Shrank to a 3-Years-Old Child Chapter 58 part2 Discussion

This is not a normal review. It is pointing out one very specific aspect of this story that I have personally noticed. You won't be able to unsee it once you know.

I've observed something over a long time. That one if the key elements of the enduring classics is "good food and good cheer". You find it again and again, Lord of the Rings begins with Hobbits in the Shire and second breakfast, Harry Potter starts with chocolate frogs and butterbeer and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, in Narnia a kid sells out his siblings to a witch just for some Turkish Delight! Half of Alice in Wonderland is a tea party!

This is not one of those books. The most infuriating thing while reading this, to me, was the way that they handle food. If the best books are like gathering round the table for holiday dinner with family? This one, it's like living inside the mind of someone with anorexia, it's maddening, I feel so hungry. Nobody is allowed to eat ANYTHING ever. If food is presented (and it shows up incredibly often, for a book that seemingly despises it so much) - then the food must either be thrown out as "not suitable for eating" or otherwise confiscated after a single nibble. The story looks down it's nose with a snooty, holier-than-thou disposition upon mere peasant food - DIRTY food they say - at each opportunity, opportunities specifically made by the story itself, just so it can sit on the high horse!

I noticed a pattern showed up multiple times: A large amount of delicious food is placed in front of the protagonist. Her eyes light up, she goes to eat it, eats one bite, and then it's taken away. Simultaneously, a few paragraphs later, when food is put in front of the baby again she rushes to scarf it down - only for the same exact people to criticize, and I quote, "slow down, nobody's going to fight you for it". Like. Bro. YOU just fought her for it a second ago! This exact scenario and exact words have repeated multiple times, and I'm only a third of the way through!

This is not describing how to properly manage a kid's diet. This is describing how to cultivate your daughters with an eating disorder dude.

McDonald's is mentioned a few times. Usually it's just to say "Children cannot eat McDonald's" which. BS man, you clearly hate joy and all that is good and greasy in the world. But anyway. Shockingly, they actually go once! And get this. You won't believe this crap. I would never have been able to think this up myself in a million years. The story goes out of its way to describe how they take the little girl's chicken mcnuggets and carefully *peel off* the golden brown crispy part to just give her the plain chicken inside! What the frick??

They criticize the child for picky eating. Okay, okay. But. How do you expect the child to not be picky about what she eats when YOU are so picky about what she eats? This. It's not scientific. 0.0

And it keeps going! They go to a fancy rich people business party, and she's hungry. *They're too good for the hors d'oeuvres*. "Children can't eat cold food" like. Wat. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you mean the weird ancient Chinese medicine hot/cold. But then they follow up by saying "those things have been left out too long they're no good" - you've been there for like an hour?? And also. That's not how rich people food works at all?? They have money and staff - if the food's been out for awhile it gets swapped for new food. Assuming they even put it out on a table instead of having wait staff wander around with silver platters in hand.

They go and visit her adoptive mother figure and the old lady cries after recognizing the little girl she raised instantly despite that this girl should be like 38 years old - she just knows, a mother always recognizes her baby. That part is beautiful. And they follow it up with describing how Aunt Ding is the most amazing cook, her cooking, it tastes like childhood and nostalgia and HOME, and on reuniting with the little girl she immediately goes and bustles around the kitchen and makes this huge, wonderful meal. It goes out of the way to describe how the brother notices that Aunt Ding made all of Gu Qing Qing's favorite foods - she remembered after so many years. They put it all in front of Gu Qing Qing, she takes a bite - and Gu Lan (the adult brother) goes "alright, children can't eat too much" and takes away her plate! He *taunts* her while stuffing it all in his face! I was enraged.

And even more! "I want to eat fried chicken" "children cannot eat fried chicken" - even other people's children aren't spared!

There's a scene where the kindergarten goes on a field trip to the museum. Gu Qing Qing and all the other children have backpacks filled with snacks, and they trade them around being all adorable and sharing their food with the teacher. Well, Qing Qing's tiny friend Han Han, when it's her turn to trade with the teacher's jellybeans - she pulls out spicy sticks! And the teacher goes "oh no no no kids can't have this" and then suspiciously looks what Han Han's parents have packed in her backpack. It's a treasure, dude. She's got soda she's got candy she's got potato chips and jerky and spicy sticks - and the cherry on top! A bucket of gosh dang honest to goodness *fried chicken*. The story explicitly notes - the chicken is still warm, and Han Han's mother must have gotten up especially early to cook this for her... So naturally, the teacher confiscates all of it under the justification "kids can't eat this"

The teacher compensates Han Han by "trading" all of her own health food lunch for the backpack of her mother's love. And then! Not even adults are spared! They make a big point out of how the teacher has to go hungry now - because adults also "cannot eat fried chicken" and she has to find somewhere to buy a new lunch. The lunch lovingly prepared at 5AM by Han Han's mom gets to rot untouched in a tr*shcan.

And it just goes on and on and on! The maids invent a new popsicle recipe from scratch without using sugar or artificial flavors so that Qing Qing can eat it - she's still not allowed to eat. Nope. Just one popsicle. This poor desperate kid befriends the lunch lady at school because she'll slip her extra food (and there's this whole heartwarming story about how actually, the old lunch lady is really the owner of the school and she retired but couldn't bear to stop caring for the children so she cooks the lunches, and actually secretly the extra food she gives Qing Qing was made by her at home and brought specifically for this poor kid) - Qing Qing doesn't get to eat that either! Her sons and brother and husband all descend to eat a piece of the mung bean cake from the lunch lady until there's nothing left! Like vultures!

The poor child starving to death isn't even a plot point or feature of the story! It's not an event! The author just has a pathological disgust for all food and invents reasons that Gu Qing Qing must starve at every turn...

Yo. Author person dude. Meet me at the McDonald's parking lot I'm feeling obliged to roll up my sleeves and throw some hands for the honor of Sir Ronald McDonald and Mr Colonel Sanders?? What horrible crime against nature did you do to those chicken McNuggets, you know what you did! Peeled! Nuggets! If it's not in the Geneva Convention I want it added right now!