LET'S BE DENSE

Because Paul Donovan (economist at USB) was insufficiently nuanced in a remark over pork, he has been put on leave and forced to beg forgiveness from the Chinese public.


中國豬

His exact words regarding higher consumer prices in mainland China due to an epidemic among pigs were: "Does it matter? It matters if you are a Chinese pig. It matters if you like eating pork in China."

The Chinese internet, quite as quickly offended as American rightwing Christians, reacted with outrage. Precisely like they did when farmers solved a previous porcine disease problem by dumping the rotten pig carcasses in the Huangpu river (黄浦江) in 2013.

Oh wait, they didn't.

The Huangpu ("Whangpoo") had been a highway for pig carcasses for over ten years before that traffic reached a peak six years ago. Shanghai sources its drinking water from that river.


"It matters if you are a Chinese pig. It matters if you like eating pork in China."


China has many fine pig recipes, and the idea of eating pork while in China has immense appeal. Drinking their water, perhaps less so. Though boiling it for tea, which is served at all restaurants (unless the white tourist asks for ice water, very American) probably kills most of the pathogens. Please note that the water for ice-cubes is not boiled, and you may want to rethink that damned Coca Cola (可口可樂); have some tea instead.

From Wikipedia: "In March 2013, some 16,000 pig carcasses were found floating in the Huangpu River in Shanghai. Some of the pigs carried ear tags saying they were from Jiaxing, so that city in Zhejiang may be the source; One news agency indicates that dead pigs are often dumped into rivers in China to avoid the disposal cost."
[End cite.]

Now is the time to point out that many Hong Kong and other Chinese customarily use the first pouring of the hot tea to rinse their utensils at restaurants, because, of course, these were first "washed" in water.



但我真很喜歡豬！

Regarding Chinese pig dishes, I should mention that I am particularly fond of 梅菜扣肉 ('mui choi kau yiuk') and 酸菜白肉 ('suen choi paak yiuk'), as well as 榨菜炒五花腩 ('jaa choi chaau ng faa naam'), but will more often have 涼瓜豬肉 ('leung gwa chyu yiuk') and rice, because a full serving of five flower meat (五花腩 'ng faa naam'; "Chinese bacon") is a little hard to digest for the single diner. Another favourite, 蒸肉餅 ('jing yiuk beng'), is something I will cook at home far more often that order at restaurants, for rather similar reasons; it requires one or two vegetable sides to be a fully balanced meal. Sometimes at a tea-restaurant (茶餐廳 'cha chan teng'), in C'town I will order 炒肥肉凉瓜 ('chaau fei yiuk leung gwa') or 苦瓜豬肉炒麵 ('fu gwa chyu yiuk chaau min'), and for rare happy occasions I will prepare 蒸五花腩 ('jing ng faa naam') at home.

At roast meat restaurants (燒味店 'siu mei dim') I'll often order 豆腐火腩飯 ('dau fu fo naam faan') or 涼瓜燒肉飯 ('jit gwa siu yiuk faan').
Gotta have some veggies with the pork.

[Please Google image search all these dishes. Beauty!]


The pronunciation of all those scrumptious dishes is given in Cantonese above, because Mandarin speakers are far too busy catering to the kwailo (鬼佬) in the barbaric hinterlands to cook for normal people.
Besides, they might be culinarily impaired anyway.
So I'm not sure what food is called.


If I never touch another plate of 左宗棠雞 ('jo jung tong gai') again, it might be too soon.


PS: Dried oysters with hair vegetable and pork (好事發財 'ho si faat choi') is, customarily, a new year's dish among Cantonese folks, because the name is a clear double entendre in their language.
Far less so in the North.



Bon appétit!
Rinse your chopsticks



Lagniappe: Hong bak



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