The United States is embroiled in an emotional debate over anti-Semitism and free speech on college campuses. The latest speech controversy in China concerns a video of a chef explaining how to make egg fried rice.
Egg fried rice is a staple of Chinese home cooking and one of the first dishes many Chinese people learn to cook. Think of American macaroni and cheese. Perhaps that’s why Wang Gang, one of China’s most popular food bloggers, did the following: multiple recipe video regarding dish In the last 5 years. his “perfection” fried rice recipe garners word of mouth, review Of those reviews.
And one of those videos sparked the ire of China’s official media and the internet.
His crime? He posted a video of egg fried rice on November 27, two days after the death anniversary of Mao Anying, the son of Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China. Legend has it that Mao Anying died while cooking egg fried rice during the Korean War.
For more than a decade, China’s liberal-minded crowd has celebrated November 25th is Thanksgiving Day in China. They believe that if the young Mao had lived, China would have become a hereditary dynasty like North Korea.China’s internet official media It disputes the account of his death based on the retired general’s memoirs and considers this an insult to both Mao Jr. and Mao Sr.
These are dangerous times for all Chinese people who interact with the general public, including academics, writers, journalists, entertainers, and social media influencers. Cooking is one of his safest topics, and Wang, who started working in restaurants at age 15, sticks strictly to food on the show. However, he ends up getting caught up in the political vortex.
On social media sites, Wang was called a “traitor,” “troublemaker” and “the scum of society.”
Everyday life in China has become politicized. When something is too taboo, it becomes impossible to express it in public. It’s hard to keep track of what is and isn’t allowed to be said in a country, and sometimes we don’t know because of censorship.
The “egg fried rice” meme emerged more than a decade ago when China’s internet was becoming freer, albeit censored. Now there is little opposition.
To evade online censorship, Chinese people rely on slang, to the point where scholars and writers lament the deterioration of the Chinese language. Young people often use Pinyin (Romanization of Chinese characters) abbreviations for things that may be interpreted as sensitive or taboo. I’ve seen Chinese people criticize my column about the Chinese government by saying that they love the Chinese government’s “ZF” (Zhengfu, abbreviation for government). Even when defending their nation, they knew they were treading on dangerous terrain.
China’s sophisticated and effective censorship system paradoxically leaves people in the dark about what not to say.
After China’s former leader Hu Jintao was abruptly removed from a carefully orchestrated meeting of the Communist Party’s elite last year, the social media accounts of many people who posted about it were suspended. They tended to be people who did not normally talk about politics and were unaware of the limits of state censorship. Several people with experience commenting on politics have told me they know to use colloquial language or refrain altogether.
I want new employees at the censorship factory to know what to watch out for, including the Tiananmen Square crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in June 1989, in which hundreds of innocent people were killed. I wrote about how history had to be taught. for.
Around Remembrance Day 2022, China’s top livestreaming salesman Li Jiaqi promoted an ice cream cake in the shape of a tank to his viewers. He was cut short and remained silent for three months.
In Chinese online discourse, the symbolism of the egg fried rice meme is far less well-known than that of the tank. This does not exist in the minds of the majority of Chinese people, who have been taught by the government and parents to keep their heads down and not worry about politics.
Mr. Wang, also known as Chef Wang, was born on June 11, 1989, one week after the Tiananmen Square massacre. He grew up in a village in Sichuan province and dropped out of school at the age of 15. Mr. Wang, who declined to comment, probably didn’t have much access to information other than what the government wanted him to know.
Wang begins each video with the greeting, “Hello, I’m Wang Gang,” speaking Mandarin with a Sichuan accent. He combines his farm boy personality and professionalism to cook the food as if he were working behind the wok station. farm style breakfast And mapo tofu. His followers have grown to tens of millions on Chinese social media sites, and his channel has reached 2 million subscribers. YouTube channel.
In his introduction, he calls himself a “grassroots chef.” “I am grateful for every experience, grateful for these times, and truly hope that my videos will help everyone to step into the kitchen and fall in love with cooking.”
“I’m grateful for this era” is politically correct, indicating that he sees his success as part of China’s success as a nation, rather than solely due to individual talent and hard work. It’s a way of saying it. This shows that Mr. Wang is aware of the rules to avoid trouble.
Some nationalist bloggers pointed out that Wang had previously posted videos of egg fried rice around the same time. He reportedly posted the recipe around October 24, Mao Yingying’s birthday.
In fact, Mr. Wang has posted various fried rice recipes over the years, and he is not the only one who has come under fire for them.
The Weibo account of the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper People’s Daily was criticized for reposting a video of Wang’s egg fried rice on October 24, 2018. At the same time in 2021, the state’s Weibo account posted a dish owned by a telecommunications company. That account has been suspended. Last month, two elementary schools in southeastern Zhejiang province held an egg fried rice contest that attracted 1,000 participants on the same day that Wang posted her recipe. The school came under attack from nationalists on social media and deleted the post.
The results could be even worse. South Jiangxi police in 2021 detained The man continued his protest activities for 10 days after posting a comment on Weibo saying, “Thank you for the egg fried rice.”
Mr. Wang’s experience shows the lengths to which China will go to restrict free speech.
The Chinese Academy of History, a national institution, called The link between Mao Anying’s death and the dish was “particularly malicious”.
Hu Xijing, former editor-in-chief of the Communist Party tabloid Global Times, advised everyone to avoid the topic of egg fried rice altogether. “From now on, people should avoid mentioning egg fried rice in public, especially around the anniversary of the death of martyr Mao Anying,” he said on his social media Weibo account.
Some people objected to the proposal. In October and November, references to egg fried rice are prohibited; they paid attentionwhich is both ridiculous and outrageous.
Wang deleted the recipe video and apologized.
“As a chef, I will never make egg fried rice again. I will also never film a video about it,” Wang said with a sour face. Said The apology video ended with a deep bow. However, he had to delete that video as well. Commentators said his tone was passive and sarcastic.