Article #4 in the Student Travel Stories Series from our tour of Beijing, China.
By Toan, Age 18, 11th Grade in Boston. Born in the U.S. to parents from Vietnam.
Toan about to eat the "King Spider" at the Night Market.
Q: During our free hour in Beijing’s Night Market, word is that you sampled some INSANE foods. What exactly happened?
A: Well, first I went around trying to look for the scorpion. That was the first food I wanted to eat.
All the exotic foods in the market were lying out raw, and when you paid for them, the vendors deep fried them and put on some salt for you.
At first, I couldn’t find the stall that sold scorpion, so I ended up eating the squid kabob, then the snake kabob instead.
Finally, I found a group of other BPS students gathering around and laughing in front of a stall, and I knew I had finally found the scorpions.
Eating the large scorpion. Not as good as the baby scorpion.
The scorpion that I first tried was the baby scorpion. When I initially took a bite out of it, all of the juice came squirting out into my mouth, and it tasted very delicious, and kind of like French fries.
Then I tried one of the bigger scorpions, which was very dark, and very scary looking. I have to say that the big scorpion didn’t taste as good as the small one. All I felt in my mouth was the shell, and there was hardly any meat at all.
Either way, that was pretty fun, eating both the scorpions.
As I walked further down the Night Market road, I tried eating one really weird thing, which was sheep… male parts. Yes, you read that right.
A view of the whole Bizarre Foods Night Market of Beijing.
This bizarre food didn’t taste as good as I thought it would, because the stench was really strong, and I didn’t like it at all, whatsoever. I mean, who likes to eat male parts, anyway?
My partner in crime, Tuan, didn’t like the sheep parts, either, so he went on and bought a starfish to eat.
The starfish was very crunchy and tasted like crab meat. The inside of it was black, so I believe it was starfish feces. Ewww!
Then, I went on and tried cat and dog meat. Unfortunately, one of the other vendors said it was a hoax for tourists, and the man who sold me the meat was actually selling chicken.
Eating some sort of crustacean. Crunch crunch!
Anyway, I was not really sure which meat was which anymore, because they all tasted like chicken! Hahahaha!
Moving on. The pig intestines tasted pretty normal, because I have eaten those back in the United States.
The last thing I ingested was one of the things my friend Tuan hated the most: the SPIDER!
I paid 80 Yuan ($13) to eat the Spider King. You can see it in all its glory in the first photo of this article.
Eating the Spider King was actually very good. The stomach of the spider tasted like crab meat, while the rest was just
crunchy.
Starfish, which "tastes like crabmeat" according to Toan.
Q: So, are these crazy foods typical Chinese foods?
A: No! Our guide explained to us that, though Chinese people do eat a wider variety of foods than Americans, this whole Night Market (or as he called it, “Snack Street”) is really for tourists, not local Chinese people. It was created as something funny and interesting for tourists to do, and a way for local people to make money.
Chinese people are not eating spiders every day. That was just me doing a crazy tourist activity in Beijing!
Q: So we have to know… After eating all those bizarre foods, did your stomach hurt terribly???
Toan's partner in crime, Tuan, wielding Snake on a Stick!
A: Nope! I was totally fine!!!! But readers, don’t try this at home. I have a stomach of steel because I grew up eating all sorts of things.
Q: What overall reflective thoughts do you have about this one-of-a-kind food experience?
A: Overall, eating all these bizarre foods in the Beijing Night Market was a wonderful experience… and kind of scary as well!
So what do you think, readers? Would YOU ever try such bizarre foods?
Thanks, Toan, for such an entertaining article, and thanks, EF Tours!
Next culinary destination: Europe for some horse lasagna.
Yipes!
WOW! Eating starfish and eating scorpion sounds like a great meal to some people, but to most it is a horrifying nightmare.
That’s Asia. People are known to eat anything that crawls or slithers.
I could never eat any bug. That is just gross and crazy. I would throw up just seeing someone eat that, if I was there!
Gross!How can a person even stare something like that in the face,or body,or watever.
Ew! That’s gross! How can he eat that spider and scorpion? Those pictures have scarred me for life.
I would have no problems eating the snake or the starfish (would skip the innards though).
OMG! It does look disgusting but I would consider eating it. (:
That is so gross, I would never want to eat any of those foods.
[...] truth is that you will find little as strange as the night market in Beijing. This great post from AroundtheWorldL illustrates tha nicely. If you feel like the zorld has become too organized and [...]
Toan looks really funny in the first picture and I love it how he ate some many weird things. I would never eat male sheep parts.
Omg! That seems so fun! You’re so brave to try it, if it were me I wouldn’t be afraid to try it if my friends were around me because I would feel like I could do anything. By using your opinion on these crazy food, I am willing to try and know that I will be okay.
