I have lived abroad, in China, although for a semester, not a year. I was with 16 Americans and we ate in the regular student cafeteria at the Beijing Normal University. The food was simple, and primarily vegetarian, but it was good and the only problem any of the kids I was there with every had with the food was the heavy use of MSG, to which one of my classmates was allergic, and which gave many of us weird dreams. This was in the mid 80’s.