What's 55 + 1?

One. According to Thomas Mullaney,  the math works this way in China: 55 + 1 = 1. That is, 55 ethnic minorities plus one Han ethnic group equals one, the People's Republic of China. The Chinese language is "Hanyu"; the Chinese dominant identity is Han. Putting aside the question of the dominant "1," Mullaney asks just where did the widely accepted number "55" come from? Who decided what an ethnic group in China is and then counted them--using what criteria? Was it a unique language that defined the ethnic group? A unique culture? A period of cultural dominance? Unique foods?

Song Tao's snapshot of a Dai parsley dish

Well, it was food that was on Song Tao's mind (and mine) when we got lost looking for a particular Dai restaurant in Kunming. The moon rose in another clear Yunnan night sky, we walked and talked, and got lost. But, by the time we found the Dai restaurant, not too far from Yunnan University, the crowd was thinning and we decided the timing was perfect. So, is it true that Dai cuisine specializes in bugs? And moss? And so forth?

It's fortunate that we had heard such rave reviews about this restaurant about the size of a double car garage with the door wide open, because the menu might not have tempted us otherwise. The colorful menu listed this fare. . .

          Acid Sweet Yuanzi
          Clear Soup Pig's Knuckles
          Brain in Soy Sauce Pig's Knuckles
          Old Fried Chicken to Let Them Know
          Acanthropanax Spicy Microphones
          Water Pickles Mix Big Fire
          Cold Pigskin
          Dai Fried Cowhide
          Cold Eggplant
          Cold Gray Eggs
          Smelly Food Fried Egg
          Sauce Blasting Eggplant

Now, were the cooks wanting to pack up early and go home? Or were they serious about trying to tempt us to eat something? Somehow, we were tempted, even if not by the menu itself. We ordered pineapple rice, a phenomenal tofu dish wrapped in greens, sensational fried moss, and a Dai water parsley dish that had some of my favorite sweet and sour (lemony) flavors. The food was exquisitely memorable--and you can fill up on a lot of moss without overeating.

Song Tao's shapshot of fried river moss

The Dai are perhaps not a single ethnic people but rather several groups with different languages and cultures, some millennia old, extending through Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. So, it might be a gross generalization to say that the Dai are a nominally Buddhist people who grow rice, sugar cane, and bananas in the fertile river basins of the Mekong and other southeast Asian rivers. It might not be true that most Dai men are tattoed with tigers and most married Dai women wear silver wristbands and wear their hair up with combs and flowers. Perhaps they don't all live in bamboo houses raised on stilts. And perhaps they (and other ethnic minorities) are not underrepresented in Chinese affairs; perhaps they are not overrepresented among people lacking sufficient food and water.

Whoever the Dai people are, I don't think their presence is the primary reason I liked  Kunming--perhaps it was just being far away from the intense commercialism and pace of the east coast; perhaps it was being in a place where diversity is the norm; perhaps it was being in a place where old women's faces crinkle with smiles instead of stiff stares. Who knows?

But two things are for sure--one, I don't really know what makes a Shaoshu Minzu or minority group, especially the Dai, (or what the differences are between and among nationality, language, culture, and ethnicity) and, two, I do know that I had an incredibly nutritious and tasty Dai dinner.

Song Tao's snapshot of Dai tofu wrapped in bamboo

* * * * *

Mullaney, Thomas S. “Introduction : 55 + 1 = 1 or the Strange Calculus of Chinese Nationhood.” China Information 2004 18: 197      http://cin.sagepub.com/content/18/2/197