My Typical Lunch Menu

Every day I have lunch with my local colleagues in the canteen at the building next door. The canteen serve set lunch at an unbelievable price. For RMB 8, you can have 3 vegetarian dishes and 1 rice. For additional meat, one just need to top up to RMB10 for 3 dishes mixed vegetable and meat rice.

Because it is so cheap, the canteen is always crowded at lunch time as the local working around the area flock over for a cheap and no frill lunch.

The canteen reminds me of a factory canteen where the workers queue up for food with their trays, mugs and cutlery.

Me queuing up for food

An average lunch of a Shanghai office worker.

And the food if you ask me, is just as unappetizingly as it looks. However, this is already considered "not bad" standard by the local. For me, I have to do what the Romans do. Not all my colleagues can afford a decent lunch (by my standard) which would cost roughly 30RMB. An average office worker only earn about 2to 3k RMB per month or even lesser!