real chinese
flavor of the month
For most Westerners, the term “Chinese
food” does not denote the understated elegance
of Huaiyang cuisine, the robust heat and heady
fragrances of Hunan and Sichuan, or even the
riot of colour, texture and flavour that consti-
tutes classical Cantonese gastronomy.
The average small-town Englishman, like my-
self, has had little or no experience of the range
and diversity of authentic Chinese cuisine with-
out taking a trip to China. Speak to us of baozi,
mapo tofu or lotus seed cakes and we’d stare back
in bafflement. Mention egg rolls, fortune cook-
ies or prawn crackers, however, and we’re all ears.
Peking duck? That’s the one that’s deep-fried,
right?
The bastardisation of Chinese cooking to
suit what successive waves of immigrant chefs
termed the “Western” (i.e. “barbarian”) palate is
a common bugbear of Chinese food snobs. This
particular breed of gastronome – overwhelm-
ingly white males, in my experience – wouldn’t
be seen bound to a gurney in a Chinese all-you-
can-eat buffet restaurant, and visibly shudders
when the term “fusion” is thrown around to jus-
tify serving French fries with kung pao chicken.
Not me. I have no shame about filling my
face with sticky honey ribs, crispy shredded beef
or any number of utterly inauthentic and coro-
nary-inducing delights. Even today, when real,
unadulterated Chinese cuisine can be found in
cosmopolitan areas, driven partly by the sheer
numbers of homesick Chinese immigrants but
also by more educated and well-travelled urban
palates, the MSG-happy, excessively-lit West-
erner-beloved greasy spoons of my youth have
endured. Even tiny villages in rural corners of
the UK typically have two takeout joints – one
Indian, one Chinese. Add a pub, and that’s all
most people need.
In my hometown of York, the Chop Suey
House, for example, opened in the 1970s and
has essentially preserved its menu virtually un-
changed ever since. They have resisted expan-
sion at every turn – they don’t even deliver food- and front-of-house is a single white counter,
a nondescript Chinese New Year wall calendar,
strip lights, some faded seating and a slot ma-
chine. I make a point of returning at least once
a year to order their sweet-and-sour chicken
(where the deep-fried, battered chunks of juicy
chicken breast are kept separate from the gooey,
tart pink sauce) and barbecue spare ribs (enor-
mous, slightly charred and delicately spiced).
Sure, I can get a decent Chongqing-style hotpot
in a medieval Grade-I listed building just down
the road – but I can get a better one at half the
price in Beijing. What the Chop Suey House
serves up – from their chicken in cashew nuts
to a “satay” that, oddly, contains neither the pea-
nuts, the grilled meat nor any of the spicing of
its Malaysian namesake – is simply unavailable
anywhere else. Like Marmite, Cadbury eggs and
sharp Cheddar, it’s what I grew up with.
I’ve spent a decade in China and yet this im-
postor cuisine, which owes more to the British
penchant for deep-frying and an overuse of sugar
than to China’s cultural heritage, has a powerful
hold on my psyche. It’s also virtually unavailable
in China proper, though a restaurant serving up
“American Chinese food” opened up in Shang-
hai recently, largely to cater to returning overseas
students who had developed a taste for lo mein
and chop suey during their time Stateside.
Just like those adventurers who opened the
very first Chinese restaurants in mining and
railway towns in America to retain that most
primeval of connections to their lost homeland,
I’m happy to eat local, but what I truly crave on
a cold, miserable Beijing night is a little MSG-
laced taste of home.A Taste of Home
By Jack smith
bishi lian
Chain of ContemptWorrying about their children remaining single, a
group of parents in Beijing recently held a blind date
fair for their offspring, where the parents exchanged the
requirements they think their children’s ideal partner
should meet. Some of the conditions were so specific
and unrealistic that it formed what media called a “bishi
lian,” literally a “chain of contempt.”
With “bishi” meaning “contempt” and “lian” “chain,”
bishi lian is somewhat similar to the food chain, with
those below looked down on by those above. For exam-
ple, at the bishi lian that developed at the blind date fair,
those who hold a Beijing hukou (permanent residence
permit) and own a flat in the downtown area are placed
at the top, making them as tempting as freshly-baked
bread to the parents. Those who have neither are stuck at
the bottom. To come somewhere in the middle the chil-
dren needed a hukou, a flat or a well-paid job in Beijing.
Bishi lian became a buzzword when a chain of con-
tempt formed online around animations. The chain
ranked children who only watch domestic animation
films as looked down on by those who watch foreign
ones, while those who watch the animated films in Eng-
lish without translation stand right at the top. Media
reports said that the animations have divided kids intodifferent classes and those “standing tall” will even not
be allowed to play with those who “stand below.”
All manner of chains of contempt appeared much
earlier than the term itself. People tend to look down
on each other in every aspect of life. A man using an
iPhone, for example, may look down upon those us-
ing domestic brands. However, he may be looked down
upon by others if he likes to watch US TV series rather
than British ones. Psychologists attribute this phenom-
enon to people’s attempt to find a “sense of superiority
and identity,” which signifies a deeper split in the social
strata.bǐ shì liàn