How to Cook a Dragon: Living, Loving, and Eating in China

321 Pages·2014·15.35 MB·English

by  Furiya Linda

U.S. $16.95 FOOD/MEMOIR
“LINDA FURIYA TACKLES THE CHALLENGES OF BEING A
Japanese American woman and journalist living in China with her pen, her
wok, and her indomitable spirit. How to Cook a Dragon is a personal journey
through a land at a crossroads of its history. It’s a poignant tale with many layers
of textures and flavors—much like an elaborate Chinese banquet. Indeed, the
best way to slay the cultural dragon is by cooking it.”
How to
—MARTIN YAN, Master Chef, author of Martin Yan’s China,
and host of the Yan Can Cook show
COOK a
DRAGON
When Linda Furiya moved to China with her boyfriend at the age of thirty, she LIVING, LOVING, AND EATING IN CHINA
hoped to find romance and ethnic kinship. During her six years in Beijing and
Shanghai, however, Furiya struggled with her relationship, as well as what was
expected of her and assumed about her by the Chinese because of her gender
and heritage.
Sensuous and at times unusual, the Chinese culinary traditions, tastes, and
habits mesmerize Furiya, informing her time in China and ultimately revealing
the intimate, nurturing side of the Chinese culture and people. Part insightful
memoir, part authentic cookbook, How to Cook a Dragon is a revealing look at
race, love, and food in China.
ISBN (10) 1-58005-255-X
SEAL PRESS ISBN (13) 978-1-58005-255-9 Linda
A Member of the Perseus Books Group Furiya
Distributed by Publishers Group West Linda Furiya
Visit us at www.sealpress.com Author of
Bento Box in the Heartland
Cover design by Domini Dragoone
Cover images © www.123rf.com
LIVING, LOVING, AND
How to
COOK a DRAGON EATING IN CHINA
How to
COOK a
DRAGON
LiviNG, LOviNG, AND EAtiNG iN CHiNA
Linda Furiya
Dragon-3rdPages.indd 1 9/24/08 1:55:38 PM
HOw tO COOK A DRAGON
Living, Loving, and Eating in China
Copyright © 2008 by Linda Furiya
Published by
Seal Press
A Member of Perseus Books Group
1700 Fourth Street
Berkeley, California
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmit-
ted in any form without written permission from the publisher, except by
reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Furiya, Linda.
How to cook a dragon: living, loving, and eating in China / by Linda
Furiya.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-58005-255-9
ISBN-10: 1-58005-255-X
1. Furiya, Linda. 2. Women food writers—China—Biography. I. Title.
TX649.F86A3 2008
641.5092—dc22
[B]
2008020820
Cover and interior design by Domini Dragoone
Printed in the United States of America by Maple-Vail
Distributed by Publishers Group West
In order to respect the privacy of individuals mentioned in the book,
the author has changed their names.
Dragon-3rdPages.indd 2 9/24/08 1:55:38 PM
To Manfred Ichiro
Dragon-3rdPages.indd 3 9/24/08 1:55:38 PM
CONtENtS
Chapter 1 the Cricket’s Song .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Chapter 2 Learning My Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Chapter 3 waning Blossoms .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Chapter 4 Home for the Holidays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Chapter 5 Face value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Chapter 6 Awakening the Sleeping Dragon .. . . . . .149
Chapter 7 Gone Before Sunrise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .177
Chapter 8 whore of the Orient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Chapter 9 the Day the Sky Fell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
Chapter 10 A Cleaver in Every wok .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Chapter 11 Prelude to winter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
Epilogue .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Dragon-3rdPages.indd 4 9/24/08 1:55:39 PM
Dragon-3rdPages.indd 5 9/24/08 1:55:40 PM
Dragon-3rdPages.indd 6 9/24/08 1:55:40 PM
Chapter 1
the
CRiCKEt’S
Song
iF it wEREN’t FOR the Beijing duck dinner that July evening in
1997, I never would have met the cricket peddler.
It was my first night out since I’d arrived at the Beijing Interna-
tional Airport less than a week before. I had taken a three-month leave
of absence from my job to be with my then boyfriend Eric, who lived
and worked in China’s capital city. The first few days, I slept like a dog.
When I couldn’t sleep, I walked around Eric’s apartment in a drowsy blur.
Around midnight, I’d awake, wide-eyed, and eat salami sandwiches and
instant noodles in front of the TV. I watched The Simpsons and CNN
Asia until the sky went from black to gray. All the while, Eric snored away
in the bedroom.

