Editor’s note: Sign up for CNN’s “Inside in China” newsletter for what you need to know about the country’s rise and its impact on the world.
Hong Kong CNN –
Light, delicious and easy to prepare, egg fried rice has long been a popular dish in China and is one of the most recognizable icons of Chinese cuisine around the world.
But in recent years, the popular stir-fry has become an extremely sensitive topic for China’s online nationalists, particularly in the months of October and November.
Emotions are running so high this week that one of the country’s most famous chefs has been forced to apologize for making a video of the dish being prepared.
“As a chef, I will never make egg fried rice again,” Wang Gang, a celebrity chef with more than 10 million online fans, promised in a video message on Monday.
Wang’s “solemn apology” sought to quell a frothing tide of criticism over the video, which was posted on Chinese social media site Weibo on November 27.
Angry nationalists accused Wang of using the video to mock the death of Mao Zedong’s eldest son, Mao Anying, who was killed in an American air raid on November 25, 1950, during the Korean War.
Wang’s video was all about making egg fried rice, but for some Chinese nationalists, any mention of the dish around the anniversary of Mao Anying’s death or his birthday on October 24 amounts to a deliberate act of insult and mockery.
However, by attacking mentions of egg fried rice by famous chefs and other online influencers, nationalist users have inadvertently promoted the very rumor their government is trying to quash.
According to the controversial report, Mao Anying, a People’s Liberation Army officer, ignored orders to seek shelter during the airstrike. Instead, the hungry young man fired up a stove to make egg fried rice, sending smoke into the air and giving his position away to enemy jets.
This version of events was mentioned in the memoirs of Yang Di, a military officer who worked alongside the younger Mao in the commander’s headquarters. But Chinese authorities have repeatedly refuted it as a rumor.
Chef Wang/YouTube
Celebrity chef Wang Gang says he will no longer make egg fried rice.
Under President Xi Jinping, the Chinese government has cracked down on voices that criticize national heroes or question the official narrative about them. In 2018, the country passed a law banning defamation of national “heroes and martyrs,” a crime punishable by up to three years in prison.
Last May, former investigative journalist Luo Changping was sentenced to seven months in prison for “insulting martyrs” who froze to death during a battle in the Korean War. On social media, he used a play on words to suggest that Chinese soldiers portrayed in a blockbuster film about the war were stupid.
On the 70th anniversary of Mao Anying’s death in 2020, the Chinese Academy of History – an official think tank set up by Xi to counter “false” views about the history of the Communist Party – called the egg fried rice story ” the most malicious rumor”.
“These rumormongers have linked Mao Anying to egg fried rice, thereby overshadowing the heroic image of Mao Anying’s courageous sacrifice,” the academy said in a post on the social media site Weibo. “To put it in one sentence: their hearts are evil.”
Yang’s memoirs have been discredited as “rife with flaws and not at all able to stand up to scrutiny.” Citing other eyewitness accounts and declassified cables, the post concluded that Mao Anying was killed because enemy forces had detected radio waves from the busy telegraph transmitters going in and out of the headquarters in the days before the airstrike.
Despite official denials, the controversial egg fried rice story persists. In some parts of the Chinese internet, November 25 is celebrated as the “Egg Fried Rice Festival” or “Chinese Thanksgiving” – a reference to the belief that if the younger Mao had survived the war, he might have inherited power from his father would have turned China into a hereditary dictatorship like North Korea.
In 2021, a Weibo user in the southern city of Nanchang was detained by police for 10 days for commenting in a post that “the greatest achievement of the Korean War was egg fried rice.”
“Thanks, egg fried rice. Without them, we would be the same as (North Korea) is now,” the post said.
00:53 – Source: CNN
Find out what ingredient makes this dish the “hardest” dish in the world
Wang’s egg fried rice video, released two days after the anniversary of the younger Mao’s death, was considered particularly egregious because it was far from his first “misdemeanor” – at least in the eyes of Chinese nationalists.
In 2018, Wang posted a video on October 22 in which he shared his homemade egg fried rice recipe. Two days later, on Mao Anying’s birthday, the Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily shared Wang’s video. The move caused a stir and sparked accusations that even the party’s flagship newspaper had been corrupted.
In 2020, Wang posted a video on October 24 of himself making Yangzhou fried rice – a deluxe version with ham, shrimp, peas and carrots, and eggs – sparking a nationalist outcry. Wang responded with a quick apology.
“I only found out about this situation after posting the video today and seeing all the comments,” he wrote in the comments under the video. “I just share the delicious food and have no other motives.”
Following the latest backlash on Monday, Wang said in his apology that his team posted the video without his knowledge.
“This video has caused a lot of anger and a very bad experience for everyone. I apologize again,” he said after removing the cooking video. “I have been busy with personal matters recently and did not participate in the release of the video. That was my biggest mistake.”
Wang, 34, who comes from a rural village in Sichuan province, said his grandfather was a Korean War veteran and spent six years in North Korea.
He said he looked up to his grandfather and dreamed of becoming a soldier since childhood, but at 17 he failed the physical exam to enter the army. “In my eyes, soilders are very sacred,” he said.
But Wang’s critics aren’t taking it easy.
“The first time it could be a coincidence. But can it be a coincidence every time?” one comment said on Wang’s egg fried rice videos.
Some called for Wang to be banned from Chinese social media, while others called on authorities to punish him for insulting national “heroes and martyrs,” citing the 2018 law.
But some have also defended Wang, pointing out that the chef has posted egg fried rice in other months of the year.
“You do not have to apologize. It is society that should apologize to you,” a Weibo user said in support of Wang.
“Why don’t we clearly impose a complete ban on the consumption and preparation of egg fried rice in November, or simply eliminate egg fried rice from Chinese cuisine altogether,” another supporter quipped.
Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the Global Times and a prominent nationalist voice, warned that many people are still unaware of the rumors about Mao Anying. He called for public opinion to be more tolerant of inadvertent mentions of “relevant elements” surrounding the younger Mao’s birthday and death anniversary.
“Being more tolerant of each other and not making this a hot topic is, by and large, consolation and protection for the heroic spirit of martyr Mao Anying. It will help the problem gradually calm down and mitigate the damage of the rumor,” Hu wrote.
“Otherwise it is possible that one controversy after another will only increase the impact of the rumor.”
On Tuesday, Wang removed the video of his apology and closed the comment sections on his Weibo page.