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hands fanned red-hot coals, kebab stand owners lured customers with the sublime scents that wafted from their ramshackle grills. I rarely found the strength to resist buying at least one of the skewers of juicy, dripping lamb meat powdered in near east spices.

For as many delicacies as I now pine for, however, I have to admit that there is a near equal amount that I bravely consumed in the company of my Chinese friends simply in the name of politeness. On our first night in Shaoxing, Pete and I were forced into eating the town delicacy, an aged and fried tofu aptly called "stinky tofu". The name hardly did it justice and the overwhelming scent of the putrid snack was simply too much for us to handle. One day and several tooth brushings later, Pete subtly informed me that the odor of Shaoxing's favorite snack hadn't vacated my mouth.

Dog meat was surprisingly good, which was probably because I wasn't told what I had been eating until afterwards. Later, after my hosts' disclosure of the species we had consumed, I wasn't sure I was fond of it after all. It was always the rubbery, chewy stomachs and intestines that I struggled the most with, which I typically ended up swallowing whole just to end the miserable affair. Trying a new specialty was always a crapshoot and it was especially disappointing when something that looked delicious turned out to be just the opposite. But, my intrepid spirit was always driven by the possibility that one would turn out to be one of the dishes I now long for back in America.

The love-hate relationship I had with food in China is an apt description for my feelings about the country in general while I was there, although now I can only look back with the rosiest of glasses. Like the cuisine, life was just so different there that there were bound to be some things that drove you crazy and some that you adored. Standing in lines as people pushed in front of me, being stared and pointed at endlessly and biking and wheezing my way through brown clouds of pollution got on my last nerve sometimes. But, around the corner there would always be a crowd of happy, old men playing mah jong or some other scene of such wonderful, genuine humanity that made it hard to stay upset for very long. Things could be a little dirtier, a little more crowded over there but when you stuck around for a little bit you also found out that there was a simplicity to daily life that was truly admirable that has been lost in much of the west. Old men and women who had lived through the Cultural Revolution looked truly content just to hold their grandchildren. Families gathered for the Spring Festival were overjoyed, not to exchange Xboxes and jewelry, but simply to share food and conversation.

Now when I'm in the supermarket looking at packages of chicken that have been de-boned, skinned, and covered in plastic, I think about women bicycling home for dinner holding onto a squawking chicken or men scaling and gutting fish on the street. They knew that animal died for them so they could eat another day and it's hard to make the same connection looking into an overstocked poultry freezer. Pizza huts and KFC's have popped up all over China now and though to them it is a sign of progress it makes me a little bit disappointed. Who knows how much longer China's traditional way of life will survive as they hurtle into their great vision of the future? I hope for their sake and for ours that the traditions that remind us to be grateful for the simple things in life, especially a good meal, remain. Food has always been important because it keeps us full and happy but more so because it brings us together. The people of China taught me this is not a small thing at all.

Learn more about this author, Brendan Stock.
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