In my opinion, one of the best parts about living at the University of International Business and Economics, TBC’s host university, is the street right outside of campus’s East Gate. Every night from about 6-10pm, the street is always bustling with street vendors and a myriad of delicious restaurants. If you are looking for a small snack or full meal, the options are endless.
Even though this street boasts a number of delicious restaurants, to me, there is one that trumps all the others: Green Beans. I probably eat at Green Beans four or five times a week. The actual name of the restaurant is 陋食铭小吃, however like most restaurants around campus, TBC students typically come up with their own English nicknames to call them.
We call this restaurant Green Beans because, well, it has the world’s best green beans. It has a number of different options on the menu, all of which are 盖饭, meaning over rice. However the most popular, and in my opinion the most delicious, are the green beans.
In America, green beans were always on the bottom of the vegetable totem pole for me. I thought they were bland and tasteless. However China has changed my opinion of that, mainly due to this restaurant. The beauty of this restaurant is the simplicity of it. The green bean dish is just green beans, beef or pork, 辣椒(red peppers), garlic and ginger all fried up and over rice. While it might not sound like anything too amazing, one mouthful of 豆角焖牛肉 (green beans and beef) will rest my case. Green Beans will definitely be one of my last meals and most missed restaurant once I leave China.
By Tommy Sullivan, Boston College, TBC Social Media and Communications Intern and Spring 2015 Student
This is the first American edition of Anderson’s fascinating account of Britain’s first diplomatic mission to China in 1792. By the end of the eighteenth century the East India Company had been trading with Chinese merchants for two hundred years, but in a strictly limited way.
At the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment, as the 18th century drew to a close, the Western world was eager for knowledge—driven by a philosophical movement that championed reason and science. King Louis XV of France asked for the advice of his trusted Minister of State, Henri Bertin, about how to reform the spirit of the nation, after giving it some thought, Bertin famously responded, “Sire, to inoculate the French with the Chinese spirit.”