My Take | Politics of fried rice hotter than Chinese-US spat
- During the pandemic lockdown, millions of online viewers have become worked up over a Malaysian-Chinese comedian’s criticism of a BBC cooking show
China and the West may be engaged in a new cold war and the world is still plagued by the Covid-19 pandemic.
But the biggest controversy on the internet over the East-West divide has been over the proper way of cooking Chinese fried rice and the propriety of non-Chinese chefs trying to serve, or teach how to cook, the popular native Chinese dish.
As hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of online users have been so worked up over that, you fear how humanity would confront the really big issues facing the world today.
It all started in July, when Malaysian-Chinese comedian Nigel Ng rounded on a cooking show on the BBC presented by chef Hersha Patel, who is British-Indian.
Ng has created this persona, the now infamous Uncle Roger – a middle-aged Chinese man who speaks in pidgin English, and who basically picked on everything Patel did throughout the show.
But her biggest sins seemed to have been three: failing to use overnight leftover rice, not washing the uncooked rice, and then draining the half-cooked rice. In between, she made so many supposed mistakes you really have to watch the original clip, which is hilarious. She also didn’t have a proper wok.