Chapter Fifteen
The Culture of Killing

Ever since I was quite young, I have heard and seen a colorful panoply of killing. Compared with the rich and profound techniques developed for killing Homo sapiens in ancient and contemporary China, my experiences are trivial and insignificant. But I still want to record them in this small book to make my humble contribution to the brilliance of Chinese civilization.

There are two methods of preparing eels for cooking. If the eels are thick, they are usually deboned alive. Eels are very slimy, so the amateur has difficulty with the job. But in the hands of the expert they meet a quick end.

The eel is clamped by the left hand, with the middle finger above and the index and ring fingers below. An awl pins the eel's head to the board below. A long stroke of the right hand smoothes the writhing eel. Simultaneously, a razor held between thumb and index finger of the right hand cleanly fillets

the left side from neck to tail. Another slash of the razor, and the eel is left a whip of white bones. The mouth still gently spills bloody foam.

The meat from eels that are butchered alive is tender. In most cases, however, eels are given a hot shower before they are prepared. The eel vendor does not provide his own boiling water. Hot water shops are commonly built adjacent to a marketplace. The vendor carries a half-bucket of eels to the hot water shop and places it under the tap.

"Is the water ready?" he asks.

The operator of the boiler nods his head.

With a yank, the vendor opens the tap and a thick column of steaming water pours into the bucket.

All the eels get excited.

The wooden bucket is well designed, with a wide bottom and a small mouth—no eel is able to jump out. The eel carnival lasts only a few seconds; then the commotion subsides. A mound of foam lingers on the rim like the head on draft beer.

There are also two ways to terminate rabbits. For the common rabbit, simply grab its hind legs and, with a quick swing, hit its head on a cement floor. But the long-haired rabbit requires special treatment.

Long-haired rabbits are used for fur. The furrier usually checks the quality of the pelt by grasping the hairs between his fingers and combing through them. The fewer hairs that are shed, the better the fur. The following procedure is specifically designed to strengthen the adherence of the hair to the skin.

A steel bar, one inch thick, a foot and a half long, is prepared.

One end is filed smooth and round, the other end is fixed in a wooden handle. The bar is heated on a stove. When it glows red, the rabbit is taken out of its cage and put on the table. The furrier caresses the rabbit's back. Feeling soothed and comfortable, the rabbit lifts its tail. At the split second the anus is exposed, the bar is plunged in. The rabbit's mouth opens. Before a sound can escape, the poker protrudes from between its teeth. The unique stimulation makes every pore contract, clutching each hair in a death grip.

I never saw with my own eyes a banquet where they served White Jade of the Golden Monkey. I read about it in a musty antique recipe at the book flea market near the Temple of Letters. Under the title there was a line drawing, in characteristically warped perspective, depicting the construction of a special table.

The table was built in two halves with a hole in the middle. The head of the monkey emerged through the hole, with its neck clamped by the two sides. It could breathe, but it could not retract its head. A couple of bars were installed beneath the table, as a perch for the sacrifice.

It was the exotic illustration that held me. Confronting the brain-wrenching classical Chinese, I squatted at the stall. Retrieving all the rusty vocabulary that my mother had stuffed into my head from the "Imperial Essays," I eventually deciphered the recipe.

First, the book instructed, the guests must bathe in water infused with jasmine petals. The tableware and utensils had to be fashioned of pure silver. I remember a line of the recipe that read:

Only with clear mind, only with pure silver, can the soul of the monkey be adopted into thy heart.

When the monkey was in position, a ladleful of hot oil was sprinkled on its head. The hair was thereby loosened and easy to pull out. Care had to be taken when pouring the oil so as not to burn the ears and eyes of the monkey. The book decreed:

The ears and eyes of the golden monkey are portals. The spirit of heaven and earth enter through them, and in the brain foregather. No damage should be done.

The dehairing could be assigned to an assistant, but the breaking of the skull had to be performed by an expert. The monkey's head was struck with a silver hammer. The force had to be precise. If the blow was too gentle, the skull would remain intact. If it was too strong, the monkey would be knocked out, or even worse, the "white jade" under the scalp might be smashed.

