Author Archives: Free Guan

Hotpot Sauce in Sichuan

Backgrounds:

LEX was born and grew up in Yibin, Sichuan, China. He is currently attending Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China.

The informant is a rapper, and so am I. We decided to go and eat hotpot together, and by the way also discuss future collaborations. During the meal, he made a classic Sichuan style hotpot sauce for me and shared the ingredients with me.

The Main Piece:

The Sichuan style hotpot sauce is called 油碟（you die), or oil dish. The ingredients are as follows:

mashed garlic，oyster sauce，sesame oil， coriander，green onion

When the food in the hotpot is cooked, we dip it into the You Die and then eat it.

Analysis:

LEX says all the liquid oil in the sauce can help to cool the hot meat that has just came out of the pot.

Personally, I noticed a significant difference between the hotpot sauce in Shenyang, where I came from, and in Sichuan. In Shenyang, we use sesame butter, which is more thick, with a lot of sugar, making it super sweet. But the Sichuan style You Die has no sugar in it. I think it is because most Sichuan People are accustomed to the super spicy food in the hotpot, because Sichuan food is famous for being super spicy. They grow up eating it and got used to it. But we people from the north are less accustomed to the spicy taste. So, we need sweet suger to offset the spicy flavor.

I also find that the Sichuan style hotpot sauce goes extremely well with animal organs, while the northern sesame butter goes better with meat. The difference in hotpot sauces reveal the different food preferences between northern and southern people in China

People Don’t Eat Shrimps in Yemen



Backgrounds:

CC was born and grew up in Beijing. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Arabic, and then served as an interpreter for China’s medical assisstance team sent to Yemen. He stayed in Yemen for over 10 years, helping with the communication between the patients in Yemen and the medical workers from China. During his time in Yemen, he got to know many local Yemen people and was able to learn a lot about their culture from local people.

The informant shared this piece of folk practice during an interview via phone call.

The Main Piece:

CC asked: “Do you know that Arabic People (I personally think he’s mostly referring to people in Yemen) don’t eat shrimps? They say that shrimps are made of the dead skins and dirt from Alah’s feet, saying they’re dirty. When I was in Yemen, sometimes we go to the beach, we might see the beach full of shrimps, but nobody takes them or eat them. But we’re Chinese and we didn’t care, so we would collect a lot of the shrimps and we would eat them. But people know shrimps are delicious, so nowadays more and more young Muslims started eating shrimps, but the older ones I know, they don’t eat shrimps at all. “

Analysis:

I know there are some restrictions on what a Muslim can or cannot eat, but I didn’t know it would involve such common foods like shrimps. It is interesting that this habbit of not eating shrimps is linked to the creation of things: the people in Yemen give everything an origin in their creation myths, and shrimps, unfortunately, have a less popular one.

The Taboo of the Left Hand in Yemen

Backgrounds:

CC was born and grew up in Beijing. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Arabic, and then served as an interpreter for China’s medical assisstance team sent to Yemen. He stayed in Yemen for over 10 years, helping with the communication between the patients in Yemen and the medical workers from China. During his time in Yemen, he got to know many local Yemen people and was able to learn a lot about their culture from local people.

The informant shared this piece of folk practice during an interview via phone call.

The Main Piece:

In Yemen, most people eat with their hands instead of using forks or chopsticks, etc. One has to use the right hand and may not use the left hand to eat. Also, when handing stuff to other people or receiving things from other people, one must use the right hand. It is super offensive to use the left hand to pass objects.

CC gives the reason: after defecation, the people in Yemen use water, instead of toilet papers, to clean their anus. And this is always done with the left hand. So everyone in Yemen keeps it in mind that the left hand is for the “dirty business” and the right hand is used to interact with other people.

Analysis:

I believe this custom reveals that the people in Yemen draw a clear line between their “private” practices and their interaction with others. I personally think that even if someone uses the left hand to hand objects to another person, it wouldn’t be that much of a big deal because the hand is already washed. But the people in Yemen still make this distinction between the left and right hand. It shows their respect for other people’s feelings, as well as their dislike for faeces.

Another interesting things is that the custom makes everyone to clean their anus with the left hand, because normally people might have different preferences for the left or right hand. This case is an example how cultural norms can shape ones habits.

“Row” the Fish Over

Backgrounds:

DerShann is currently a student at USC, majoring in Philoshophy. His family are from Tsingtao, Shandong, China. He likes to play the game League of Legends, and the following folklore is collected during some of the games we played together via the voice chat chanel.

The Mian Piece:

DerShann:”In Tsingtao, when you eat a fish, if you finished eating all the meat on one side and want to turn the fish over to eat the other side, you cannot say ‘翻过来 fan guo lai（turn it over）’, you must say ‘划过来 hua guo lai（row it）’. Tsingtao is a city that is built on the fishing industry, and a lot of people are fishermen, especially those who sell you the fish. Fishermen are afraid that their ship might sink and they might die, (in Chinese it is called 翻船了 chuan fan le（the ship is turned over）. So they really hate the word ‘翻， fan（turn over）’. So we say ‘划过来 hua guo lai（Row it）’. This is like encouraging the fishermen to row their ships back, to have a safe sail, kinda like, row it to the beach. This is something everyone knows in Tsingtao.


Analysis:

This way of saying things reveals that the city Tsingtao is heavily based on the fishing industry. It also shows how people there value their safety during theiir sea sails. This is a custom that’s specific to cities that are close to the sea and relies on fishing, or have rich histories in fishing.

People believe merely saying the word “翻 fan” might cause the ship to really be turned over by waves and wind, which shows how people draw connections between words and actual events.

Sticking Chopsticks into the Rice Bowl

Backgrounds:

DerShann is currently a student at USC, majoring in Philoshophy. His family are from Tsingtao, Shandong, China. He likes to play the game League of Legends, and the following folklore is collected during some of the games we played together via the voice chat chanel.



The Main Piece:

DerShann: I’ve got this one super popular belief: you cannot stick your chopsticks into the rice in your bowl.

Me: I’ve heard of it. But why is it?

DerShann: Because that makes the chopsticks look like incense, burned to serve the dead. So sticking the chopsticks into the rice means the rice is for dead people.

Me: So what do you think of it?

DerShann: I kind of believe it. Like, there’s no certain, immediate consequences, nothing happens if you do that. But it might still bring around bad luck, it’s not a good sign. And, I wouldn’t do it because it kinda makes people uncomfortable.

Analysis:

I think this reveals how people are afraid of dying. They feel uncomfortable when they are using things that are similar to things designed for the dead. Or they don’t like to behave like a dead person. I think being afraid of death is a universal sentiment, but only in East Asia do this piece of folklore exist. Our traditional chopsticks has some similarity with incense that are used to serve gods or ghosts or souls.

Most of the people I know are aware of this taboo, and most of them follow it, although a large portion of them don’t really believe in ghosts or superstitious powers of the rice bowl. But people just follow it because this is the tradition, or the cultural norm.