IABB (I Ate Bugs Bunny)

I announced on my other blog that I had moved into a new apartment. My roommate and landlord is a Chinese woman who works at the school I’m attending. This year is the school’s 110th anniversary, so they arranged a huge celebration to take place at on of the school’s four campuses. My Chinese roommate had two tickets, so she gave one to me and promised me that this would be sooo great!

The day of the celebration, we decided to go furniture shopping to buy a bed for the second bedroom (my other classmate has yet to arrive). She took me by bus out past the third ring road (way out in the boonies) to a furniture mall. Although the mall was new, it was modeled to look like traditional Chinese architecture. Actually, the mall looked like a HUGE faux Forbidden City. We entered through one of the “gates” and entered a shop. Each shop was dedicated to a particular piece of furniture. One store sold only coffee tables, one sold hide-a-beds, one sold kitchen tables, etc. We ended up buying a bed that folds up into a couch.

Anyway, if you’re reading this you’re probably wondering when I am going to get to the food part of this post. Here you go:

Leap ahead in time to the Sichuan University’s 110th anniversary celebration. Picture me squished between my Chinese roommate and about another million Chinese people. The last time we had both eaten was at the Forbidden Furniture City, so we were both starved. I was hoping I could find some sort of snack food at the celebration, but no such luck. Presently, one of my roommate’s friends walked up and passed a bag to her. She grinned and told me it was some “traditional Chinese food.” I asked her what it was, “Rabbit head.”

“Oh.”

“Do you want some? It’s very good. Hen hao chi!” She dug into the bag and pulled one out. It was small, about the size of a rat’s head. I looked over as my roommate sucked out the tongue, pulled the meat off the roof of the mouth, slurped at the eyeballs. Just when I couldn’t get anymore grossed out, she put her fingers on the jaw and broke it off the skull.

“Try it. Its good.”

“But the brain—you can’t eat that!” Just then, she poked a finger through the base of the skull.

Slurp, slurp, slurp…

I slowly raised the rabbit head to my mouth and pulled the tiny bit of meat from the cheek. I was done.

“You are sooo brave. None of the other students will ever try this food…”

Hmm. Maybe so, but I won’t be eating it again.