What the Chinese Don't Eat by Xinran Read Free Book Online

honesty”?’

12th December 2003
    If it flies, if it swims, or if it has four legs but is not a table or chair, the Chinese eat it. Is that so odd?
    I had a house-warming party this week. When it was all very busy I overheard a conversation about Chinese food:
    A (a western woman): Could you tell me what Chinese people don’t eat?
    B (a Chinese man): Can I answer that the other way round?
    A: Yes, of course. You mean what do the Chinese eat?
    B: Listen carefully. Everything that flies in the sky which you can see, except airplanes; everything that swims in the river and the sea, except submarines; any four-legged things on the ground, except tables and chairs – that is what we eat.
    A: What! Are you kidding?
    B: No, I’m not joking.
    A: Even cats and dogs?
    B: Yes.
    A: And foxes?
    B: Yes. What’s wrong with that?
    A: But some animals are part of the human family – friends and pets. Their lives are not to be eaten.
    B: What do you mean – animals’ lives are not for eating? What did your western great, great-grandmother eat?
    A: But we are living in a modern civilisation; we should respect natural life more than we used to.
    B: Yes, you are right in some ways: if you are not hungry any more, if you have more living materials that can support your life.
    This conversation triggered an old memory. In 1991, whenI interviewed some women in Mao Zedong’s home town of Shaoshan in Hunan province, they asked me: ‘We have heard how westerners eat cow every day, is it true? How? But cows feed humans with their milk and hard work. They are the hands of humans on the land, they are our lives, they even cry if you kill something in front of them, they have feelings.’
    I knew that those people, whose agriculture depends on such animals, always send old or sick cows to the mountains to let them die there. I understand both ways of thinking – the Chinese peasants’ and the westerners’. I told the women what I had read about disapproving western views on how Chinese eat cats and dogs. They listened to me with their heads shaking.
    Then another snatch of conversation caught my attention at the party.
    X (a Chinese woman): Oh, yes. I remember that restaurant is in Guangzhou, but I have never been.
    Y (a western man): Why not? You are Chinese. I was told that it is the most famous dish in China. What’s it called – ‘Dragon Fights Tiger’?
    X: Yes, or ‘Dragon with Tiger’. It is very famous in south China, I know, but I really can’t imagine I would enjoy it. I have never tasted either cat or snake.
    Y: You are not typically Chinese, at least not a traditional one.
    X: … not every Chinese likes to eat wild animals.
    They were talking about a very famous restaurant in Guangzhou – the capital of Guangdong province. It has a speciality called ‘Dragon and Tiger’ which is made from a snake (dragon) and a cat (tiger) together in a kind of traditional canister dish. I was invited to try it in 1996, but I couldn’t bear to either.
    A western friend turned to me. ‘Xinran, have you heard about the wild-food restaurant in Guilin [a beautiful area in the southwest part of China]?’ I told her a story about some Englishfriends. This middle-aged couple went to Guilin in late spring of 1998. One day, after a morning tour, their Chinese guide suggested they taste the local food. They went to a little wild-food restaurant by a beautiful river. A waiter talked them through their special menu: everything is alive, you can choose what you want from the animal yard by the kitchen, then they cook your choice in front of you.
    The English woman was so shocked, she cried: ‘No, no, please don’t kill these lovely animals!’
    The waiter was surprised. ‘What? This is our business. What about our livelihood?’
    ‘Yes, I understand,’ the husband said. ‘Let’s see, is there any way we could consider both human and animal welfare?’
    Eventually, they had a deal: the couple paid about $500 for all of the animals in that