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The widespread news reporting a wet market in Wuhan, China as the coronavirus’ origin site has resurrected America’s fear of Chinese food and culture. A wet market, an integral part of Chinese foodways, is an open-air marketplace that sells fresh produce including livestock. Despite inadequate scientific proof of this claim, media reports have disseminated images displaying caged exotic wildlife at the wet market. The US public has quickly capitalized on these images, blaming Chinese foodways for this worldwide crisis and conflating them with xenophobic messages.
A wet market in Beijing
Image: CNN
comBATing Bat Fried Rice
Image from Teechip
In April 2020, a T-shirt designed by Jess Sluder, a San Francisco artist, caused a stir. The graphic design on the T-shirt features a takeout box with a pair of red bat wings and chopsticks with the text, “NO THANK YOU” on the sleeves. This design, simple and straightforward, encapsulates xenophobic sentiments and a twisted narrative constructed around the Chinese diet.
In the US, a bat’s literary and artistic meanings signify unwanted and dark associations: evil, vicious, hellish, and infernal, to name a few. Nonetheless, the fear of bats not only comes from longstanding western metaphors and mysteries but also from its linkage to the transmission of many deadly viruses such as SARS and Ebola. Attaching the bat wings onto an object representing Chinese cuisine in the US makes the message clear: Chinese food is viral, and so are the Chinese people. In the T-shirt's graphic design, America’s agitation towards Chinese food and immigrants burns ceaselessly with the bold, red color that flags hostility thanks to the color red’s appearance in Communism and Marxism symbols.
Image: Amazon
However, the red bat that makes many Americans’ blood boil is a peacemaker in China. Bat (fú 蝠), a homonym for happiness (fú 福), symbolizes auspiciousness in Chinese culture. In many traditional Chinese designs, red bats represent blessings such as tranquility, prosperity, health, and the virtue of love.
Image: Daphane L. Rosenzweig
Before the pandemic, the number of Chinese restaurants in the US had surpassed 40,000, making Chinese food a new American staple. What quickly surged along with the ubiquity of Chinese food and Chinese immigrants was the lurking public anxiety of China’s potential threats to the US. For some, the bats—that gather in flocks, reproduce without restraint, and disguise in the darkness yet are everywhere—are comparable to the Chinese immigrants in the US, especially those working in the food industry.
Ever since Marco Polo first “discovered” the Far East in the late thirteenth century, the West had distinguished the Chinese as “wicked,” omnivorous eaters devouring all things the Western people repelled in dismay. The question, “do they really eat cats and rats?” horrifies yet delights many. So, what can the viral transmission of this bat-winged graphic design tell us today? The American taste remains fixated; still, it feeds on the bizarre fringes of Chinese gastronomy. Why are only these rare occasions of eating exotic animals and unwanted parts of animals in the Chinese diet so valuable to capture, discuss, disdain, and blame?
Image: onestep4ward
Beyond that, many American people probably do not know or refuse to see that a typical Chinese meal consists of mainly grains, then vegetables and common animal proteins (pork, chicken, beef, fish, and seafood, depending on the specific region)—just like what people eat in the US. There is no taboo in China regarding the notion of eating, yet there seem to be many taboos in the US about the idea of seeing. These bat wings on the Chinese takeout box (in the T-shirt design) prevent one from opening it, thus containing everything in a constructed frame of mystery that exoticizes and distinguishes the Chinese as the other. What a boring, mundane discovery it would be if the food is “just like ours,” so let’s guard the box with a bat to make sure no one even dares to see what is really inside.
Image: Teechip
The choice is yours to answer “YES THANK YOU” or “NO THANK YOU” to a Chinese takeout box, and my answer is clear: “YES THANK YOU!” Open it and see with your eyes and taste with your tongue, whether you will be amazed, amused, or appalled, just don’t simply let a pair of imaginary, dodgy bat wings sneak your potentially yummy fried rice away.
