Column:
Chinese buffets are ingenious
Published April 11, 2008
The world is in shambles: Ted Turner thinks humans will be cannibals in 30 years because of global warming, Jesse Ventura is supposedly hanging out with Che Guevara and Chinese-Tibetan conflict is still raging on. With all of this controversy surrounding the Olympic torch on its trip to China, it got me thinking about that country. Not its mistreatment of Tibet or crazy way of playing checkers, but of the country as a whole. Americans know very little about China.
Eighty percent of American toys are made in China. With all the products that get recalled from China, you would think items children play with would be one of those things Americans would put some kind of extra safety restraint on. Needless to say the Chinese haven’t even mastered exporting dog food and cleaning supplies that won’t eat a hole in your brain. But hell, let’s let our 8-year-olds put their plastic action figures and Yu-Gi-Oh cards in their mouths!
Exporting goods and labor is a profitable business for the Chinese people, and I can’t blame them for any of this trading extravaganza that has recently taken place because I know that the trend will never change. Everyone wants to make money in some respect, and the Chinese exporters are no different. Even non-Americans want a piece of that American Dream, and nobody knows that better than the Chinese. Just look at the Chinese buffet, it is the prime example of a business based on the idea of capitalism.
I love the Chinese buffet, from the extra crunchy crab rangoon that has been left out too long to the heaping mounds of fried rice that just beg to be eaten at world-record pace.
Is crab rangoon even Chinese? Do they have cream cheese that readily available over there? If so, I might have to get a lesson in Cantonese and a plane ticket, because I love that stuff.
Just look at the overall goal of a Chinese buffet: Bring masses of people into a designated location at once, charge them by the head and shove so much food into their mouth that afterward they can’t even move. Then 20 minutes later, everyone is hungry again wanting more food because of the MSG, and since they can’t move they eat more. Lather, rinse, repeat. This is supply and demand at an ingenious level.
The Chinese buffet can also help us see peace amongst the world. All of the dishes living in harmony under a heat lamp — it’s really a beautiful thing. I hope someday that all people can live together in harmony, and with the global warming just around the corner (according to Ted Turner), we will all be under a heat lamp in 30 years eating each other. Cannibalism is not quite peaceful, but at least we will have a wide range of flavors.
To solve this hoopla over the torch, China needs to act likes its buffet and do the right thing. They need to feed Tibet until they can’t move. This way no protests can happen, and 20 minutes later the torch is long gone. Genius, I know. The torch is scheduled to go to Mount Everest, how is it going to stay lit? Just another question mastered by the buffet, use a fake flame devised of soft-serve ice cream — is that a Chinese dish? Nevertheless, climbing to the summit of Mt. Everest will be quite a feat. The torch carriers are going to need quite a lot of energy to do that, even if Ted Turner is right and we have to eat each other, but I know that Chinese have the manpower to finish this task.