Chinese celebrity chef vows to never cook egg fried rice again after nationalist backlash | CNN
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Light, tasty and simple to make, egg fried rice has long been a beloved dish in China and one of most recognizable icons of Chinese cuisine around the world.

Light, tasty and simple to make, egg fried rice has long been a beloved dish in China and one of most recognizable icons of Chinese cuisine around the world.

But in recent years, the popular stir-fry has become a highly sensitive subject for China’s online nationalists, especially around the months of October and November.

Emotions are running so high this week that one of the country’s most famous chefs has been forced to apologize – for making a video on how to cook the dish.

“As a chef, I will never make egg fried rice again,” Wang Gang, a celebrity chef with more than 10 million online fans, pledged in a video message on Monday.

Wang’s “solemn apology” attempted to tame a frothing torrent of criticism about the video, which was posted on Chinese social media site Weibo on November 27.

Angry nationalists accused Wang of using the video to mock the death of Mao Zedong’s eldest son, Mao Anying, who was killed in an American air strike during the Korean War on November 25, 1950.

  • ThrowawayOnLemmy@lemmy.world
    31·
    1 year ago

    Angry nationalists accused Wang of using the video to mock the death of Mao Zedong’s eldest son, Mao Anying, who was killed in an American air strike during the Korean War on November 25, 1950.

    Can someone explain to me what that has to do with egg fried rice?

    • Tangent5280@lemmy.world
      19·
      1 year ago

      Mao Anying was killed in a bombing run on 25 November 1950. He was assigned to a place that the then PVA commander felt would be safe from UN air raids. He was supposedly in a makeshift shelter near some caves when the bombs struck. Some rebel groups or anti-government people say that the man was cooking food in daylight, which was against Army regulations, and that gave away their position to the enemy.

      Some Chinese citizens and groups who oppose Mao Zedong commemorate the anniversary of Mao Anying’s death by eating egg fried rice. According to some sources, on the morning of 25 November 1950, Mao Anying, alongside staff officers Gao Ruixun and Cheng Pu, cooked egg fried rice for breakfast in the office of Peng Dehuai, despite orders only to cook at night for fear of American air raids. It is alleged that their preparation of that meal drew the attention of American bombers, contributing to the deaths of Mao and Gao. Taken from Wikipedia.

      • interceder270@lemmy.world
        31·
        1 year ago

        Yeah… it’s almost like getting upset about this reinforces people’s stereotypes.

        The vast majority of people would have no idea this was a thing if there wasn’t ‘backlash.’

        This generation loves getting mad over bullshit I swear. Prolly cause we have so much excess we need to make up things to worry about instead of helping those who have less than us.

        • JayleneSlide@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 year ago

          I call it “Not Enough Tigers.” We humans have a dynamic response range of “sitting around the campfire with friends and eating great food” to “OMFG! TIGERS!” Unfortunately, most of our daily lives have compressed the dynamic range of experience into a gamut of watching Netflix to “someone said something I don’t like.”

          Most people lack true existential threats in their day-to-day lives, and we humans come unglued without a proper dynamic range of experiences. I think this is why people who do dangerous things, such as urban bicyclists, rock climbers, SAR, and open ocean sailors, tend to be so laid back.

          It also doesn’t help that those with power have had millennia to dial in propaganda to keep the hoi polloi divided against each other.