When the skull was broken, the shards were carefully picked out with silver tweezers. Then the membrane had to be peeled off. Extreme caution had to be taken—the membrane was tightly wrapped around the brain. If the brain was accidentally broken, the juices would escape. That was called "leaking the heavenly secret" and meant the dish was ruined. When the membrane had been removed, the "white jade" was presented to the distinguished guests.

At this point, the monkey was still conscious. Its eyes glittered, looking around at all the guests. The diners, in contrast, closed their eyes in meditation, waiting for the most sacred

moment—"jade breaking." (I believe the term had been appropriated from classical novels where it suggested the taking of a maiden's virginity.)

Breaking the "jade" was a great honor, and the ritual was performed by the oldest or highest-ranking guest. The spoon designed for jade breaking was very small, only the size of a peanut shell, but the handle was twice as long as a regular spoon's.

The honored guest slowly extended the spoon toward the "jade." A slight tap, and the brain oozed out.

He scooped a half spoonful of "jade" and solemnly brought it to his lips. Closing his eyes, he savored the taste from the tip of his tongue to the back of his palate. Then he emitted a long sigh. He opened his eyes, his pupils shining. He looked around at everyone gathered at the table.

A hubbub arose.

Starting from the jade-breaker and moving around the table from east to west, the guests tasted the delicacy, one by one. The sequence from east to west was crucial. If the direction of rotation was incorrect, the energy of the universe would turn into evil fire, driving the diners insane. Weird as it sounds, modern medicine recognizes a similar pathological condition in New Guinea called laughing disease, or kuru. It results from eating raw, infected brains.

Small world.

Live Fish Feast is a famous dish in Nanjing, the former capital of the Nationalist government. The only people who can afford to consume it are senior leaders or foreign guests. It is not that the fish is rare; any freshwater fish such as carp or trout is good enough. Rather, it is the involved cooking process that makes

the feast a lofty endeavor. In all of Nanjing, only two or three chefs are qualified to prepare the dish.

In February 1972 President Nixon visited China. At a press conference in Shanghai, a reporter in his entourage abruptly asked an out-of-the-blue question:

"Is Live Fish Feast considered a remnant of the old society?"

Perhaps he was just trying to show off the knowledge he had gleaned from a dust-covered book the night before he left for his assignment. But the Chinese government took it very seriously. The Foreign Ministry dispatched a chef by helicopter from Nanjing to Shanghai. In the Foreign Guest House restaurant, the chef demonstrated Live Fish Feast.

The Central Documentary Movie Company shot the whole procedure in color. The film was distributed worldwide to prove that, in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, China still took good care of its cultural traditions.

The movie began with a close-up of a fish tank. A few plump carp swam gracefully in the water. Then the lens tilted up and a chef approached the tank. With a big smile, he stuck his hand into the water and pulled out a carp.

Close-up: the fish flapped its tail, splashing drops of water.

Fade-in: the kitchen. A smoking pot of oil on the stove. The chef swiftly scaled and gutted the fish. Inserting two fingers into the gills, he dipped the body of the fish into the hot oil. The whole movie theater vibrated with the sound of sizzling oil, 120 decibels, fully expressing the intensity of the heat. The fish's head remained suspended by the chef, one inch above the surface of the oil. The gills still pulsed in the smoke.

The deep frying took only two or three seconds. Then with a flourish, the fish was flung onto a white, oval platter.

The complicated sauce was prepared well in advance: dried lily flower, wood ear fungus, wild mushrooms, shrimp extract, sesame oil, coriander, ginger, garlic, and more. One flash of the ladle and the whole fish was colorfully dressed.

A long pan shot brought the carp to the table.

A round of cheers was followed by an air raid of chopsticks.

Close-up: the body of the fish had already become a skeleton, but the head remained fresh. The eyes still sparkled. The mouth still murmured . . .

There are virtually no taboos in the gamut of Chinese food. Almost anything can be turned into a delicacy. Of things with two wings, airplanes are the only exception. Of things with four legs, only benches are pardoned. Not only do we eat anything, but we eat it with a unique twist. The consumption of two kinds of birds provides examples.

