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Culture

East Asia’s tender white chicken has a complex, disputed history

FOR HALF A CENTURY, Malaysians and Singaporeans have been fighting over the ownership rights to a dish called Hainan chicken rice, the star element of which is chicken lightly poached in a way that makes the flesh very white and tender. And of course the people of Hainan also stake a claim to it, noting…

November 29, 20220Comments ByEmily Zhou

Chinese food Culture

The Cantonese have a world of soups to choose from

SOUP DISHES ARE SO popular in Hong Kong that you can order them by app or stop on your way to work for some quick broth. And multi-course Cantonese dinners are not complete without a soup course. Cantonese people believe that savouring regular bowls of soup can help reduce water retention in the body, prevent…

November 24, 20220Comments ByH.C. Lu

Chinese food Culture

Chaoshan cuisine: a distinctive culinary style

GUANGDONG IS WELL KNOWN as the heartland of the Cantonese-speaking peoples, with their love of barbecued pork and dialects from the root known as Yue. But there has always been an area of the province which has been different on multiple levels. We’re referring to the area known as Chaoshan (潮汕地區). The area is considered…

November 23, 20220Comments ByEmily Zhou

Chinese food Culture

Don’t say ‘Chinese food’, say ‘Cantonese’ or ‘Sichuan’

WHILE PEOPLE AROUND the world talk about “Chinese food” as if it is a one thing, in fact there are eight great regional cuisines in China, and the most popular is Cantonese. (The other seven cuisines are Anhui, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Sichuan and Zhejiang.) Cantonese cuisine is characterized by its light seasoning, tender…

November 8, 20220Comments ByH.C. Lu

Culture

How a Chinese working class meal conquered the world

DON’T TELL THE TEXAS TYCOONS! Foodies in the United States city of Houston, Texas, are waiting agog for the opening of a branch of Tim Ho Wan, a Michelin-starred restaurant from Hong Kong. Within weeks, they'll be spending their hard-earned cash on the eatery's speciality: traditional dim sum. But few people know that dim…

November 8, 20220Comments ByEmily Zhou

Chinese Music Culture

Chinese orchestra uses infrastructure for inspiration

ONLY IN HONG KONG would engineering details about a piece of major infrastructure be turned into music. Hong Kong-born composer Chan Ming-chi noticed that the extraordinary Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge consists of three cable-stayed bridges, one undersea tunnel, and four artificial islands. So he took the numbers three, one, and four – and turned them into…

November 3, 20220Comments ByH.C. Lu

Chinese food Culture

Bread and soup fit for an emperor

ZHAO KUANGYIN (趙匡胤) was not having a good day. He was a high ranking soldier who felt he was destined to one day become leader of the country. But he had many battles ahead of him. On this particular day, he was a tired and hungry man, wandering through the city of Chang’an. This incident…

October 27, 20220Comments ByEmily Zhou

Chinese history Culture

Amazed sailor finds his ballast was the real treasure

CHINESE EXPLORER ZHENG HE would sail from China with his boats laden with gifts. He took treasures from his country to give as presents or to use in trade with people he met around the world. He once came home with a giraffe. On the way back to China, the ships would be too light…

October 25, 20220Comments ByH.C. Lu

Chinese food Culture

Would you snack on a snake?

I HAVE TO START BY saying that not every Chinese person has eaten snake-related dishes. In fact, I had never thought that snakes could be eaten until I read about it in a novel while I was in middle school. I was so astonished that I even re-checked the Chinese character “蛇” (“snake” in Chinese)…

October 11, 20220Comments ByEmily Zhou

Chinese history Hong Kong News

The forgotten ‘bromance’ between communists and colonials

Hong Kong became host to an extraordinary Communist school in the 1940s The British asked Communists to work as the police in the New Territories A Hong Kong war hero got an MBE before being killed by a Taiwanese bomb ONE OF THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY episodes in modern history was a “bromance” between British colonial…

October 11, 20220Comments ByH.C. Lu

Culture

East Asia’s tender white chicken has a complex, disputed history

The Cantonese have a world of soups to choose from

Chaoshan cuisine: a distinctive culinary style

Don’t say ‘Chinese food’, say ‘Cantonese’ or ‘Sichuan’

How a Chinese working class meal conquered the world

Chinese orchestra uses infrastructure for inspiration

Bread and soup fit for an emperor

Amazed sailor finds his ballast was the real treasure

Would you snack on a snake?

The forgotten ‘bromance’ between communists and colonials

Saving what’s left of Western liberalism

Scientists in China create chip that bridges optic and wireless systems

Scientists find treasure trove of antibodies in paediatricians’ blood