Dec 06, 2023 06:00:00

A popular Chinese chef posted an ``egg fried rice video'' that angered Chinese people, and the chef apologized, saying ``I will never make fried rice again.''

In China, where the single-party dictatorship of the Communist Party continues, which is superior to the constitution, there are various cultural taboos and censorship issues. For example, ``Winnie the Pooh'' is

prohibited , and Winnie the Pooh appears. It is well known that movies cannot be shown in China. During the period from October to November, due to political circumstances, the traditional Chinese dish 'egg fried rice' became a sensitive topic, and a cooking video that only explained how to make egg fried rice was made. It was reported that the incident had developed into an explosive situation.

Chinese Gourmet Network Red Declaration Not Repeated Egg Fried Rice | Two Banks | Chuosha CNA
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/acn/202311280165.aspx

Chinese Chef Stirs Furor With Egg Fried Rice Tutorial
https://www.voanews.com/a/chinese-chef-stirs-furor-with-egg-fried-rice-tutorial/7378090.html

Chinese celebrity chef Wang Gang vows to never cook egg fried rice again after nationalist backlash | CNN
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/30/china/china-celebrity-chef-egg-fried-rice-backlash-intl-hnk/index.html

Wang Gang, a popular Chinese chef with over 10 million followers on SNS and active on a YouTube channel as a gourmet writer Wang Gang, announced on November 27, 2023. On the same day, he posted a video on the Chinese social media site Weibo in which he teaches the recipe for egg fried rice. At first glance, the video, which has already been deleted at the time of writing, was an ordinary 10-minute cooking video.

However, the video angered Chinese nationalists and went viral, with thousands of critical comments flooding in on Weibo, Bilibili, and YouTube. Wang later deleted the offending video and released an apology video later that day, saying, ``I sincerely apologize to everyone.As a chef, I will never make egg fried rice or film egg fried rice again.'' I apologized. Furthermore, this apology video no longer exists.

The reason why egg fried rice is a politically sensitive dish in China between October and November is because there is an anecdote that Mao Zedong's eldest son,

Mao Xinying , died because of egg fried rice.

On November 25, 1950, Mao Kishi-ying, who was participating in the Korean War, was killed in action at the Communist Party headquarters in North Heian Province when it was bombed by the Allied forces. There are various theories about how this happened, but in his memoirs, which was republished in 2002, Yang Di, a former deputy chief of the army headquarters, wrote, ``Allied forces discovered smoke from cooking egg fried rice, and this was the cause.'' Mao Anying was murdered.'

Since then, egg fried rice has been associated with Mao Guishing's death, and some Chinese people refer to November 25th as the 'Egg Fried Rice Festival' as a joke or a joke, or eat egg fried rice as a 'memorial'. It is said that they are doing so. This is because the death of Mao Zedong's son meant that China was spared from being ruled by a hereditary leadership system like North Korea.

On the other hand, the Chinese government denies the theory that the cause of Mao's death was egg fried rice, so in China, egg fried rice is served on November 25th, the anniversary of Mao's death, October 24th, his birthday, or around that time. It has become taboo to bring up the subject.

Additionally, in 2018, a law was enacted prohibiting defamation of national 'heroes and martyrs' and punishing violators with up to three years in prison. In May, he was sentenced to seven months in prison for mocking Chinese soldiers in a film depicting the Korean War.

In fact, this is not the first time that Mr. Wang has come under fire for his egg fried rice cooking video. Mr. Wang also released a video on October 22, 2018 introducing 'homemade egg fried rice,' and on October 24, 2020, he released '

Yangzhou' , a deluxe version of egg fried rice with added ingredients. He released a video of himself making 'fried rice ' and was forced to apologize.

In the apology video, which has caused a stir for the third time, Wang showed a photo of his grandfather wearing a military medal and revealed that his grandfather also fought for six years in the Korean War, saying, ``Soldiers are very sacred beings.'' I sincerely apologize.'

by Travis Wise

While some internet users were outraged by Mr. Wang's video, others were confused, with questions such as, ``Why can't I post videos of fried rice?'' and ``What time of the year can we not talk about fried rice?'' Please let me be clear,'' Taiwan's state-run news agency Central News Agency reported.

In addition, according to the foreign media CNN, Mr. Wang pointed out that he often posts videos of egg fried rice at times other than October and November, saying, ``There is no need to apologize. 'He should apologize to Mr. Wang,' some Weibo users said in defense of Mr. Wang.