Sometimes I just have to draw, like today (although it’s the first time in ages). More than anything, I like drawing faces, and so, when like today I am working at home alone, I have little choice but to draw myself in the mirror. So here it is, another quick self-portrait to add to the hundreds I’ve produced since I was about seventeen!
I don’t know why, but it’s put me in a really good mood.
我的博客一般是用英语写的，可是我觉得我真应该把这篇小文章翻译成汉语啊！我写的是关于一位美国记者作家最新发表的著作，即麦克尔·波兰（Michael Pollan）的《捍卫食物》（In Defence of Food）和《杂食者的困境》（The Omnivore’s Dilemma），这两本书在美国和欧洲有很大的影响。他基本的观点 如下：最近几十年，营养学发展了很多，可结果是人们现在一点也不知到怎么吃了，脑子里填满了各种营养信息，太混乱，而且常常是自相矛盾的。营养学家也犯了一些严重的错误（譬如说，以前告诉我们动物脂肪对人体很危险，应该用人工食品代替， 而且过了几十年，发现了这些人工食品本身也是非常危险的。）
麦克尔·波兰的建议是：“要吃事物，但不要太多，而且最好多吃植物。”（’Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.’）
“食物”一词在他看来是用可以辨认的成分做成的真正食品，不是那些在当地的超级市场上出售的那些怪异的、高科技的“类似食品的东西”。他也指出，我们的祖母一代远比我们了解如何吃得好，因为他们的大脑里没有被自相矛盾，而且是一些误导性的建议弄得六神无主，她们采用是一种大致相同方法喂养她们的家庭。所有这些都是我本人受到他在《纽约时报》发表的最新文章中得到的启迪。 Continue reading…
This is not about food, but it’s such a striking story that I had to post it…
I was chatting to a friend who works in the Chinese restaurant industry here in London, and she was lamenting a change in the UK immigration laws which means that foreign students will no longer be allowed to work part-time while they live here.
Anyway, she said, large numbers of Chinese students and young people had decided to leave the UK for Canada, because of Britain’s ‘CCTV culture’. ‘They just have the feeling that they are being watched all the time, and it’s no longer fun to be here. And first the authorities asked for fingerprints, now irises, and they want to take everybody’s DNA and keep it for six years!’
When people from China want to leave the UK because of the decline in civil liberties, you know you’re in trouble…
We seem to have an actual date for the reopening of Barshu, the London Sichuanese restaurant for whom I act as consultant: the evening of 30th August. For any journalists reading this post, a press release will be going out nearer the time. I know many of our regular customers will be relieved to hear this news!
(NB we have had to change the name of the restaurant from Bar Shu to Barshu for trademark reasons – the Chinese name remains the same)
Last Saturday I went back to Zhenjiang, the old vinegar town on the Yangtze. My friend Gwen and I spent the day exploring the old streets around the former British Consulate, which were as charming as I remembered from my last visit two years ago. I was particularly happy to find that the woksmith was still there, in his old workshop, running a business that has been in his family for more than a hundred years. It’s incredibly unusual to see such a shop these days, and especially to be able to watch the red-hot woks, fresh from the furnace, being hammered into shape.
It’s also pretty unusual to return to anywhere in China after a two-year absence and find that it hasn’t changed. Apart from the woksmith, the avenues of wutong trees were still there, casting their shade over the road, as was the shop where you could buy singing crickets in their tiny openwork bamboo cages.
But, almost inevitably, we discovered that the whole area is due to be demolished in the next couple of months. The woksmith, along with his neighbours, will be moved away to another district. As he is clearly close to retirement age, I’m guessing that will be the end of his business.
Of course this made me sad, but not as much as the news that the Xinjiang government plans to demolish 85% of old Kashgar. I have been to Kashgar twice, once in 2002, and once in 2004, and it’s a fascinating place. Despite the bland uniformity of the new Chinese town, the old Uyghur quarter held much of its magic. There were markets and teahouses, craftsmen hammering pots out of copper and carving wood on a lathe.
After all the atrocious mistakes made in China’s development over the last fifteen years (not least the total destruction of old Chengdu, including the last two old lanes, Kuan Xiangzi and Zhai Xiangzi, which have been ‘preserved’ by a total rebuild in an inapproprate style, and the incorporation of international chain stores including, incredibly for anyone who knew the lanes as they used to be, a Starbucks), I still find it hard to believe that the authorities would do anything so stupid in Kashgar, if only because it has the potential to be a lucrative tourist destination for them – and I can’t see anyone wanting to travel that far across the desert to see concrete buildings finished off with a few touches of what I call ‘Islamoiserie’. But I suppose the writing has been on the wall for some years – they had started knocking down bits of the old town when I last visited.
It was another of those moments when I felt so upset that I wanted to leave China immediately and give up on the country. It’s heartbreaking to see the ruination of yet another irreplaceable cultural treasure, and I just can’t understand the mindset of the people who do it.
I heard the news in an email that arrived just before I left to meet some friends for dinner, and I was in such a bad mood that I just had to talk about it, to explain the clouds of thunder that no doubt hung over my demeanor. My Chinese friends sympathised, and said they agreed that the decision was regrettable, but they were also apathetic, as one might be after having lived through the aftermath of previous attempts to challenge the system (I’m writing this post, of course, on 4th June). But I don’t think they are duped – one woman I talked to privately later on was sceptical about the official explanation that the town will be razed ‘to protect people from earthquakes’, and thought it more likely that the reason was a desire to Han-ify the region.
Anyway, I’m still here, somehow.
Coppersmiths
Some early destruction of the old town, in 2004
New Kashgar
Another view of the old town
I’m hugely flattered to discover that a Canadian video journalist has named me as her perfect dining companion!
All this talk of swine flu brings back vivid memories of Hunan during the SARS crisis of 2003. I lived there from the early days of the epidemic until it fizzled out, and it was a frightening and often surreal time (I wrote about my experiences in the ‘Sickness Enters Through the Mouth’ chapter of Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper).
Anyway, mindful that things could escalate very fast with swine flu, I sent an email to a couple of friends who live in my neighbourhood, reminding them that they are always welcome to ask for help with shopping or cooking if they are ill. By return, I received this message from Sam:
“Actually I have got a bit of sniffle. Could I have Gong Bao prawns and Fish Fragrant Aubergine delivered to my desk?”
The cheek!
Interview with me in the Beijinger last week…
Who would have guessed that a perfectly innocent Chinese recipe could spark off a whole host of semi-pornographic reveries?!
A while ago a friend of mine took me to an evening of American cabaret at a tiny theatre in central London. One song in particular made me laugh – and I’ve since found it available as an mp3 on the internet. It’s called Hungry Women, and sung here by Eddie Cantor. Do listen to the lyrics – they’re hilarious! (Is this what people think, I wonder, when they take me out for dinner?)
