Mom, what's for dinner?

Well, kids, I thought tonight I would pick up some delicious pig snout!! I
mean, really, even in Chinese would that ever sound good to someone??? I
had to take this picture because it was at my regular grocery store I go to.
This store would be the equivalent of Super Walmart. It's a very regular
store and sitting right next to the rotisserie chickens are the pig snouts!
I know I am being incredibly ethnocentric but I just can't believe someone
really thinks that would be good eats!

I showed Leo the photo and asked him if he ate this and he said, "what is
it?" so that made me feel a little better! :). I told him it was pig snout
and he said he doesn't eat it but a farmer would. This is Leo's way of
saying that Shanghai people wouldn't eat it but people who lived in the
country and just come to Shanghai to work would. There is a hierarchy here
in China and it seems most know their place in it.

For instance, the very poor migrant worker will eat his lunch on the side of
the road and then just throw his trash on the ground (even though the trash
can is not that far away). It is someone else's job to come by and clean up
the street...that would be below him. Or another example, when we moved in
and someone would come to put together something for us, if there was a
bunch of boxes or just a general mess from his work, he wouldn't clean it up
because that would be what an ayi's (maid) job would be. It's really
interesting. I think maybe it has more to do with the fact that everyone has
a job to do. In a country with so many people, it seems to me that they
break the jobs down into small parts so that there are enough jobs to go
around.

Of course, I don't know any of this to be fact - it's just my observations
and my ponderings. I am by no means an expert on Chinese culture but it is
really interesting to me. So, on that note, I'll just say, go out and get
yourself some pig snout...who knows, maybe it is delicious! Of course, if
it is you will have to let me know because I'm not going to try it! :) I'll
have to ask John if he has had it before - there isn't much he hasn't tried!

Now...go eat your dinner!

And by the way, I have no idea what those other two parts are on the sides!