How I Learned to Like Bugs in My Food: The Psychological Takeaway.

Guacamole with Chapulines (grasshoppers), a Oaxacan delicacy, Oaxaca MX

When I was a kid, I found a tiny green caterpillar in some blueberries.  That was it for me and blueberries for a long time.  Many years later, when a cooking-minded friend told me that smoked, ground worms were a key ingredient in the dark mole at my favorite Oaxacan restaurant, I felt a real sense of betrayal; I didn't go back there for a long time.  Yet, things were destined to change.

Before my initiation into insect-eating, if I found grasshoppers, on my guacamole, I would 
have complained and sent it back.  Oaxacans have a real fondness for food garnished with the insects and guacamole this way is more expensive than plain guacamole.
If you order your guacamole with chapulines (grasshoppers), it costs more than plain. 


My first encounter with, presumably, edible bugs was on a trip to Puebla MX.  

Chapulines, Puebla MX

Chapulines, Puebla MX

I bought a bag of the spicy, crunch critters that came in an assortment of flavors, including spicy chili, and lime. They were so attractively displayed that my curiosity got the better of me.  They are toasted and crisp, not gooey or slimy to bite into.  To me, they had a fishy taste.

Then came my trips to Oaxaca MX, the home of the toasted grasshopper. Again, the many displays were so attractive.   And not only grasshoppers, but crickets, too.

Chapulines, Oaxaca MX

In fact, bug-eating isn't just a for-show activity in Mexico, but has deep historical roots in the
culture. I have written about this before and please click the link to get to the article.
https://colonialmexicoinsideandout.blogspot.com/2017/08/eat-and-drink-like-aztec-or-inca.html  At this point, I couldn't describe myself as a bug devotee, but at least I no longer cringed at the thought of eating them.  

 A trip to the Mexico City area brought me face to face with my anxiety about worms in my food.  While on a drive to visit the Church/Convento of Ixmiquilpin in Hidalgo state, my guide decided it was time for lunch. This was where we stopped.

Roadsisde restaurant, Hidalgo state, MX

Lunch was tacos and my guide, a remarkable octogenarian, asked the waiter for gusanos
as a garnish for his.  In a million years I never would have tried them, on my own, but in the  context of a Mexican taco joint, the novelty propelled me to take this unexpected step.

Gusanos, Hidalgo state, MX

These chubby maggots are threaded on strings and smoked; you can find them in markets still hanging on the string.  I couldn't resist my curiosity, I took one from the plate and very gingerly took a tiny bite; it tasted dry and smoky, not at all what I imagined.  Very often they are ground into a fine powder and mixed in moles for the extra little kick they bring. 

The Takeaway- It's not About Bugs, It's About You!
I"m not trying to encourage anyone to eat creepy-crawlies; they really are besides the point.  What I am trying to show is one particular instance in which travel changed me.   There is something about being in an entirely new situation, that encourages people to try different things and put aside old fears and aversions.    Travel nudges you out of your rut, and you grow .  For me, that is the essence, the whole point of travel.  It's not the photos in your album that count, although they're fun to see, but the changes in you. 


  


 

A Slice of Life Along Bangkok's Canals- Guest Video

 Canal, Bangkok Thailand

Canal, Bangkok Thailand

Bangkok, because of its canals, has been called the Venice of the East.  Although many of these canals, or khlongs in the Thai language, were drained or filled to prevent cholera or to become roads, those that do remain reveal interesting slices of a gone-by life.  Unfortunately, all of Bangkok's waterways, including these canals, are badly polluted and caution must be taken not to fall in any of them. This, for foreigners, would necessitate a trip to the hospital for immediate antibiotic therapy.  Luckily,  locals acquire greater immunity to the pathogens in the water. 

This short video, done by my husband, gives a glimpse at life along the canals.

Why Travel? A Psychologist Weighs In

Author with husband at Giza Pyramids, Cairo, Egypt 2010

By profession, for many years, I was a clinical psychologist. Whether or not I want it, from time to time, this does color the way I see things and travel is no exception.  Our culture tells us that traveling is a good thing.  Media bombard us with travel ads and aspirational travel stories.  I too share in this mentality and love to travel, but suddenly the psychologist in me stops and asks why? 

The urge to explore new places seems built into human beings but, until recently, long-distance leisure travel was mostly reserved for the wealthy.  True some people had always undertaken long-distance journeys like pilgrimages, but these also were costly and fraught with danger and hardship.  The idea of safe, affordable travel is a relatively new one.

Travel has meant many things to me in the course of my life.  At times travel has been therapeutic.  After my senior year of college, a month in Europe was a time-out to sort through my life and relationships, which at the time were challenging.  

Now that I'm older, travel means something else; it is an extension of my basic curiosity 
and desire for new experiences.  These, themselves, as Classical Conditioning Psychology tells us, stem from the basic human tendency to extinguish to stimuli over time. Practically speaking, things that once gave us pleasure, can become common-place and no longer  are reinforcing for us. A desire for novelty is built into all of us.

People vary in their need for novelty,  it's a matter of personality. Some people just prefer the security of familiar situations.  Others seek new experiences.  Neither one is "correct", it's just a matter of who you are.  For me, my curiosity has always been a primary drive impelling me into new situations, since I was very young.

So, what does novelty do for me?  
It's not that I don't appreciate my usual surroundings; the places that I "live in" are considered interesting by most people.  But, I see them every day and have become used to them or, in  psychological terms, extinguished to them. I don't experience them with the intensity  that I once did and seem to need. True there are many ways to bring novelty into your life, but travel is one of the big ways to do this. 

