Monday, June 17, 2013

Appropriate snacks for a Taiwanese movie theater

In the US most movie theaters ask that you do not bring "outside foods" into the theater, very clearly meaning that you must buy your popcorn, drinks, and Sour Patch Kids from the theater. Taiwanese people, being a large population of munchers, are a little more diverse and creative with our movie food. Here is a sign that is displayed in the chain Ambassador Theaters:
Translation: According to the law, please do not bring hot foods, and foods that will make sounds, including cold/hot stewed food, chicken nuggets, hamburgers, fried chicken, chicken cutlets, French fries, bentos, rice dumplings, steamed buns, dumplings, vermicelli, meat buns, green onion pancakes, sausages, rice sausages, chicken, sandwiches, Dong Shan stewed items [which is a specific brand], grilled items, fried items, fried/boiled/stir-fried/deep-fried items, soup/cold noodles, squash seeds, peanuts, pistachios, potato chips and its variants, marinated snails, roasted chestnuts, oden, hot soup, anything containing wheat flour, rice and porridge variants, sweet soups, fried/baked pastries and cakes, betelnuts, and drinks into the theater. [Notice that they mention three kinds of fried chicken].

This theater is not alone, either, although this one seems to have the most comprehensive list.The bottom line is essentially no outside food, but if you really think hard, you can actually find a lot of loopholes. For example, raw foods--it would be perfectly okay to bring raw beef and sashimi, says my boyfriend. The list also leaves out many cooking methods, such as steaming (steamed stinky tofu), curing (ham and bacon), and pickling (kimchi and Taiwanese pickled garlic, which smells awful).

Obviously it would be incredibly cruel to bring the smelliest stuff into a poorly ventilated movie theater, but it would also be hilarious. And, really, I feel like thinking of loopholes is often more entertaining than the movie itself. America, you need to be more fun and do stuff like this. Is Taiwan not the best? Yes it is.

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