Text/Li Na
#Chinese brother Sunshine Chinese food popular Italy #China and Italy are both big countries in food, Chinese delicious, can eat, and will eat, the Italians are the same.
Nicola Jiang, an Italian Chinese, is a well-known creator on the short video platform TikTok. The Chinese taste buds rooted in the genes, nourished by the acquired nature of the Apennine Peninsula, Nicola accidentally hit and started a journey of Chinese food with a fragrant taste.
"Live stream" Chinese food on TikTok
Born and raised in Italy, Nicola speaks fluent Italian with a slightly vaguely pronounced Chinese. Although most of his family is in Italy, he flies back to China almost every year to celebrate the New Year with relatives and friends.
In January 2020, Nicola returned to Beijing for the Spring Festival as usual, and plans to return to Italy in three weeks. The outbreak of the epidemic suddenly stopped his return to Italy.
There is a sentence in the documentary "China on the Tip of the Tongue": Everyone's tongue has a hometown. For Nicola, China is a fetter in the blood, but the concept is vague. The Italian church Nicola enjoys life, loves to eat and play, he is determined to throw away the conservatism of the "newcomer" and explore the appearance of China according to the cuisine of the north and south.
The territory of China is vast, and the flavors of east, west, south and north are very different. Nicola has spread its gastronomic map across the country: starting from Beijing, jiaxing, Ningbo, Wenzhou and Nanjing in the east, Sanya in the south, and Chongqing and Xishuangbanna in the west.
Nicola eats Chongqing noodles
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Yu vegetables are spicy, salty and hot. Nicola finished eating Chongqing hot pot and took TikTok netizens to "cloud eat" Chongqing noodles. The raked peas and special miso sauce are spread over the noodles and are evocative in just one bite. "Chongqing noodles are Chinese pasta." Nicola sucked on the noodles and told the netizens.
Wenzhou seafood is rich and full of umami. Nicola went out to sea with local fishermen to fish, and the nets were scattered into the East China Sea, full of clams, blood clams, pike crabs...
In Nanjing, Nicola produced duck blood vermicelli soup, and was surprised to find that a bowl of vermicelli soup actually had duck meat, duck blood, duck intestines, duck tongue, and duck liver, and sighed that Nanjing was really worthy of the city that "no duck can swim out of Nanjing alive".
Xishuangbanna, located in southwest China, is another flavor. Dai cuisine green and natural, lemongrass grilled fish delicious crisp, pineapple rice sweet appetizer, fruit market in all kinds of melons and fruits to make Nicola dazzling, enthusiastic hostess invited him to taste sour horn, egg fruit, sea cucumber fruit, durian for free...
Nicola eats Dai-style meals in Xishuangbanna
In China, food is always closely linked to festivals. When introducing the cuisine, Nicola did not forget to popularize Chinese culture and traditional customs to foreign netizens.
"Every Dragon Boat Festival, Chinese will eat zongzi. In Italy, people from the north and south eat different flavors of croissant buns and croissant buns, as does China. Southerners eat salty rice dumplings, and northerners eat sweet rice dumplings..." He eats them in the video while introducing the difference between salty and sweet rice dumplings.
Zongzi has won the hearts of many foreign netizens
See modern China from "QR code payment"
More than 400 short videos set Nicola on the fire on TikTok, and he gained more than 500,000 followers. "It was purely a coincidence that I started out just documenting my life and had no idea that so many people would follow my videos." Nicola confesses that she never thought she would one day become a TikTok celebrity.
Nicola once uploaded a video on TikTok where he pays with a QR code at a convenience store. Unexpectedly, this cashless operation suddenly exploded, with more than 800,000 plays, more than 80,000 people liked him, and many foreign netizens looked dumbfounded: "China is the future." ”
Nicola scans the QR code at the convenience store to pay
"In Italy, QR codes are a new thing that has only become popular after the epidemic. But in China, regardless of the size of the city, people can use QR codes to eat, shop and travel. After watching my video, they found that China was so advanced. Nicola said.
Italian media outlets reported that Nicola accomplished what many sociologists struggle to do: to get the West to understand what China looks like today.
Italian media reported Nicola's story
Indeed it is. From convenience stores to chain restaurants, from high-end restaurants to food stalls, from freshly caught seafood on the East China Sea, to pilaf rice in the southwest rainforest... In less than two years, foreign netizens followed Nicola's lens and saw how Chinese ate, worked, shopped, traveled, and relaxed.
British food writer Fuxia Dunlop, who lived in China, wrote in Shark Fins and Peppers that food has a transcendent central place in Chinese society and history, so it has become an excellent window into Chinese history, philosophy, thought and life.
"There are a lot of Wenzhou people in Italy, and many Italians will look down on these Wenzhou people and think that they come to Italy to make a living because they are poor." But in fact, this is not the case, I specifically went to Wenzhou to correct the wrong point of view. Nicola explained seriously.
Nicola fishes in the Wenzhou Sea
In the city series of videos, Wenzhou citizens can not only go to five-star restaurants to consume high-end food, but also go out to sea to catch delicious seafood, travel with airplanes, high-speed rail, and go up the mountains and go to the sea in their leisure time... The city is modern and cozy.
On TikTok, Nicola's fans come in different races, occupations, and ages. "A lot of times, they'll leave a message in the comments section thanking me because I've shown them a completely different culture." Nicola explains why she is popular.
Under Nicola's lens, China not only preserves its own food traditions, but also absorbs different cultures from foreign countries. He let more foreigners see that China is not only the Zuo Zongtang chicken on Chinatown, where the cuisine is diverse and rich, life is comfortable and convenient, and the ancient country is full of vitality and vitality.