Learning experiences and personal transformation
When I travel, I experience a whole new set of stimuli, of circumstances and they wake me up, shake up my perceptions. There are new sights, sounds, people, experiences and foods, really a new reality.  New situations call up new responses and I grow, sometimes in ways that I never expected, such as the time I became lost on a country road in China. https://69yearoldbackpacker1.blogspot.com/2019/01/lost-on-chinese-tea-plantation.html 
In my everyday frame of mind, I would have panicked in this situation, but these new circumstances called-up a new frame of mind and I just stayed calm.  This was a transformative moment for me, and there have been many others like it in my travels.


What does travel mean to you?
Each person is unique and what you get out of travel is as unique as you are.  Why don't you ask yourself what travel means to you.  Your answers may be surprising and you will end up learning a lot about yourself.  Feel free to share them in the "Comments" section of this blog.  I'd love to hear them and other readers can learn from you, too.

Lost on a Chinese Tea Plantation

 Lonjing Tea

It was two days before my departure from Shanghai, and it dawned on me that I had never visited Hangzhou  reputed to be the most beautiful city in China and often called Heaven on Earth.  Perusing tour options to Hangzhou, I saw that most of them included a boat tour of Hangzhou's iconic Westlake and afterwards, a tea plantation. Hangzhou is famed for the Lonjing or Dragon Well tea grown only there; this is a very special green tea, "the Tea of Emperors".  Since the tours seemed to include a lot of wasted time, like transport in a car or bus, and after learning that the high speed train could get me there in under an hour, I decided to go on my own.

When you are in a country where you do not speak the language you get a written card from your hotel with the names and addresses of your destinations in the local language similar to the one in the photo. I had one for the Hangzhou boat docks and Meijiawu Tea Village in Hangzhou.  It seemed fail-safe. 

Add caption

Getting to Hangzhou was a piece of cake, even the short subway ride from the train station to the lake, which initially had intimidated me, turned out to be easy.  One look at the Westlake assured me that Hangzhou would not fall short on its promise of being Heaven on Earth.  Below are just a few shots showing why this place inspired poets for centuries.

Westlake Hangzhou, China

Westlake, Hangzhou, China

Westlake, Hangzhou, China

Here I am soaking up the magnificence.

Me on boat tour of Westlake, Hangzhou China

Boat tour accomplished, and ready for tea, I headed to the main street, armed with my card, to find a cab. My trouble was about to start. After being turned down by several cabs, I finally found one who agreed to take me to Meijiawu Tea Village,   I had read the tea-growing area was away from Hangzhou's city center, but did not appreciate how far away.  We seemed to be heading to the middle of nowhere and my own GPS was not working.  The cab  had put on his GPS, but seemed confused and eventually stopped to ask directions and left me off here.

Bamboo Path, Hangzhou China

I love bamboo forests and, normally would have been ecstatic especially since this one led to an old and significant temple. But, I was on a mission.   I showed my card to people in an office I came across, but no one knew anything about a Tea Village   I started walking  and looking around realized I was in the midst of incredibly beautiful tea terraces.

Tea Terraces, Hangzhou China

Tea Terraces, Hangzhou China

Country road with Tea Terraces, Hangzhou, China

It was mid-afternoon in deep countryside, and I started to wonder how I was going to get out of there. Worst case scenario was me spending the night on the side of that road.  But there were cars and an occasional bus passing.  I didn't get too worried, but kept on moving figuring that I'd eventually get somewhere, wherever that was.

Shortly, I began to see buildings in the tea fields and a few people walking around, but not the crowds picking tea leaves that I assumed I would find.  Once I walked into the terraces towards a building, but barking dogs told me this was not a great idea.


Within 15 minutes, I came to some sort of village; it had the feel of a resort area.
I went into one of the hotels and, again, showed my card with Meijiawu Tea Village.  Not a glimmer of recognition in anyone's eyes.

Meijiawu Tea Village, Hangzhou China

Main Street, Meijiawu Tea Village, Hangzhou China

My fantasy of picking tea leaves and sampling teas soon gave way to an urgent search for a taxi;  I did not want to end up spending the night, wherever I was. I was convinced a cab would pass by, and one did.  In a last feeble effort, I showed my card to the cab driver and he asked in broken English if I wanted to drink tea.  I laughed to myself and completely gave up my tea village quest. I asked the driver to take me back to the train station (I had a card for that place, too) and a short train ride later was back in Shanghai.

The Irony:
You may have noticed that the captions on my photos say Meijiawu Tea Village, the place I was trying to find.  Ironically, I had gotten to the place I was searching for, but had absolutely no idea I was there.  

After some careful research, I unearthed two facts.  One was that the locals do not use the term  Meijiawu Tea Village to refer to the place and two was that it was fall, off-season, and everything was more or less shut down.   Picking season for Lonjing tea is early spring and that is when the place comes to life with tours and opportunities to pick teas.  It was kind of like trying to go skiing in the summer. When I was first reading about the area, I should have dug deeper and gotten my facts straight.

But, I was left with a real curiosity about Longing Tea, reputed to be unique among green teas and became obsessed with finding some.  That was no problem, because Shanghai 
is loaded with tea shops and my hotel sent me to one nearby that carried quality teas and had a large selection of Longings, some of which sold for close to $100 per ounce.

Interior of tea shop, Shanghai China

Teas, Tea Shop Shanghai China

Lonjing Teas, Shanghai China (sell for close to $100 an ounce)

The Takeaway:
My initial reaction to not finding the tea plantation was been frustration, but this evolved into a curiosity about Longing tea and tea production in general. I read several books on the topic and the lapsed into my long-time habit of drinking  dark, earthy Indian Assam tea, the kind that is typically drunk mixed with milk.  However, Longing tea is unique among green teas with its combination of flavor, vitamin C and antioxidants and I can highly recommend it.