How (Not) to Eat Sugar Cane, in Eight Easy Steps

*Kate ate a lot of crazy stuff when she went to Zhongshan in 2009. Here follows her tips for eating sugar cane, a popular local treat.*

1. Get bored waiting for the bus and find something you have no idea what it is.

(A likely candidate.) Then, accidentally order three of them.

2. Take too big of an enthusiastic bite and get splinters in the roof of your mouth. Choke a little, accidentally swallow some, and realize you actually have no idea how to eat this sucker.

3. Surreptitiously find someone else who is eating what you now recognize as sugar cane to model the correct eating procedure, but not so surreptitiously that bystanders don't realize what you're doing and laugh at your ignorance.

4. Take a smaller bite this time but still spill juice on yourself.

5. Chew and suck on that bite until it has the taste and consistency of paper.

6. Abruptly spit it out on the street.

7. Realize that you probably should have spit it out onto that designated pile over there.

8. Repeat. It's a tasty treat on a hot day.