Chapter 7 sweet

Maqiao people have a very simple way of expressing taste, and all delicious tastes can be summed up in one word: "sweet".Eating sugar is "sweet", eating fish and meat is also "sweet", eating rice, chilli and bitter gourd are all "sweet". In this way, it is difficult for outsiders to understand. Is their rough sense of taste causing the lack of taste vocabulary?Or was the lack of taste vocabulary, in turn, depriving their tongues of discernment?In China, where the food culture is quite developed, this kind of situation is extremely rare. In connection with this, they almost only have the word "sugar" for all dim sum.Candy is "sugar", biscuits are also "sugar", cakes, shortbread, bread and cream are all "sugar".When they first saw popsicles on Changle Street, they were still called "Sugar".There are of course exceptions, and local products still have their own names, such as "ciba" and "rice cake". The general term "sugar" is limited to all Western-style, modern, or at least distant foods.The educated youth bought biscuits from the street, and they called them "sugar", which always made people feel a little unpleasant and unaccustomed to it.

Maybe people in Maqiao used to eat only to satisfy their hunger, and they didn't have time to fully understand and analyze the taste of food.Many years later, I came into contact with some English-speaking foreigners and found that their taste vocabulary is also poor, such as all pungent tastes, whether it is pepper, chili, mustard, or garlic. They are all sweating profusely, and the "hot (hot taste)" is over.I secretly wondered if they, like the people of Maqiao, had a history of eating and drinking without discerning tastes?I don't laugh at them because I know what it's like to be hungry.I once groped back to the village when it was dark, and I didn’t care to wash my hands and face (my body was covered in mud), and I didn’t care to slap the mosquitoes (they were rushing towards me densely), but just swallowed five bowls of rice in one go ( Each bowl is said to be half a catty of rice), and after swallowing it, I still don’t know what I just ate and what it tasted like.At this time, I didn't see or hear anything, the only feeling was the violent wriggling of my stomach, all the words of the upper class about taste, those fine, rich, accurate nonsense, for me what sense?

The word "sweet" exposed Maqiao people's blindness in terms of diet and marked the boundaries of their knowledge in this area.As long as you observe carefully, everyone actually has various blind spots.People's awareness coverages don't coincide with each other.The weak lamp of consciousness of people is far from illuminating everything in the world.Until today, for the vast majority of Chinese people, it is difficult to identify the race and face shape of Western Europeans, Nordics, and Eastern Europeans, and to identify the cultural differences of British, French, Spanish, Norwegian, French, etc. , is still an extremely difficult matter.The naming of various European nations is just some empty symbols from textbooks, and many Chinese cannot connect them with the corresponding face shape, clothing, language, and customs at any time.This is a bit unbelievable to Europeans, just as it is unbelievable to Chinese that Europeans cannot distinguish between Shanghainese, Cantonese and Northeasterners.Therefore, Chinese people prefer to use the general concept of "Westerner" or even "foreigner", just like Ma Qiao loves to use sweet words.To an Englishman who refuses to identify with Germany, or a Frenchman who refuses to identify with America, this tradition is certainly ridiculous.Similarly, until today, for the vast majority of Chinese people and even a considerable number of economists, capitalism in the United States, capitalism in Western Europe, capitalism in Sweden and other Nordic countries, and capitalism in Japan seem to be nothing. important difference.Capitalism in the eighteenth century, capitalism in the nineteenth century, pre-war capitalism in this century, capitalism in the 1960s, and capitalism in the 1990s, there is still no important difference.For many Chinese, the concept of "capitalism" is enough to support one's love or hostility.

When I was in America, I read an anti-communist political publication.I am very surprised that the political taste of the editors of the journal also stays at the level of "sweetness" of Maqiao people.For example, they sometimes condemn a certain Communist Party as false Marxism and betrayal of Marxism, and at other times they condemn Marxism (wouldn’t it be good to be false and betrayal?); The self-abstinence of the communists is too depressing for human nature (then extramarital affairs and illegitimate children are not in line with human nature?).They don't feel that there are any logical contradictions and confusions in themselves, they just think that anyone who is anti-communist is worthy of applause, it is good, it is sweet.That is, in this publication, I read a piece of news: a woman named Chen who just ran to Hong Kong from Hainan Island claimed to be an anti-communist righteous, and was enthusiastically taken in and protected by the government of a western country as a political refugee .A few months later, I met an embassy official of this country and felt aggrieved and angry for their government.At the dinner table, I told him that I knew this Miss Chen.She has never participated in any political activities in Hainan Island, but organized a "hot island literature contest", which defrauded literary youths across the country of nearly 200,000 yuan in entry fees, and then threw a lot of manuscripts in the hotel. The ass escaped from Hong Kong with money.She failed to convince me to be her consultant for the contest, but that doesn't matter. In her call for contributions advertisement in the newspaper, there are more than a dozen world-renowned writers she can think of, such as Marquez, Kundera, Llosa, etc. Wait, they all became her consultants—she almost wanted to select a super Nobel Prize for Literature in Hainan Island.

My introduction seemed to confuse the embassy official. He frowned and said, maybe she cheated the money, maybe she cheated very stupidly, but can this be regarded as a special way of political resistance? He gestured vigorously. I couldn't continue the conversation.I don't want to change the politics of the diplomat across the table.You can support or oppose any serious political position that abides by the principle of peace, but you must respect it.I just feel a kind of difficulty.Just as I couldn't make Maqiao people distinguish various "sugars" linguistically back then, now I can't make diplomats distinguish various "resistance" in China.In this strange and vague country in his eyes, cheating money is also a delicious "sugar".That's all.