Chinese food near me -- Stir-fried tomato and scrambled eggs

Stir-fried tomato and eggs 

This is a classic and very easy to make Chinese dish, it is proven to be delicious.

Don't be over concerned, it is very easy to do, and the whole process only take you 5 minutes.

Let's get started,

Stir fried tomato and eggs

Some Scary yet Amazing Daily Food in China, Brave Enough to Try?

Do you know that the best meat of a fish is at the cheek? 

Admit it, some western food are just too boring. Do try some of the stuff in the below list if you go to China. Tell me which one is your favorite. By the way, I am going to skip the more aggressive/unusual ones such as rat and silkworm chrysalis, and just going to talk about more daily ones this time.

1. Snake
Such as snake soup, which is a popular Cantonese delicacy and health supplement. In Chinese medicine theory, snake, varying from the type, are generally warm in nature, so it could help to sooth the blood and make you warm. Additionally, snake normally will contain certain toxin. Eating snake can help you defeat sore developed or simply prevent them. The taste is similar to eel, or finless eel which can be found in the rice field in southern China.

Snake Dish

The Color Matters --- Yellow in Chinese Culture

Everybody visited Forbidden city may have noticed that there are a lot of yellow and red elements in there; at the meantime, if you have some close Chinese friends or you know some background of modern Chinese culture, you may have heard yellow movie or yellow video, mean pornographic material. So, what is going on?

Forbidden City in Air Photo

(Photo Source: http://blog.voc.com.cn/blog_showone_type_blog_id_600426_p_1.html)

Right, let’s look the developing track of yellow color in Chinese culture, and the controversial reality. 

The Color Matters --- Red in Chinese Culture (1)

Probably you have heard Chinese red in news of various international occasions. It not only has material representations (red clothes, red china, red decoration etc.), but also has spiritual and emotional reflections. Here in the following two blogs we are going to discuss the origin of Red element in Chinese Culture, and some of the common red element in the daily life.

Based on various archaeological evidences, worshiping red was quite common globally in primitive era, as red represents fire, sun and blood. Sun comes with warm and light, and it is the driving energy powers everything. As you know, worshiping Sun was well shared among different continents in pre-history. Similar to worshiping sun, fire can not only bring light, warm, and cooked food, but also retreat and defeat wild animals in primitive times. There were quite a few recorded ancient religions worshiping fire. In ancient China, one of the pioneering Emperors was called Flame Emperor, and he is worshiped as god of fire even now in some places of China. Blood is red, and blood means life, and blood worship was directly related with human's respect to life. In Eskimo language, RED is the direct translation of blood-like. Archaeological findings in Zhoukoudian China (Upper Cave Man Archaeological Sites) show that hematite (red color when oxidized) was applied around the deceased. There are so many forms of blood worship, including the well-known blood sacrifice. Aside from those worship origins, red is also found in the form of ancient cave’s wall paintings, and quite some red potteries were discovered in China.

Dawenkou red pottery 

How to Eat in China? An introduction of Chinese Dining Culture

How to Eat in China? An introduction of Chinese Dining Culture

Eee…? How to EAT in China? People use nose or ear rather than mouth in that place? You may wonder. Well, I think there may be some other blogs introducing how to eat with nose or ear, and dining culture isn’t all about food. I will cover some basic and interesting facts of Chinese Dining Culture that will make your visit to China more enjoyable.

From the tremendous types of Chinese food, you may already understand food/dining plays an important or even essential role in Chinese culture. In daily dining room and in some special occasions, some rules, which evolved thousands of years, apply, including but not limited to aspects of, how to seat, what to eat, how to drink and toast (toast back), and how to leave the table when you finish.

The dining culture has a long historical in China. The historical records suggested that in Zhou Dynasty (around B.C. 1000), dining culture became one of the official regulations, and was appraised by Confucius. I am not sure whether you read the book Dream of the Red Chamber (or TV show, which you can watch for free at Youtube, in Chinese though), which was wrote by Cao Xueqin. This masterpiece describes the rise and fall of sediments represented by the four most prominent families, reveals the complex contradictions of the feudal family, performance of the feudal marriage, morality, culture, education and decadent, degenerate and create a series of nobility civilians and the tragic image of a slave woman who has demonstrated an extremely broad typical feudal society living environment. In this book, there are a lot of descriptions about the dining culture, such as how they are seated, and how many courses are served in different occasions, such and such. Also, you can watch the movie, Raise the Red Lantern (directed by Zhang Yimou, you can watch on Youtube), which contains quite some traditional Chinese cultures including dining culture, and also you will see a lot of red element as I introduced in the previous topics. 

A Historical Painting Showing Traditional Chinese Dining Culture

The Color Matters --- Green in Chinese Culture

Green in Chinese Culture

In one of my previous blogs, I introduced some basics of what the color red and golden represents in Chinese culture. Today, let's take a look at GREEN in Chinese Culture.

Nowadays, green means energy saving, environmental friendly, and such... and it is the same as in China. But, Green mean so much more in Chinese culture as well. Behold.

1)  More popular in tale from old times, Outlaw, Robin-hood, someone rob . In Chinese, it is 绿林好汉, direct translation in English is Good Man in Green Woods. Isn't it a more vivid description then "robin-hood"?

The Color Matters --- Red in Chinese Culture (2)

If you visited China or have Chinese friends, you may wonder why Red is so popular in China and Chinese daily life? it is a broad topic, and a tradition lasted probably for thousands of years, and flows in every Chinese's  vein. In the previous blog, we discussed briefly about the origin of red color adoration and some of its politic meanings, and in this blog, we are going to explore as many culture as we could related to Chinese's red adoration. 

Similar to Dragons, which was, and still is, symbolized as evil, violate and power in western cultures. Such as the dragons in Game of Throne.

Khaleesi and the badass dragon