养生 (yǎng shēng) or taking care of one’s health is a Shenzhen obsession. However, the difficulty of living a healthy life has given rise to cynical takes on the preventative measures of traditional Chinese medicine. A text message currently making the rounds, begs the question, “if we are what we eat, what are we becoming?:

百毒不侵的中国人是怎么炼成的？早起，穿冒牌运动服出门，买地沟油炸油条，切个苏丹红咸蛋，冲杯三聚氰氨奶，上班。中午，在食堂要一注水肉炒农药韭菜，有毒猪血，来碗翻新陈米饭，泡壶香精茶叶。下班，买条避孕药鱼，尿素豆芽，膨大西红柿，开瓶甲醇酒，伴根瘦肉精的双汇火腿肠吃个硫磺馒头。饭后在地摊上买本盗版小说盗版光盘，晚上钻进黑心棉被，睡了…

How is Chinese resistance to one hundred toxins cultivated? Get up early, put on a fake namebrand sweatsuit, buy an oil stick fried in gutter oil, cut a tonyred salted egg, pour a glass of melamine milk, go to work. At lunch, have a serving of water-injected meat fried with over-fertilized chives, toxic pig’s blood, have a bowl of repackaged old rice, brew a pot perfumed tea leaves. Get off work, buy a prophylactic fish, carbamide bean sprouts, enhanced tomatoes, a bottle of methanol liquor, clenobuterol hydrochloride ham, and a sulfur steamed bun. After dinner, go to the kiosk, buy a counterfeit novel and DVD. At night, snuggle into a black hearted blanket, sleep…

sigh.