One of my favorite activities in Chengdu was sitting out and eating street food. My favorite used to be shao kao, or Chinese barbecue. Something about the spicy and ma, or numbing flavor that Sichuan flower peppers give off, was the perfect compliment to sitting out along the dirty riverbank and have some beer with friends. 

Six years later I still love the food, but try to avoid the dirtiest spots. Hole in the wall restaurants and snack stands used to be a badge of honor for me. I was doing China the real way. None of that clean plates and hygiene for me. It simply got in the way of my authentic experience. And the truth is I almost never got sick.

Today, I do my best not to eat food that may have been on the floor, or worse on the street. Near my apartment there are a string of hutong restaurants. I often bike past their back doors and see the cooks chopping food on the filthy ground. I used to close my eyes and pretend not to notice. But now I either stick to nicer places, or go to restaurants that I only suspect are dirty, but have not actually seen proof first hand. I know that the other places probably aren’t much better, but out of sight keeps it slightly further away from my mind.

It seems reasonable not to want to eat bits of sludge from the ground. Although truth is I do not get sick more or less frequently now than I used to. There is something nice about not seeing rats run by the grill where your food is being cooked, and yet I bizarrely feel as if I’ve abandoned my roots to join China’s new rich.

These ideas are ridiculous at best, and pretentious/condescending at worst, and yet they still linger. What’s so bad about wanting a clean meal?