Stewart Lee Beck's Blog, page 5

Stinky Tofu! Who Loves Smelly Foods?

China has a long tradition of foods that assault the palate. In fact, many culinary cultures have their own stinky obsessions.

Adventurous Swedes, for example, enjoy surströmming (soured herring), a northern fermented fish with a killer smell that’s become a challenge for visiting tourists. Same goes for Kiviak from Greenland, made from auks (a type of seabird) preserved in the hollowed body of a seal and served on special occasions. To the south there’s iru, made from fermented African locus...

Asking Someone Out – Cross Cultural Dating Ambiguities

This should be easy, right? Just say what you want and leave the rest to instinct and chemistry. Whatever you do, don’t let words get in the way.

Or so he thought.

So what’s the catch? Westerners and Chinese often approach asking someone out (and being asked out) using varying degrees of ambiguity. Of course, we’re talking about the “culturally Western” and “culturally Chinese” male and female traditional roles here, rather than just genetics and passports. Perhaps a little roleplaying can h...

Advice For China Baijiu Sessions plus a Whisky Comparison

St. Patrick wasn’t even Irish (he was English) and alas, he never came to China, yet the tradition of drinking spans many countries and cultures. Let’s take a closer look at the whisky-baijiu conundrum and the creative inspirations of two legendary poets, one Irish, the other Chinese.

Good news! If you’ve overdone the báijiǔ (白酒 lit. white spirits) during the Spring Festival, or over-imbibed with business associates in the opening weeks of the new year, St. Patrick’s Day on March 17 presents...

Empress Dowager Cixi: The Woman Who Ruled China From Behind The Curtain

International Women’s Day on the 8th of March is not a thousand year old Chinese tradition. (Surprise!) It originated in the United States in 1908 as a socialist movement calling for women’s suffrage and equal rights. For China Simplified, it’s an opportunity to tell a story about a fascinating woman who led China during one of its most challenging periods in history.

She was merely one of thousands waiting for the emperor to select after a mindless glance. She was asked to stay, at age 17.

Sh...

The Lantern Festival – get out there and party!

Read about five ways to enjoy the holiday and see if you can solve our three traditional Lantern Day riddles. Can you meet the challenge?

The Chinese Lantern Festival tastes as good as the Mid-autumn Festival, entertains as much as the Dragon Boat Festival, and feels as romantic as Valentine’s Day. The Lantern Festival Yuánxiāo jié 元宵节 (lit. first month’s night’s festival) falls on the 15th day of the lunar new year, on the night of the first full moon. This date marks the close of the Chinese...

Spring Festival wishes from around China

As Chinese New Year celebration approaches, our collective ears will be filled with New Year’s jingles hovering in shopping malls, non-stop chit-chat over family dinner tables, plus fire crackers loud enough to wake us from deep sleep. We want to add one more to our list of CNY celebration favorite sounds — greetings in authentic dialects by CS friends covering China far and wide. The 15 audio tracks below are only a small fraction of the 80+ dialects in China, but hopefully you’ll have a be...

Chinese New Year: How Did The Emperor Celebrate?

Start your Spring Festival with eight auspicious actions drawing upon traditions honed over centuries by the emperor and his entourage.

The biggest celebration. The biggest household. That’s Spring Festival in the Forbidden City of Beijing during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. A total of 24 emperors from two families – the Zhu (Han) and the Aisin-Gioro (Manchu) – reigned for over 500 years through the two final imperial dynasties of China.

Although habits and passions differed from one emperor to...

7 Chinese Foods To Remind You Of Back Home

China is well-known for its many colorful dishes. You know, the types of Chinese foods like pigs organs, stinky tofu, snake blood and other “delicacies” your local friends enjoy challenging foreigners to eat. But what about when we’re not feeling so adventurous? Here are some Chinese dishes which might, at least temporarily, satisfy your longing for home.

When traveling around the world, the dauntless among us seek out all things new, different and exotic, while the homebodies gravitate towar...

Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, groun...

Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged.
- Rumi

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“There are only three things women need in life: food, wa...

“There are only three things women need in life: food, water, and compliments.”
- Chris Rock

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