Deep-fried sparrow is a popular game dish. It's not difficult to catch sparrows. In the evening, when the sparrows have gone to roost in the shrubs, large nets are hung in front of the bushes. Then, behind the nests, a gong is suddenly beaten. The startled sparrows fly out and crash into the net. With their wings entangled in the threads, they can easily be picked out, one by one.

The tricky part is getting rid of the feathers.

Sparrows have fragile skin. If the bird is plucked after it is dead, the skin will come off with the feathers. Sparrows are small to begin with; if you lose the skin how much is left? So sparrows are usually plucked alive.

Defeathering live sparrows is labor intensive. But at least their cheeping and the constant fluttering of their wings in your hands relieve some of the monotony.

I remember when I was a sixth grader, one of the third-place winners of the annual Grammar School Invention Contest was a classmate of mine. I no longer can recall his proper name, but everyone called him Black Skin. Black Skin's invention was the Easy Pigeon Terminator.

It was a citywide contest, so winning third place was a big honor. Proudly, the school officials called a grand assembly for Black Skin to lecture on his invention.

Black Skin said his father was a chef in a game restaurant, and red-cooked (stewed in soy sauce) pigeon was one of his specialties. Black Skin told us that his father had once asked him to help kill pigeons. Black Skin Sr. told Black Skin Jr., and Black Skin Jr. told us, that the pigeons were not supposed to be killed with a knife. If the blood drained out, the meat would taste dry and tough.

Black Skin took a live pigeon from a bamboo cage under the podium and started his demonstration. First he showed us the traditional method. He held the bird in his left hand. With his right thumb and index finger, he tightly covered the two breathing holes above the beak. The pigeon began to struggle. The spasms gradually subsided. Black Skin released his fingers, and the pigeon revived.

Black Skin said you had to cut off the bird's air supply for at least five minutes to finish it. The day he worked for his father, Black Skin killed twenty pigeons in a row. His fingers became flattened and trembled for two days. The tedious work inspired his invention.

Then Black Skin showed us his award-winning machine. The Easy Pigeon Terminator was definitely easy to use. It consisted of two clips linked together. One clip held the beak from

above and below. The other clamped the air holes from left and right. The ends of the clips were rubber-tipped to better seal out the air.

Black Skin plugged the pigeon into his device and tossed it onto the stage. Flapping its wings, the pigeon tried to take off, but the clips were attached to a cast-iron block. So, dragging its head, the bird performed a bizarre dance on the stage.

Finally it calmed down.

This time Black Skin did not let it revive.

There is a famous dish in Yunnan Province called Baby Mice.

Keep a cage full of female mice, mate them to a male mouse, and a continuous supply of baby mice is guaranteed. A baby mouse is only as big as the last segment of your little finger. Pink. No hair.

One serving of Baby Mice consists of four infants. The squirming babies are put in a small gilded-porcelain dish and brought to the table. Simultaneously, a dish of sauce is served: mustard, wild pepper, soy sauce, sesame oil, white vinegar, brown sugar, and so on. The list of ingredients is complex, and every restaurant has its own secret recipe. But eating the baby mice is always simple. You just pick one up with pointed, ivory chopsticks and drop it in the sauce. It rolls and wiggles, coating its body with all the spices. Then you pick it up again, and pop it in your mouth.

Chew and chew.

While Baby Mice describes one dish's contents, the meaning of Purple Strips is difficult to guess. Purple Strips was a thera-

peutic food in Guangxi Province, which borders Vietnam. The primary ingredient was a young cow, around one year old, having just reached puberty but not yet been mated.

The young cow was led to the edge of a pond. The pond appeared quite ordinary, just a regular fish pond. But there were no fish in it. Instead, in the mud under the water, millions of leeches lay in ambush.

Instinctually the cow felt that something was wrong. She kicked her hind legs and tried to retreat. But she could not withstand the whips laid across her buttocks for long, and gradually she waded into the water. The army of leeches that had been waiting impatiently in the mud swarmed out and latched onto every part of the cow.

In five or six minutes, the owner dragged the cow back out of the water. Her whole body was covered with leeches. With a thin, bamboo blade, he scraped the already engorged leeches into a wooden bucket.

