Egg fried rice is a popular and easy-to-make dish in China. It is light, delicious, and is known all over the world as a symbol of Chinese food.
In the past few years, the stir-fry dish has become a controversial topic for China’s online nationalists, especially in the months of October and November.
People are feeling very emotional this week. A famous chef had to say sorry for making a video on how to cook a dish.
Wang Gang, a famous chef with over 10 million online fans, said in a video that he will never make egg fried rice again.
Wang said sorry for the video, which was posted on Weibo on November 27, to calm down the angry comments.
Furious nationalists said Wang made fun of Mao Zedong’s son’s death in a video. Mao Anying died in a US air strike during the Korean War on November 25, 1950.
Wang made a video about cooking egg fried rice. But some Chinese people get upset when anyone talks about this dish around the time Mao Anying died or on his birthday, October 24th. They think it’s done on purpose to insult and make fun of Mao Anying.
However, when nationalist users criticize mentions of egg fried rice by famous chefs and online influencers, they end up spreading the rumor that their government is trying to stop.
Some stories say that Mao Anying, who was a soldier, did not follow orders to find a safe place during the bombing. Instead, the hungry man cooked egg fried rice on a stove. The smoke from the stove showed his location to enemy jets.
Yang Di, a military officer who worked with Mao when he was young, mentioned that version of events in his memoir. Yang Di worked at the commander’s headquarters. Chinese officials have said many times that the information is not true.
Under leader Xi Jinping, the Chinese government has stopped people from saying bad things about national heroes or questioning the official story about them. In 2018, the country made it illegal to say bad things about national heroes and martyrs. If you do this, you could go to jail for up to three years.
In May, a former journalist, Luo Changping, was sent to prison for seven months for disrespecting soldiers who died in the Korean War. He made a joke on social media about Chinese soldiers in a movie, suggesting they were not very smart.
In 2020, on the 70th anniversary of Mao Anying’s death, the Chinese Academy of History, which was started by Xi to correct untrue views of Communist Party history, said that the story about egg fried rice was a very bad rumor.
The academy said on Weibo that spreading rumors about Mao Anying’s sacrifice is making it seem less heroic. “In simple words, they are cruel and mean in their hearts. ”
Yang’s memoir was criticized for being full of mistakes and not able to be proven true. The post used accounts from other people who were there and secret messages to say that Mao Anying was killed because the enemy heard radio signals from the telegraphs at the headquarters before the air raid.
Even though officials said it wasn’t true, people keep talking about the argument over egg fried rice. Some people on the Chinese internet celebrate November 25 as the “Egg Fried Rice Festival” or “Chinese Thanksgiving” because they think that if Mao Zedong’s son had survived the war, he would have become the leader of China and created a family dynasty like in North Korea.
In 2021, a person on the social media site Weibo in Nanchang got in trouble with the police for saying that “the best thing to come out of the Korean War is egg fried rice. ”
2Thank you for the delicious egg fried rice. “We would be like North Korea without it,” the post said.
Wang posted a video of egg-fired rice, and people were upset because it was not the first time he did something that offended Chinese nationalists. The video was posted two days after the anniversary of Mao’s death.
In 2018, Wang shared a video on October 22 showing how he makes egg fried rice at home. Two days after, on Mao Anying’s birthday, the Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper shared Wang’s video. The action made people surprised and caused people to accuse the party’s main newspaper of being corrupted.
In 2020, Wang shared a video of himself cooking Yangzhou fried rice with extra ingredients like ham, shrimp, peas, and carrots. This made some people very upset. Wang said sorry very quickly.
“I didn’t know about this situation until I saw everyone’s comments on the video I posted today,” he wrote in the comments. “I’m just sharing the yummy food with no other intentions. ”
After many people got upset on Monday, Wang said sorry and explained that his team put out the video without him knowing.
This video has made a lot of people upset and had a really bad impact on everyone. “I’m sorry again,” he said after removing the cooking video. “I have been dealing with personal stuff lately and couldn’t take part in releasing the video. ” “This was the worst thing I ever did. ”
Wang, who is 34 years old and comes from a small village in Sichuan province, said his grandfather fought in the Korean War and stayed in North Korea for six years.
He said he admired his grandpa and always wanted to be a soldier since he was little. But when he tried to join the army at 17, he didn’t pass the physical exam. “I think soldiers are very special,” he said.
But Wang’s opponents are not giving up easily.
“Maybe it was just by chance the first time. ” Someone commented that they don’t think it’s possible for Wang to make perfect egg fried rice every single time by chance.
Some people wanted Wang to be banned from Chinese social media. Others wanted the government to punish him for insulting national “heroes and martyrs,” citing a law from 2018.
However, some people have supported Wang, saying that he has shared egg fried rice on other occasions in the past.
“You don’t have to say sorry. ” “Someone on Weibo said that society owes you an apology,” in support of Wang.
“Let’s just say no more eating or cooking egg fried rice in November, or maybe we should just stop making it part of Chinese cuisine altogether,” said another person who agrees.
Hu Xijin, who used to be in charge of Global Times and is well known for promoting nationalist ideas, warned that a lot of people don’t know about the rumors concerning Mao Anying. He asked people to be more understanding when talking about certain things related to Younger Mao’s birthday and death anniversary.
“Being kind and understanding to each other and not making this a controversial issue is a way to honor and protect martyr Mao Anying’s brave spirit. ” “It will help the problem slowly become less of a problem and lessen the harm caused by the rumor,” Hu wrote.
If we don’t do something, the rumors could become stronger with each new controversy.
On Tuesday, Wang took down the video where he said sorry and stopped people from leaving comments on his Weibo page.