself? I don't know how expensive rice is if I don't take charge. The truth. When we got to the supermarket, we didn't want to buy anything. Buy the roughest rice and a small piece of meat. Of course, there are also cheap things abroad, such as potatoes, onions, tomatoes and fresh milk. Li Qingxi said, I didn't know what it meant until I went abroad. Fresh milk? The milk that China drinks is simply plain boiled water by comparison. Vegetables also have no fertilizer and pollution. The cheapest meat is chicken. China convenience store has instant-boiled mutton, but I don't know why it's not as delicious as domestic ones.
If you go shopping, McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut all have them, and they are not expensive, but they don't seem as delicious as those in China. Fast food restaurants and Chinese restaurants are occasional places for international students to improve their lives. Luxury stores are too expensive for most people to care.
Of course, if the family is rich and the funds on the bank card are constantly replenished, then you can live in the student dormitory provided by the school, one for each person. Of course, the cost is not affordable for ordinary families; Even if you live in someone else's house, you can go to the restaurant to enjoy food every day and order Chinese food every day. It's not cheap to tip when ordering food abroad.
After going abroad, the first difficulty is to eat three meals a day, which is unexpected by many students in China, so I was deeply impressed. Lu Yi, a student studying in England, said that when he first came to England, cooking was faster than English. It's very simple, it's no problem not to speak English for a day; No way if you don't eat for a day! On the first Mid-Autumn Festival after going abroad, several China students spent an hour and a half cooking a meal. He said:
Looking at a table of dishes that we spent an hour and a half cooking, everyone will have different feelings in their hearts. Yes, we learned to cook by ourselves! Yes, for our generation of students, this may be a more difficult challenge than studying. Imagine living in a cold window for twelve years. We don't have to wash clothes, buy food or cook. The only thing we need to do is reading and studying. However, going abroad is completely different: no one will cook or wash clothes for you again; No one will tell you what to do every day; No one will care whether you are healthy or not and whether you need help. It's not indifference, but every overseas student in China is struggling, struggling in the difficulties of life and struggling under the pressure of study. Also, struggling with or without white discrimination!
Think about the days when we first arrived in England. We don't know how to buy things in the supermarket because we haven't learned many words about vegetables. I can't cook either. Most of the kitchens here don't use natural gas stoves, but only induction cookers. If you open it, things will be burnt if you go down; Turn it down. It's been cooked for a long time Without a range hood, the kitchen will be filled with smoke if you are not careful, that is, when there is a fire, then all students must leave their homes and the fire truck will arrive within five minutes, and then we will give fire training to such plane students who have never been in contact with them in China! Ha, the highest record of a meal is eating for four hours, of which only half an hour is eating, and the rest time is dealing with all kinds of strange things.
Zhang Hao, a student studying in Japan, ate all the seaweed soup packets brought from home in her first week in Japan. The girl said:
In the first week when I first arrived in Japan, I ate seaweed soup noodles for seven days, and I brought seaweed soup bags at home and a bag of noodles in the supermarket for about 100 yen. This is not because I can't cook, but because of my psychological fear of high prices in Japan. When I visited the supermarket, I unconsciously changed the price of any item into RMB, and then I shivered and told myself that I was here to study and be prepared for hardship. On the eighth day, after a brief life exchange with a senior in Hunan, I was told that as long as I plan carefully, I can actually eat well, that is, the courage to buy meat and fruit. A few days later, the simple kitchen in my dormitory was neatly filled with soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, salt and monosodium glutamate, and I began to live a decent life with two dishes and one soup.
Of course, many students mainly eat food provided by the school for three meals a day. This is the case with Zhu Haokang, a student studying at North High School in Davenport, Iowa, USA. He said that his first impression after he arrived in America was the difference in diet. Take the family diet as an example. Breakfast in American families is usually a few slices of toast, with ham slices and bacon, a glass of cold milk soaked in dry cereal and some fruit. Compared with domestic porridge? Hot rice? Breakfast for American families? Cold? A lot. Although the school also has breakfast, it is an extra service and is not the main business item of the school canteen. Take North High School in Davenport as an example. Breakfast is fixed every day: cold milk, dry cereal, fruit and cake. It's so monotonous that it can't even compare with the breakfast stall at the entrance of the community in the early morning in China.
Of course, American high schools have all kinds of lunches. There are different foods to choose from every day, even? Chinese food? . Zhu Haokang said: At first, I was overjoyed when I learned that there was Chinese food in North High School. But when there are only two choices of fried rice and fried noodles, I am a little lost. When I first tried it, I knew that Americans' understanding of Chinese food and the delicious food we enjoyed in domestic restaurants were completely different concepts. American Chinese food can be summed up in two words: greasy. Because Americans like sweets, Chinese food is rarely not too sweet, and fried food is synonymous with American fast food, so ordinary high-fat Chinese food really makes me flinch. What is Gaobei fried rice? Spring rolls? And then what? Jiaozi? But the same name has completely changed in the rice bowl of American students: spring rolls? It's fried noodles, leather bags and cream. Jiaozi? This is also the case. I haven't tried Chinese food for the second time since I first chose it. It's really hard to swallow. ? Many students can't get used to school food either. At noon, they usually come to the subway campus store and choose sandwiches. For Zhu Haokang's sandwich, he usually chooses whole wheat bread, with turkey slices, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes and a little olive oil. Then he chooses a glass of low-fat milk and fruit bought from the milk, which is his lunch. 20 10 years, such a lunch is about 16 yuan RMB. 16 RMB lunch in the United States is indeed much less than the same price in China.
In addition to the purpose of filling the stomach, lunch time is also an excellent opportunity for everyone to communicate and establish friendship. Many good friends met at the dinner table. At lunch time, standing in any corner of the huge restaurant, I saw the students whispering and heard their laughter. While enjoying lunch, friends from different courses can use this time to talk about school life. At the same time, in order to ensure the safety of students, there are four or five teachers on duty in the canteen. When the students left the canteen after eating, there were two local policemen armed with bullets near the product. Because the American government has regulations, in a certain number of crowded areas, police are needed to maintain order and prevent accidents.
For dinner, you can go back to your host's house, go to a fast food restaurant on the street and buy your own ingredients to cook. I won't go into details here.