No more talks about melamine-rich milk here. I read a few posts on Aw's own blog about how bad the food condition is in China, and my family all got quite nervous and helpless about the whole food issue. As one (funny) Chinese saying goes: 'Eat things NOT clean and you will NOT get sick.' (不干不净，吃了没病) The current situation looks like that there really aren't anything very 'clean' at all. Luckily, my family is still quite healthy, and I cannot really deny the validity of that saying.

However, the care taken of food safety is perhaps a bit too far for a Chinese to accept. Indeed, my Indian friends (and all my formal roommates, maybe) would not agree with this Q&A on StillTasty: 'I Left Pizza Out Overnight - Is It Still Safe to Eat?' and the answer is a 'startling' NO. Admittedly, my standard for food safety isn't that high, but it is still too hard for me (and for the sake of my life) to believe that 'it’s dangerous to eat any cooked food (including takeout foods like pizza, fried chicken or Chinese food) that has been allowed to sit at room temperature for two hours or longer.' I and my friends lived on such food throughout the year in London; and I grew up on such food. I should not have been alive right now, at least according to the StillTasty guides... How terrible!

Now I don't really know whether it's the StillTasty admins being too cautious, or it's me being to barbarous? It's still good to know that Chinese people are quite resistant to low level food poison. Foreigners visiting China are advised to exercise great caution, though.