The Beijing duck restaurant Eric took me to for my first dinner out was a
typical sprawling, banquet hall–style Chinese restaurant with massive round
7
Dragon-3rdPages.indd 7 9/24/08 1:55:41 PM
ea tcebh,swl ahStzylan cIi hu te s nt aese.neni tra rt ncewawy eper hot s
ogefrniao m fbasdaon srdgw enia tsirihoh adeae tnht oerhv tey er a .sr
Unisgm yc hopcpc Ikit si,esdorf mam s d hsaliopl feanbu eo,stdli
whtatsi r nesai ndh eatasTydv l.ihesdoc iuienl suw stesrv edw hti
dnrika sa mtloe tsveryer atsuarnE ;cth riadc oercetdm ew he ntsdri’fI
pckiedht emu pw htmi nifyg e.sr
Ahtloughw eh add niedot gehtea rh tomed unright ew ekw I ,a s
usrpesrdib hy owhs wy ew dac eWoaieolri etf tsr.fnihtf siew aefrm ai rli
whti each oht ae,nrd ye twhyo lulnafm Ea.icrl riwia saeraldvnyi lgn i
Chniwa henatswetr tdsrdif ena ihSt g tdea;v’isn iF arncscwio ,hwe Ier a s
vnoibfl r gu,nisem seneitge sveryc oupeom lfonch tIo u.sdhl tnpebl’ u t
oe efvlerwhmeledbh tya htfec t wa twe everutr artsina lg e.sr
Andyhe tewe rI e am,sbakrnigu ponos mehtnigp ertyth ugvg eie,n
htcercui matsnAc ed.ses’Ic et urferdm ealyv aeo b fesnus Icbe eal,esdm y
apamtreni St anF arnMcsc sio’oisnW icd.t rtisihao tuctomew oudelr -
orufs tmlo umit reot gehdt dI ki et,nrn’ow I al ;lac seatrniow faht sa t
Ecw riac tnso’mmetdie noughot o uoaer ritlnhspiht aw I tanw silgolt i
mc asaeiloctfeS lri s itya nF arncscio .
h Iadk nownE ocfarim rloht tserey ema ,rsoya ltas w oekrnif d .
We met while working at an investment bank in San Francisco’s fi-
nancial district—I as a receptionist and he as an analyst in the bank’s
bullpen. During our relationship, whenever anyone would ask us how
we’d met, Eric would say that I’d had a boyfriend at the time—a man I
later married and quickly divorced. “And then she was available again,”
he was fond of saying.
Our workplace was a breeding ground for difficult attitudes, inflat-
ed egos, and insecurity. But the Eric I knew then was above Ivy League
8 How to Cook a Dragon
Dragon-3rdPages.indd 8 9/24/08 1:55:41 PM
name dropping and didn’t fit the stereotypical image I secretly had of a
status-conscious upper-class person. He was down to earth and gravitated
toward the mailroom guys and the front-desk ladies; he rode a motorcycle
to work. In a world of one-upmanship, capitalism, and shaky value sys-
tems, Eric was a sincere, regular guy.
The summer of my first divorce, I began working on a novel to get
my life back on track. Eric was working at the bank’s Shanghai office.
That fall and winter I spent time healing by hanging out with my friend
Gill, swimming in the San Francisco Bay, and riding my motorcycle in
the hills of Marin County. Over many margaritas sipped under the year-
round Christmas decorations at the Mexican restaurants La Rondalla
and Cantina, I tried to figure out what had gone wrong, and how my
dreams of having a husband and a family had slipped away from me.
The first hint of spring was in the air the afternoon I ran into Eric,
who was traveling a lot at that point, in the executive kitchen. He was
back in the States for a week of meetings. I think it was then that I really
saw him for the first time—his intensely dark chocolate-drop eyes and
light freckles that I hadn’t noticed until I got up close. He somehow ap-
peared taller, too. “The skinny white guy with the runny nose” was how
he charmingly described himself; his wit, self-deprecating sense of humor,
and unpredictable goofiness captured my heart. And for most of our rela-
tionship, I lovingly saw him as the funniest, sexiest man I knew.
We met for drinks that very night at a smoky, semidark dive bar in
the Mission; the Counting Crows played loudly through the speakers.
Over my wheat beer and his scotch and soda, we discussed our life goals.
Mine was to pursue writing; Eric’s was to make money. Love, marriage,
and children, we agreed, would follow naturally. From there, we started a
The Cricket's Song 9
Dragon-3rdPages.indd 9 9/24/08 1:55:41 PM