real chinese
flavour of the month
Rice. It’s synonymous with the word for
“food" in a dozen Asian countries, includ-
ing China, where “chi fan le ma?” – “have
you eaten (rice) yet?” is equivalent to asking
someone how their day has been. The staple
food of over half the world's population, it
is the predominant source of dietary energy
in 17 countries in Asia and the Pacific, and
much of Africa and South America.
First domesticated as long as 13,000 years
ago in China’s Pearl River Delta, rice is one
of the planet’s most diverse grains, and, in
multiple forms, rules the Chinese dinner
table from the tropical beaches of Hainan all
the way to the frigid tundra of Heilongjiang.
The International Rice Research Initiative,
in partnership with the Chinese Academy
of Sciences, has identified the exact genetic
makeup of more than 3,000 distinct varieties
of rice.
In China’s south, Burmese and Laotian in-
fluences commingle with regional tribal and
ethnic minority cuisines to popularise a par-
ticular strain of sticky rice that is so viscous
when cooked it can be moulded like clay and
used as an eating implement, gathering suc-
culent meats, vegetables and thick sauces into
one delectable, bite-sized package.
A more common incarnation is glutinous
or sweet sticky rice, ubiquitous in traditional
desserts, particularly zongzi, the bamboo-
leaf-wrapped parcels with stuffings of either
sweet bean paste or preserved fruits (northern
China) or spiced, marinated meats (southern
China), consumed by the bucketload during
the Dragon Boat Festival in early summer.
Ground into flour, glutinous rice provides
softness and elasticity for cakes and chilled
pastries.
Only a short evolutionary hop from glu-
tinous and sticky rice is purple rice – a rich,
almost-black and delightfully nutty grain
that frequently appears in sweet rice por-
ridge or, in the far South, simmered with
coconut milk in a manner familiar to lovers
of Thai and Cambodian cuisine. Red yeast
rice, meanwhile, is the principal ingredient in
Chinese rose vinegar, and is prized for its me-
dicinal properties, particularly its rumoured
ability to lower cholesterol.
Ubiquitous as rice may be, the standardisa-
tion and the mechanisation of agriculture, as
well as sinking water tables in formerly rice-
producing areas like Shanxi Province, haveseen a dearth of localised strains of the king
of the Asian grains. Countless flavour profiles
(from the fragrance of lotus seeds to the scent
of wet earth) and rumoured health benefits
vanished with each local crop’s former ter-
roir. Scares involving contamination with
heavy metals – an inevitability in as thirsty
a crop as rice – continue to emerge as indus-
try encroaches on farmland, and China is
increasingly turning to cleaner imports from
Thailand and Vietnam to guarantee an unin-
terrupted flow of the white stuff into China’s
kitchens.
Countering such threats to the supremacy
of Chinese rice is essential. The country still
sets huge store by its ability to feed its popu-
lation within its borders (even if, in practice,
it has dropped such goals). Almost more im-
portantly, rice is integral to China’s culinary
identity. To give up on its production would
be to abandon millennia of tradition, labour
and agricultural development.Colours of the grainbow
By Jack smith
xiegang qingnian
slash youth“Slash youth” has become a new term in
China, referring to young people who do
more than one job, like being an actor/di-
rector, captain/science officer or banker/tech
entrepreneur. The term “slashes” was devised
by US writer Marci Alboher in her book One
Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for
Work/Life Success in 2007. The term in Chi-
nese is “xiegang.”
The need to take on multiple jobs, accord-
ing to Hu Xiaowu, deputy director of the In-
stitute of Urban Science at Nanjing Univer-
sity, is mostly because of financial instability.
Young Chinese believe economic stability is
a thing of the past, and so attempt to ensure
multiple income streams. “Slash careers” are
becoming a way to combine economic secu-
rity with work that matches people’s passions.
Peng Jinhua, a senior financial commen-
tator and deputy chief of Teller magazine,
noted that slashers could gain experience and
knowledge from different jobs because ca-reers are often connected, and being able to
choose which they want to pour energy into
keeps them from getting bored and restless.
Yet, Peng warned that only when a slash
career fulfills passions or makes young people
less anxious about money can it help them
lead a rewarding life, since juggling jobs is
not suitable for everyone, and there would
be some challenges in learning new skills and
finding a balance between work and down
time.xié gàng qīng nián