Is it really food? That’s what some of my children were wondering when we ate at our first Chinese restaurant in China. Having eaten Chinese food in America many times, they were unprepared for how different food would be in China. Hot and sour soup and sweet and sour chicken didn’t seem to exist. Instead, the menu had fried kidneys, sautéed eels and baby quail with the head still intact. At many restaurants you can even choose your own snake and have it killed at your table and be offered the blood to drink. Depending on how adventurous your children’s taste buds are, this might be either a positive or negative experience. Jeff and I ordered garlic pork at one restaurant thinking it sounded rather benign, only to have virtually raw bacon with minced garlic on it delivered to our table. Finding a restaurant that has pictures on the menu is always a good idea if the menu is only in Chinese.


Taking four children with us to adopt Caleb, I can’t stress enough the importance of bringing comfort foods along from home. If your child refuses to eat the soup that arrives at your table with the fish head swimming in the bowl, they can always eat the granola bar in their pocket. If you know lunch will consist of a restaurant chosen by your guide, feeding your children some noodles before they leave the hotel room might be a good idea. In China, there is always a pot in your hotel room in which you can boil water, so noodles, macaroni and cheese (the microwaveable kind) and hot chocolate are foods you might consider packing. Having foods in your hotel room also comes in handy should you all be exhausted after a long day of touring and not want to go out to a restaurant for dinner.

In the interest of packing lightly, others might tell you that you can always just buy snacks when you arrive in-country. While there is some truth to this, you will have to either walk or take a taxi to a grocery store, and the snacks they have might not be the snacks your child is used to. If you haven’t had time to go to a grocery store, you might end up with whining and hungry children in a restaurant where nothing is appealing to them.



We did find potato chips that looked like ones from home, but instead of sour cream and onion or barbecue, the flavors were basted beef and pork. Thank heavens for Dove brand chocolates and Snickers bars…they must be a universal food as we found them in many a grocery store.

Before you travel to another country with children on an adoption trip, ask them if they were stranded on an island what food they absolutely could not live without. Go buy it and pack it away. When they are frustrated because they can’t understand the language around them, they are tired, and the food choices seem to be less than palatable, break out their favorite snack and you will have saved their day.

Having a child-friendly guide also comes in handy. After visiting the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall which is a two hour drive from Beijing, our guide told us he would take us to a place that the children would love....he promptly took us to McDonald's, which brought the smiles back to our tired and hungry children's faces.