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How the Chili Pepper Conquered China

sixthtone.com

21–30 of 39 posts

Re: How the Chili Pepper Conquered China

#22

I thought that chilli pepper is part of Sichuan culture back in the Three Kingdoms era but I'm surprised on how recent chilli pepper in their cuisine!

I was reading about this the other day and was surprised to learn that traditionally Sichuan cuisine used Sichuan peppercorns which are unrelated to either black pepper or new world peppers, and evidently have a somewhat different mechanism of action that is still being studied. I've never tried it but it's allegedly similar to the feeling of a 9 volt battery or carbonated drink [0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wi…

Favorite science factoid: the buzzing sensation is a fairly reliable 50Hz!

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2013.168...

Re: How the Chili Pepper Conquered China

#23
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

George Washington was so honest he could not lie about chopping down a cherry tree, so maybe you won't lie either. This doesn't seem to be a literary habit particular to China.

It's propaganda though. Some advertisers spend on relevant keywords, others pay for generalized brand awareness. Many do both. Anything published by a government in a foreign language has an agenda. It's propaganda. In this case, "brand awareness" propaganda. Maybe the goal is to promote tourism, or to give a boost to exports. Maybe it's to keep the country/government in the front of foreign readers' minds, to foster…

I'm glad you see it that way. My response was so flippant because I do think people often see China as personally run, in its entirety, by Xi. Any news coming out of China, from as grave as genocide to as minor as Olympics festivals, is seen as part of a single plan. The actions of the Chinese gov't and press can be just as much bottom-up as top-down, even if the top takes credit.

Re: How the Chili Pepper Conquered China

#25
Things Chinese consume all the time that they typically don't know came from somewhere else: baozi (came with the Mongols from Ottoman cuisine), chicken (first domesticated in the Brahmaputra/Bengal/Myanmar region), chilli, corn, peanuts, tea (SEA border of Yunnan, very un-Chinese until recently), tomato. The source(s) of initial rice domestication are still unclear, but much of China (north and central China) did not eat rice as a daily staple for a significant part of Chinese history.

Re: How the Chili Pepper Conquered China

#26
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's propaganda though. Some advertisers spend on relevant keywords, others pay for generalized brand awareness. Many do both. Anything published by a government in a foreign language has an agenda. It's propaganda. In this case, "brand awareness" propaganda. Maybe the goal is to promote tourism, or to give a boost to exports. Maybe it's to keep the country/government in the front of foreign readers' minds, to foster…

I'm glad you see it that way. My response was so flippant because I do think people often see China as personally run, in its entirety, by Xi. Any news coming out of China, from as grave as genocide to as minor as Olympics festivals, is seen as part of a single plan. The actions of the Chinese gov't and press can be just as much bottom-up as top-down, even if the top takes credit.

[deleted]

Re: How the Chili Pepper Conquered China

#27
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

George Washington was so honest he could not lie about chopping down a cherry tree, so maybe you won't lie either. This doesn't seem to be a literary habit particular to China.

It's propaganda though. Some advertisers spend on relevant keywords, others pay for generalized brand awareness. Many do both. Anything published by a government in a foreign language has an agenda. It's propaganda. In this case, "brand awareness" propaganda. Maybe the goal is to promote tourism, or to give a boost to exports. Maybe it's to keep the country/government in the front of foreign readers' minds, to foster…

Propaganda is common though. Many companies have their own newsletter and plenty do paid advertising, some in subtle ways. Plenty of scientific research is paid for by companies for their own gain. Authors are destined to propagate their own opinion and mind. That doesn’t however means anything that’s not complete neutral is pointless. An echo chamber is very much like propaganda, few people is going to speak out against the majority. Our training should be to obtain useful information from the massively available information, not disregard everything.

Re: How the Chili Pepper Conquered China

#29

Things Chinese consume all the time that they typically don't know came from somewhere else: baozi (came with the Mongols from Ottoman cuisine), chicken (first domesticated in the Brahmaputra/Bengal/Myanmar region), chilli, corn, peanuts, tea (SEA border of Yunnan, very un-Chinese until recently), tomato. The source(s) of initial rice domestication are still unclear, but much of China (north and central China) did no…

Reverse list would be also interesting, I'm sure most of the world including Chinese dunno kiwi fruit is from China.

Re: How the Chili Pepper Conquered China

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. It'd be one thing if this was about tensions in the South China Sea but this is a story about peppers for fucks sake.

I actually do think it’s relevant. They build credibility in your mind space via innocuous stories about peppers, so you’re more likely to accept their articles about more charged topics in the future.

I think this is a weird take. You could analyze every human interest piece this way. Is that what the NYT does with Page Six? I read that and then don't think about the fossil fuel or tech companies' influence on their stories?

Just read a story about chili peppers and don't get all Joseph McCarthy about it.

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