When you go to a foreign country, please make sure you know the equivalents in weight measurements if you want to buy food which sell by weight.
On arriving in Beijing and dumping my luggage in my hotel room on Sunday night, I went in search of my dinner. I decided not to eat in the hotel but instead go out in search of some food at a local eatery. Next to the hotel is a small supermarket where they also sell ready-made food, one of which was jiao zi (dumplings). I have a penchant for dumplings, so I decided to da bao some back to my room to eat. I saw that one 斤 costs 6 yuan. And I thought, “Oh, only 6 yuan. Can’t be a lot.” So I happily ordered one 斤 of dumplings. As I watched her make the dumplings and dumping them into the water to cook, I got horrified at the endless stream of dumplings she was putting into the boiling water one by one.
Right, so one 斤 of dumplings isn’t THAT little after all. I ended up with two boxes of dumplings, probably a total of 25 – 30 dumplings in all. When I went back to the hotel, I tried offering the guys at the concierge some but all refused it. So much for my good intentions. I felt really silly with all those dumplings. I tried my best to eat as many as possible, and I think I was very good to finish one box. I was jiao zi-ed out at the end of it. I haven’t eaten any since.
In any case, just for your reference, one 斤 [jin] equals 500 grams. And one 公斤 [gong jin] equals 1 kilo.