Though he did not wear a watch, the owner had to have a good sense of timing. If the session was too short, the leeches would not have siphoned enough blood. If it was too long, they would have sucked their fill and contentedly fallen off into the water.

After the first leech harvest was complete, the owner drove the cow back into the pond. The process was repeated again and again.

As the volume of leeches in the bucket increased, the cow's blood was being draining away. Eventually, the owner led the withered cow to the butcher shop where she was slaughtered. The womb was saved for later use.

The leeches had enjoyed their warm blood banquet for some

time; now it was their turn to contribute. When a cauldron of water reached a rolling boil, the leeches were dumped in. They were instantly scooped out and chilled in cold water. Once removed from their cold bath, they were spread on a wide bamboo sieve to drain. Women sitting around the sieve slit each leech lengthwise with sharp, pointed blades and turned it inside out. Then they picked out a coagulated cow's blood strip with the tip of their knife and dropped it into an iced jar where it was reserved.

Traditional Chinese medical theory assumes that a woman's infertility is the result of low chi, or energy, in the blood. Cow's blood can aid the chi, but it is too hot. Taken directly, the heat can linger in the woman's body for many months, leading to prolonged bleeding after she gives birth. Leeches, residing in mud at the bottom of brooks or ponds, have a yin, or cool, nature. Once the cow's blood is sucked by the leeches, the yang of the blood is instantly balanced by the yin of the leeches. The heat is significantly quenched, yet the energy remains. Hence, the miraculous, therapeutic effect of Purple Strips, which enhances the blood energy in a cool fashion.

Even better, the spirit of the leeches can contribute their unique elasticity to the woman and help her withstand intense expansions and contractions during her long labor.

Yet a dose of Purple Strips was extremely expensive. Ordinary women from farmers' families dared not even think of it. Only a few ladies from aristocratic families could afford the cure.

To prepare a proper dose, the cow's womb was thinly sliced. Accompanied by wild ginseng, yellow angelica, black longans, red dates, shark fins, and swallows' nests, the womb soup was

simmered all night. The Purple Strips were not removed from the iced jar until the moment of serving. They were submerged in the simmering broth, and almost immediately the pot was removed from the stove. Never overcook the Purple Strips. Even a few seconds' delay will totally ruin the treasure—the active energy, stored in the blood, will shrivel and die out.

While surveying or studying primitive cultures of the past and present, it is not unusual for archaeologists or anthropologists to bump into isolated achievements so advanced that no satisfactory explanation can be made for their origins. The Red Petals described below serves as an example.

Like many Asian ethnic groups, villagers living in the cloud-shrouded Daliang Mountains in the deep south of Sichuan Province were fond of dog meat. It was their unique slaughtering process, however, that earned the esteemed reputation of their Red Petals dog meat.

As with Purple Strips, Red Petals derived its name from blood—in this case, dog's blood. Dog's blood is even hotter than cow's blood; consuming it will give the eater an instant nosebleed. The only use for dog's blood was to splash it on an enemy's statue in a ritual curse before a tribal fight—to burn the evil to death. Since such rituals were not a frequent practice, most of the blood had to be discarded.

But blood is the stream that carries nutrition, and it is a shame to throw out the baby with the bath water. Some researchers have therefore assumed that the unique slaughtering process used to produce Red Petals dog meat was developed to save the nutrition while disposing of the waste.

Two sticks were employed in the procedure. One stick stretched the dog's forelegs wide open; the other stretched the hindlegs. In this cruciform position, the dog was skinned alive. Then the dog was released from the sticks and allowed to roam freely in the enclosed pit of the slaughterhouse.

The naked dog wouldn't bark. Like a drunk, he slowly and quietly walked around the pit, one circle after another. His staring white eyeballs never blinked—there was nothing to blink with. Blood was seeping out from his exposed muscles, dripping along his staggering legs. Red petals were blooming under his paws. It took at least ten minutes before the dog finally collapsed.

There is a significant difference between the conventional throat-slashing slaughtering and the flaying-alive process. In the first practice, all the nutrition is flushed away with the blood through the cut artery. But in the latter method, the blood is forced to sieve through all the capillaries while the nutrition carried by the warm liquid is filtered and reserved by the billions of cells of the dog's flesh.