To Savor Later: Stolen Babies, Orientalist Cuisine and Glorious High-Speed Rail
For those who hanker for thoughtful and thought-provoking prose, here's our latest roundup of long reads about China.
“Chinese Officials Seized and Sold Babies, Parents Say” by Sharon LaFraniere
New York Times
In August, the New York Times published an article about Hunan officials seizing infants from families that had no intention of giving their children up for adoption. (1636 words)
Excerpt: “Family planning officials apparently spotted [9-month-old] Yang Ling’s clothes hung to dry outside the family’s mud-brick home. Her grandmother tried to hide her in a pigsty, but the grandfather, Yang Qinzheng, a Communist Party member and a former soldier, bade her to come out. ‘I don’t disobey,’ he said last month. ‘I do what the officials say.’”
"For Adoptive Parents, Questions Without Answers” by John Leland
New York Times
Last week, the newspaper followed up with a longer piece about how adoptive families in the US are dealing with the harrowing possibility that halfway across the world, their child’s biological parents are still grieving for their abducted infants. (2735 words)
Excerpt: “Changes in China in the early 2000s — a rising standard of living, an easing of restrictions on adoption within the country, more sex-selective abortion — meant that fewer families abandoned healthy babies, Professor Smolin said. ‘Orphanages had gotten used to getting money for international adoption,’ he said, ‘and all of the sudden they didn’t have healthy baby girls unless they competed with traffickers for them.’”
“Take a Quantity of Birds’ Nests ...”
“Slugs from the Sea”
“A Grand “Chinese” Dinner in Paris, 1858”
“Tonquinese Sticks”
“Chewing a Walking Stick”
“Authentic Chop Suey”
“Imitation Soy Sauce”
by Janet Clarkson
TheOldFoodie.com
The Old Foodie is a blog that serves up tidbits of culinary history and long-forgotten recipes. Though Janet Clarkson mainly focuses on English and Continental dishes, she recently showcased some juicy East-Meets-West texts, namely some of the earliest accounts of Westerners encountering Chinese cuisine. The topics include first impressions of sea cucumber and bird’s nest soup, the origin of the word "chopsticks," and how the English taught themselves to “fake” the exotic ingredients they craved. A lip-smacking read. (Total word count: 4109)
Excerpt: “One ingredient which was not too unfamiliar, at least to the British, was the bamboux (bamboo) – the tender shoots, that is, not the thick woody trunks. Pickled bamboo shoots were a taste acquired by the British as a result of their colonial expansion. They became very popular in Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the form of ‘West Indian Pickle’. The imported article of course was expensive, but English cooks soon came up with a local copy, using elder shoots.”
“How Fast Can China Go?” by Simon Winchester
Vanity Fair
This summer, hardly a week seemed to pass without some breathless report about the glitches plaguing China’s newest high-speed trains. This sprawling article puts the immaculate carriages and the Eight-Teeth Smile into a larger context: national pride as it relates to trains, China’s rivalry with Japan, and the corruption scandals that heightened fears about safety. Celebrated nonfictionist Simon Winchester nabbed a seat on the very first bullet train from Shanghai to Beijing; his narrative, leisurely and masterful, takes the time to remind us of the wonder that greeted the train when it was launched. (12,479 words)
Excerpt: “There was a sudden cascade of high-pitched warning beeps—90 seconds until takeoff!—and we all scattered down the platform for our respective doorways, like hunted rabbits looking for burrows. Miss Huang grinned broadly as we ran through her doors. ‘Do not worry!’ she breathed as she settled me down gently into a red leather airline seat (‘It costs $20,000,’ she said reverently. ‘More than most cars, would you believe?’), handed me an ice-cold towel, and positively exhaled an air of relaxation, like a spa attendant handing out cucumber slices. ‘Wipe your brow. We go now.’”
Photo: Flickr user bballchico