With a Sprinkling of Meat

China changes people. It does. There are no two ways around it. I know that I am changed woman. Yes, sir. For example, when I arrived in China, I had been a vegetarian for two years. Not so any longer. I have progressed to 'vegetarian with a sprinkling of meat.' In my early and hopeful days here in China, I google translated the word 'vegetarian' on my phone that I might have a hope of communicating my dietary infliction to the Chinese people. It turns out, the word vegetarian does not appear in the Chinese vocabulary and is a foreign concept, usually met with a shake of the head, hands and 'no.' I do my best to find tofu or, heaven forbid, vegetables. And if I do get lucky and find my desired dish, they are usually presented to me with a sprinkling of beef, or pork, or chicken or ox. Apparently carnivores have more fun anyway... 

I have also been entertaining myself with the game 'Count The White People.' It's pretty self explanatory. And yes, I know and fully understand just how racist that sounds. But the fact of the matter is that it just kind of adds a bit of an end goal to the normal people watching that goes on. It's just such a novelty to see someone else who shares your skin colour. If you really have a problem with it though, you can comfort yourself with the fact that the locals want to take photos with my travelling companions and I because of our fair complexion. If that's bit racist, I don't know what is. On one particularly successful evening, we reached 16 white people in a period of three hours. Which was absolutely astounding and has been the topic of much (excited) discussion since. Although it got pretty confusing when we went to see the pandas... Are they predominantly white with a little bit of black or black with a smattering of white? 

But we have moved on from mainland China to the land of sunshine, blue skies, palm trees, mangos and beauty pageants. It's nice to be somewhere we can see the sunshine and can sit outside without 5 merino tops on. Actually, it's nice just to be able to sit outside. China in winter is pretty grey and pretty cold. It's also a pretty big country, so despite still being in China we have managed to find sunshine.

We attended our first beauty pageant event last night. And in the eternal game of never have I ever, that we continually play in our lives, never have I ever felt so out of place at an event. More on this to come, as the events of (a very elaborate) Miss World 2015 unfold before my eyes.