Chip Tsao & Chinese Food

I love Chinese food. Ask me about it and I’ll tell you where to eat the best Chinese food and what to eat. And I know what’s a cheap chow or a good chow.

And it’s not just Chinese food that I love. I also respect and love their culture. Ever heard of the Tale of the Three Kingdoms? Or I Ching? Or Tao Te Ching? Or how about the entire biography of Chairman Mao? Read his poems, read how Chairman Mao and his Chinese Liberation Army swept the whole of China and made monumental history. That’s good chow. And I did’nt imagine myself reading such rubbish coming from a cheap journalist based in Hongkong. It’s just unthinkable reading such cheap chow coming from the eminent People’s Republic of China.

Poor Chip Tsao (pronounced “cheaap chowww”). He’s a Chinese journalist over at some indescript magazine in Hongkong and he, obviously, does not like Chinese food. What he loves are all things Japanese. When the Japanese planted their flag over at Diaoyu island, a known island of China, he was one of those who shouted “bansai”! He usually watches Japanese anime and thinks of himself as a Japanese superman.

He eats purely Japanese food, especially sashimi. And he loves being with Japanese women, the anime kind.

That’s probably the reason why BBC kicked him out. When the Japanese occupied that Chinese island, he was one of those went over the fence and declared Japanese rule over Hongkong and the mainland. Good that some magazines still want him to write for them, with some exceptions though—he cannot and is barred to write about Chinese food. He can’t write about good chow, only cheap chow.

And you know what? Chip Tsao can’t understand why Filipinos acted differently when Filipinos claimed those scattered rocks in the Spratlys island as their own. No. Chip Tsao simply can’t accept the reality that most Filipinos are still proud of their being Filipinos. Not his maid, says Chip Tsao. She’s with me for all these time, cleaning my toilets and is at my beck and call, all the time. The government of my Filipina just made an unthinkable thing—claiming some scattered rocks as their own off the South China sea.

It can’t be. Chip Tsao is not familiar with the term “national sovereignty” nor does he know about “national pride” and “nationalist spirit”. Chip Tsao does not know what’s “national territory” is all about. He just have a map in his house, with a big region which he calls “MAPHILINDO” or “ Hongkong, Republic of Japan”.

And I really can’t understand why his publishers still allow him to dish out such embarrassing articles. Maybe they don’t know what good writing or cheap writing is all about? Maybe they’re used to eating cheap chow over some hawker store in Hongkong that they consider Chip Tsao’s articles and columns “world-class”? As they say, when you eat cheap chow everyday, you’ll get to be Chip Tsao.