I love my friend so much I inflicted Chinese Torture on her! How? By making her taste a bunch of weird Chinese snacks on video! Have a laugh at our expense!
They say when in Rome do as the Romans! Well I was in China so I did as the Chinese when it came to tasting Chinese snacks. The Chinese’s idea of how snacks hit the taste buds is very different than the West. Some snacks were really tasty and fun. Others were just plain weird. Many we only found out what they were until we put it in our mouths.
This week I am serving up a recipe for laughter with a 4-part taste testing series.
When I planned this trip I hit Youtube pretty hard in search of videos about foreigners living in China so I could be better prepared when it came to the ‘culture shock’. I found quite a few and then hunted down a few Youtubers in Beijing. The first person I found left China 3 months before my arrival 🙁 But through that channel I met Lenaaround.
Lingling (her Chinese name) is a Danish girl that has been in China for 5 years and now lives in Beijing. After watching one of her videos I left a comment mentioning I would be in Beijing. Well it did not take long for me to get a response suggesting we could maybe meet. The stars were aligned as we met for dinner during the Lantern Festival and we then hit the streets to a Light Festival display.
Get ready to bust a gut with laughter…at our expense!
So during our first meeting I asked Lingling how she felt about doing a collaboration and I mentioned my desire to make a Chinese Snacks taste testing video.
Now Lingling does not consider herself a foodie and she really does not like weird or spicy stuff. But she was game and we planned our next meeting for the following evening.
First stop: grocery shopping for our snacks. Awesome because going to a Chinese supermarket was on my travel list. There will be a video of that in the near future. Second stop was filming our taste test at her place in Beijing.
We purchase way more Chinese snacks than we had discussed. The plan was 5 each and make a 2 part video series. Well we bought more like 25 snacks!!! Part 1 and 3 are on Lenaaround. Part 2 and 4 are on CultuEatz.
So yeah, Lingling speaks very functional Chinese but she could not read all the labels. Some thing we only found out what the snacks were once we opened the packages and tasted them. What was that we just ate?
As you can see by video 3, the sugar rush, the snack culture shock, and the preservative and taste chemicals are really starting to get to us. Silliness ensues!
Thank you again Lingling for accepting my challenge, I know it was tough for you but I think you had a lot more fun than you expected 😉 And I hope you, my reader, will double over with laughter as you watch us have real reactions as we eat these Chinese snacks without always really knowing what they are ahead of time!
Here is the link to the entire 4 part Chinese Snack Foods playlist on YouTube if you want to save it to your favorites on Youtube so you can watch Lingling and I make funny faces over and over again 😀
Wow you have guts to east some of those! Even if I am an Asian I will never touch some of them 🙂
Nice vids
Thganks and LOL well you only live once…I could have skipped some of the things we tried. Which ones would you not touch?
Wow, your reactions to food is so funny :), I admire your and Lingling’s courage. I bet she was just the right person to have fun with.
I know Amira I keep laughing and freaking out at my faces, only saw the videos like 10 times each lol. We had a blast 🙂
Oh Evelyne…only you…as I said before you are very courageous…I would not get close to a lot of the Chinese snacks…
Bt the way, thanks for the link to the video for the raindrop cake…awesome!
I hope you are having a fantastic week 🙂
LOL Thanks Juliana. Well in small doses I survived! Awesome glad you like the video 🙂 Have a great weekend! 🙂
How much fun did the two of you have?!
WAY WAY too much, obviously 😉
You two are very adventurous and cool that you had lots of fun tasting those snacks too! I love those pastries on the first video.
Thanks Angie, we had a blast, even when scared lol. Yeah they were very pretty pastries but we later find out only grannies like them lol.
There is no ways I would try something not knowing what it was. You were very brave.
It was all part of the fun 🙂 Worse case it got tossed in the garbage.
OKAY GOING TO WATCH THIS VIDEO – RIGHT NOW! THE THUMBNAILS are EVERYTHING!! HAHAHAHA! Taste Tests FOR THE WIN!
Ha ha ha thanks so much watching them and the comments. TASTE TESTS RULE! Definitely gonna do more but I need crazy partners to do them with, more fun.
You are BRAVE. Very brave. I don’t think I could taste something if I had no clue what it was. I remember being at my best friend’s house and she was trying to get me to taste chocolate covered ants. No.thank.you. Off to check out the videos!
LOL we had not insects…to my knowledge. I did eat a dehydrated cricket last year but did not know it till the last minute and I did not want to seem like a wimp who was backing out. Hope you enjoyed the videos!
Way to go! Very funny!
thanks Pam!:-)