Why Do Chinese People Seem to Eat 'Everything'? - Why Chinese (E1)

Chinese eating habits have come under a microscope after initial cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus were linked to a wet market in Wuhan, China. Lately, we've been getting this question a lot: "Why do Chinese people eat everything?" But is it true? Where did this stereotype come from, and how do people in China feel about it?

This is "Why Chinese," a new series where we're debunking common stereotypes about Chinese people one Google search at a time.

If you liked this video, we have more explainers about China, including:

How Did the NBA Piss Off an Entire Country?

What's It Like to Be a Food Deliveryman in China?

#whychinese #explainer #coronavirus

Producer: Jessica Novia
Editor: Hanley Chu
Animation: Ray Ngan and Cyan Cheung
Mastering: Victor Peña

Music: Audio Network

[fitofight]

If Adam and Eve were Chinese they would have eaten the snake. And we would still be in paradise.

[risingbeginnings]

Alien life: exists
China: If something's back is facing the sky, it's for people to eat.

[flx]

But you have to remember that china mostly eat Pork, beef, chicken and duck meat. It's really the basics of Chinese cuisine the rest is quite exotic even for Chinese people!

[EastSideKL]

i have mad respect for your visual team for making this a lot more interesting

[Shubham-npod]

" I'm eating a murdered turtle right now " bruh ... Almost everything non veg you eat is murdered.

[codingcat]

You are missing a huge factor in Geography, it's the limitation of protein sources in China. Chinese has less arable land than European/American per capita, unlike vast plains in Europe, only about 1/3 of Chinese lands are plains. This means very few lands can be allocated for animal product industry, the rest are all used to grow foods people eat. Therefore it's natural to find alternative protein sources we view as "exotic" today. It's a similar story all across the world, you can find snail in French cuisine, camel in Dubai, alpaca meat in southern America, etc.

[ekzedex]

1:19: "to try some common Chinese dishes". Then the video shows snake soup. I am Chinese and grew up in China. I don't and won't eat snake soup. If I ask other Chinese people around me, I can guarantee you that people who are interested in or like eating snake soup won't be higher than 1%.

[Tingling]

I sometimes think it was due a famine that caused people to do the extreme into eating other animals for survival. Then they found out it is good so they made it into a delicacy.

[WiseOnion]

They forgot to mention the mass starvation during the People's Revolution in the Mao Communist Era. People had no choice but to eat insects and rats to survive.

[rebeccajoensson]

Most of us eat wild animals. In Sweden we eat moose, reindeer (wild-reared though owned and tended by the Sami), different kinds of deer, birds, all kinds of aquatic creatures from fish to molluscs. Lobster is a delicacy around the world. The fact that China has a diverse fauna and has gone through long stretches of famine only means that they have has a chance to try and learn to appreciate/tolerate a more diverse diet.

[sianstpaul]

China is huge, and the culture, diverse. China is more like a civilization rather than a modern nation state. Languages vary from region to region, so do food and customs. In this vast land mass, everything is possible. I am Chinese but Russian ethnicity, one of the 55 minorities.

[windseekervideo]

Some people here seem to skip every "most of Chinese people eat pork, beef and chicken like americans" part for some reasons.

[derektoronto]

Some stuffs is meant to shock you. Like turtle jelly. Most likely just Chinese herbs. Turtle jelly are quite expensive. The stuffs you see at a local Chinese supermarket is just Chinese herbs with very little or none of it. And fried scorpions on a stick are for tourists. Locals (I’ve seen them in old Shanghai) don’t eat them.

[christinem]

I’m Chinese and I’m a Northerner! We don’t eat those weird things at all! Also my mom is from western minority region so she eats mostly lamb and beef instead of pork. China is a really big and diverse region so please don’t generalize us.🙏🙏🙏

[annieg]

7:45 Ignorance? But dogs are eaten in China. There's actually an annual Lychee and Dog Meat Festival or Yulin Dog Festival during which thousands of dogs are eaten. Just because you're embarrassed by it doesn't make it not true.

[TheA]

As someone from Asia I am particularly interested in a periodic history of diseases with ties to consumption of wild or non domesticated species

[Tommy]

I mean, if you go to rural areas, even in the US, they eat more "unusual" meats, compared to beef, pork and poultry.

Some areas, even in the US, they eat horse, iguana, and alligator, which sound pretty odd to me.

[ireneshi]

I think another reason that there are many kinds of food that Chinese people eat is that the population pressure in China has always been relatively large, and ancient times has always been a farming society. Therefore, we need to find more sources of food, grow many edible plants, and also we are very good at cooking. Another point is that this year China has issued a new policy to change dogs from domestic animals to pets (i.e. forbidden to eat). This is also to respect the values of other countries in the world. Do hope we can understand and respect each other more.

[yingqisheng]

It’s like some Australian eat kangaroos and some Swedish eat wild moose. What’s hard to

[shiina_mahiru_]

"I am eating a murdered turtle right now"




In his normal dinner: "I am eating a murdered right now"