Read About China, But Go to the Caribbean

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I spent almost a week with another couple in the Caribbean.  Our friends had suggested it, and they did most of the planning – we just nodded yes and packed our bags.  It wasn’t what I would normally choose as a vacation, but I was up for doing something new.  My ideal vacation usually involves strolling around a foreign city and stopping for a beer every 2 hours or so for fuel.  So this laying-on-the-beach-at-a-fancy-resort thing was a little different.  Luckily, Turks & Caicos has beers too (barely).

This was a perfect vacation for a reader.  I was so insanely, inhumanely busy at work that I didn’t put much thought into what book to bring, but luckily I had a gem in my “To Read” pile – Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost.

Now as much as I just described my Caribbean vacation as not my usual cup of tea, I can now pronounce with certainty that visiting China definitely is not.  For example, I consider myself a fairly adventurous eater (with the exception of peppers).  While in the Turks, we snorkeled and caught (ok, we saw other people grab) fresh conch from the ocean.  Our boat captain pulled the conch from its shell and made it into ceviche right on the beach.  Raw ocean snail – yum.  It was actually quite delicious.  I ate conch three or four different ways in the Turks and enjoyed it.  But you can count me out on most of the goat organs that Troost described eating in China.  No thanks.

Conch fresh from the ocean - moments before eating it.

I don’t like reading the backs of books for the same reason I don’t like to see restaurant menus before I sit down to eat.  (It spoils the surprise.)  So, I will try my hardest not to spoil any books for my only reader (hey, Kiley).  But all three of Troost’s books are must-reads.  Just like China, his other two books Getting Stoned with Savages and Sex Lives of Cannibals are tales of faraway places he has visited, and in some cases lived.  He is absolutely hilarious, and the way he describes his unusual experiences is entertaining.  I even end up feeling smarter afterwards.  I can say interesting things to friends and colleagues like, “Did you know that 40 million Chinese men will never marry due to the lack of women there?”  I am riveting in meetings, I assure you.    

So, just as I would say in one of those meetings:  the key takeaway here is that reading about China while vacationing in the Caribbean is the way to go.  At least from this beer drinker’s point of view.