Hah! I LOVE the kid’s face behind Toan in the second picture! His face says: “Oh My Lord! What is he eating!?”
If that was real dog meat I would have never ate it. It would just be cruel to the animal.
I wonder what commoners think of this market. Although it’s run by everyday people, it’s not what you would see everyday.
I think that the starfish feces are actually guts of the starfish? If they are feces then I think starfish had diarrhea.
Did you make that up?
Dude that is gross! I think you are just getting scammed for money in China!
Toan, did you really eat that huge spider??? lol… they say when you go to Rome, you do what the Romans do…smile..I really wanna try this. Thanks for sharing with us, now i know its not just about “fufu” but spiders, scorpions and snakes…smile. Big ups Toan, good work .. Oliver Ghana West Africa
Really funny how you can walk up the street and look at the scorpions and starfish with a perfectly normal face on.
That boy must be really brave to be eating strange stuff. I won’t trust those night markets. They look dirty. There food might be dirty due to thousands of people walking around the market. The raw meat will attract flies. Then the flies will infect the meat. I just don’t trust markets that sells stuff on the streets.
I can’t believe you ate all of those disgusting animals!!!!!! It was surprising when you said that the smaller scorpion tasted better than the bigger one. I never would have guested that all those different animals tasted the way that they did.
I liked how Toan tried foods even though the foods looked crazy. I admire his bravery.
I would most likely try the food’s you tried in Beijing for the experience. Also how come everything tastes like crab meat or chicken because whenever someone tries a weird food they always say something like that.
This is great! I don’t think I could bring myself to actually eat any of that stuff, especially the bugs and other creepy things. What a great travel story.
That’s taking adventurous eating to a whole new level! I think I’d be willing to try most of those though
I am very happy that people in China do not really eat this food. I don’t think my mom would let anybody cook it in the house though. Happy time getting sick!
I have two feelings right now. One, relief. Two, scared. I feel relieved because I know now that they don’t actually cook dogs and cats. That’s good to know. I’m scared because I would never eat that. Good luck to anyone who might try that!
I think this is absolutly GROSS!!!!! I would never eat a spider or a scorpion. I think I would throw up if I seen someone in person eating that.
Ewww! I can someone eat something like that? I wonder what it tastes like?
Spider! I hate looking at them let alone eat them! Blah!
I think it’s funny that Chinese people don’t really eat those sort of things.
My friend had ate this food before and said it tasted somewhat delicious and nasty at the same time.
You are so brave! My cousin WANTED to try the food that you tried but his mother (my aunt), aunts (my mother and her sister) and my grandmother said the food is not safe. There are many stories of people eating these things at the Night Market and drastic changes happen to their body. I’m tempted to eat the crab meat tasting foods.
Qi Yin! Would your mother even let you near that food?
Yes. She would and I went last time with my cousin who is younger than me.
My grandmother, in an attempt to scare my cousin into not eating the foods told stories of what happened to people who ate it. One example is about a little girl who ate some squid and when she walked to the next street, half of her face melted from the skull. It’s disgusting but my grandmother never liked street vendors (I have no idea why).
Wow! The first photo of how the guy was eating the spider was scary! I wish I can try it, too and see how it taste like.
It was really cool that Toan mad this article and ate all those crazy foods. :>
Love that first photo! This sounds like a tour I would be happy (& somewhat grossed out) to be on. Adding it to my bucket list
I was thoroughly enjoying the article…. until I got to snake on a stick (shiver). That just reaaaalllly grossed me out. CANNOT imagine eating that. I was about to say Toan was such a brave soul for stomaching those critters… but it doesn’t seem like he had much trouble or worries.
blehhhh……
Oh goodness! I could never stomach that. How in the world did he finish it knowing that it was a spider he was eating? Blech!
I was there. It was disgusting. The sad thing is that I played it safe this whole trip and ate no strange creatures and I GOT SICK!. Toan kept eating, the next day, on the plane, he just kept eating and he was perfectly fine. Life is not fair.
The funniest part of you and the others getting sick (though it was sad, not funny) is that it wasn’t because of China at all… it was the flu from Boston that we brought all the way across the world with us! And we even got the bus driver sick.
You’re right, though– sometimes you never know what the real dangerous thing is!
I think that if I wasn’t vegan, I would try some of those creatures, but it was really entertaining just to watch it all happen.
I hear you! That said, being a vegetarian didn’t stop my fiance from eating some intense meats for the “cultural experience” last summer in China: http://www.aroundtheworldl.com/2011/09/17/a-vegetarian-trains-to-eat-meat-in-prep-for-china-travel/ (Click for photos of chicken feet, pig’s tails, etc.!)