Chinese Diet by Yung Phou Lee

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 21, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 40.

Chinese Diet.

By Yung Phou Lee

WHEN I was at Lake View, in August, at the New England Assembly, and having a “real nice time” telling the children about China, one day I was accosted by a bright little girl who wished to know what people ate in China, and whether those dreadful stories about eating rats were true. I answered as well as a few words would serve me, but did not satisfy the curiosity of the eager inquirer. Later I devoted a half-hour to talking about the “Daily Food of the Chinese” to some forty boys and girls; and here I repeat the matter for the sake of others curious to learn the truth—trusting a little natural indignation and plain speaking may be excused me.

Americans are fond of wonderful stories. Nothing pleases them more than to hear something revolting or strange about other people. Nations and races who resemble them are not worth attention. Hence travelers—knowing fellows, all of them—possibly find it profitable to startle them with accounts as marvelous as they are false. Not that these accounts are always wholly untrue, but that solitary instances and occurrences are magnified to represent habits and customs of a whole people. Belonging to this class of accounts are those relative to the use as food in China of certain animals. I find that many Americans believe that dog soup, cat fricassee, and rat a la mode are dishes to be found daily on every table in the empire.

The fact is, that there are some peculiar people

in China as elsewhere, credulous and superstitious; and some of these believe that the flesh of those animals I have mentioned possesses medicinal properties. For instance, some silly women believe that the flesh of rats restores the hair. Some believe that dog meat and also cat meat renew the blood, and quacks often prescribe it. Then it is also true that there are very poor people who have no money to buy proper food, and therefore subsist upon what they can get, rather than starve. But I have lived fifteen years of my life in China, and have had experience at public banquets, social dinners, and ordinary meals, and in company with all classes of people, but I have never seen cat, dog, or rat served in any form whatever.

“What then do the Chinese eat?” Our gardens are prodigal of vegetables; our ponds, rivers, and lakes swarm with fish; our farm-yards are crowded with pigs, land fowls, ducks, and geese; our fields are gilded three times every year with ripening rice. In some sections of the empire wheat and barley are produced; but rice is our usual substitute for bread. These articles make up the every-day food of the people. But there are certain things unknown to your tables that are considered great delicacies by everybody, one of which is edible birds’ nests. Another is sharks’ fins. The Chinese keep very few cows, and it is true that beef is not esteemed as good as pork, and that many will not eat beef on account of religious scruples. Milk, butter, and cheese are almost unknown articles of diet. They think it is robbing the calves to take the milk from the cows.—Yung Phou Lee, in Wide Awake.