The Land of Milk and Money 牛奶和金钱之乡

Apologies for the hiatus! During the blogging interlude, I have decided on the topic of my dissertation; milk in China! Those of you who know me well, know that I dislike milk and I have a little bit of a sulk every time a coffee shop charges me extra for ordering a latte with soy milk. But I've found the topic of the growing milk industry in China fascinating; it sums up China's increasing interaction with the world as well as its own growing pains. It is an industry peppered with incidents and scandals, that is, in turn, sharpening the awareness of the Chinese consumer. 

I have just written an article for Qingdao magazine about the issue, as well as a fun 'infographic' for extra facts about the milk industry (click here for the June issue, my article and infographic is on pages 6-9). Alternatively, read below for the unedited article (last paragraph was perhaps too subversive to be published in the mainland). 

Ai Weiwei's map of China, made with over 1000 cans of foreign infant formula

For most part of recorded history, the Chinese relationship with milk can be summarized by the word ‘avoidance’. The History of the Former Han Dynasty, written in 82 AD, tells of the Han princess Liu Jian sent to marry the king of the Wusun tribe. Her poem laments the changes in her lifestyle and longs to return home.

吾家嫁我兮天一方，遠托異國兮烏孫王。

穹廬為室兮旃為牆，以肉為食兮酪為漿。

居常土思兮心內傷，願為黃鵠兮歸故鄉。

My family married me off, to somewhere under the sky.

I moved to far away foreign lands, to the King of the Wusun.

I have a yurt as a room, cloth as my walls.

I have raw meat as food, curled milk as broth.

I often think of my native land, how my heart aches.

I would that I were a yellow swan, to fly back to my home.

The yurt and cloth walls are at odds the Han way of life. Similarly Liu Jian’s poem presents curled milk as antithetical to the typical ‘Han’ diet, where soybeans provided an alternative. Farming cows and drinking milk was seen as barbaric, as the sustenance of nomads. And so, this attitude continued for centuries. 

Only within the past 40 years or so have attitudes begun to change in the wake of globalisation. Milk and dairy began to creep onto breakfast tables and into fridges. Even the founder and chairman of milk behemoth China Modern Dairy, Deng Jiuqiang, admits that, “China has a short history of dairy.” Back in 2006 Premier Wen Jiabao stated, “I have a dream, that every Chinese, especially children, could have 500grams of dairy products every day.”  While Wen's dream might not have been as profound as Martin Luther-King's, his ‘500g Dairy Declaration’ has taken hold. The elder generations may prefer to stick to tofu, but there is no escaping dairy in modern China. Anyone who has been to a Chinese supermarket has heard the furor surrounding the milk aisle, as shop assistants brandish their tubes of yoghurt at you like lactic swords. 

Dairy has swept China. And it is still a growing market, worth $32billion and counting. The average Chinese consumes 2.5 gallons of milk per year, less than a third of the average Japanese or South Korean. Forecasts predict the demand for dairy will continue to grow as urban populations swell and incomes increase. 

However, meeting the demand has proved to be an issue for China’s domestic milk producers. In 2008 the milk supply was not enough to meet the market’s demands. Preoccupied with inflation, the government forced milk producers to maintain artificially low prices. To balance overheads, milk was diluted with water and melamine powder was added to raise the protein content. As a result of the melamine, 6 babies were killed and a further 300,000 hospitalised with kidney problems.

While the melamine scandal of 2008 received widespread international and domestic condemnation, it is not the only scandal to have hit Chinese dairy industry in recent years. The Fuyang Milk Powder Incident in 2004 and the Sanlu Milk Powder Incident in 2008 both caused significant dips in the formula milk market. The Chinese dairy companies Mengniu and Ava Dairy have recalled baby milk powder over fears of high amounts of aflatoxin. Last June, Yili Group, issued a recall after its infant formula was found to contain "unusually high" levels of mercury. These incidents have severely affected consumer confidence in homegrown brands.

In response to the melamine scandal, the government quickly implemented measures to help ensure the safety of domestic milk. Small farms were shut down in favour of group facilities and large farms, where produce can be inspected and monitored more easily. The government even meted out the death penalty to those guilty of manufacturing toxic protein powder.  

Yet the reputation of domestic dairy brands still suffers. Chinese consumers, desperate to purchase safe milk for their children, are turning to imported foreign brands in the hope of ensuring product quality. Foreign brands of infant formula sold on Taobao can fetch over double their original retail price. Evidently, milk powder has become a lucrative market for those with the right foreign connections. This has lead to Hong Kong, the UK, the Netherlands, and Australia imposing restrictions on infant formula as a means to stop mainland Chinese from bulk buying. 

Optimistic Chinese companies are confident that it will not be long before the demand for milk can be met by domestic producers. In 2011 China spent $250million on importing shiploads of cattle from Australia, New Zealand, and Uruguay. Thousands of tonnes of bovine semen were also bought from America. The hope is to scientifically breed a more productive herd, as a Chinese heifer produces less than half the milk of its American cousins.   

If the Chinese dairy industry wants to overcome the suspicion surrounding its quality, it will have to wean itself off the produce from small farms rather than mudslinging at its foreign competitors. Building a large scale, accountable industry will take time, as will casting off the shadow of various scandals. As for the Chinese people, crying over spilt milk does have a purpose. The voice of the Chinese people crying out in complaint is the strongest method to ensure their food safe is for consumption.

On a Bing Binge 无节制地吃煎饼

One bing to rule them all, one bing to find them, 

One bing to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

What the devil is this bing you speak of?

Good question Bingley, please allow me to explain. A bing 饼 is a Chinese pancake, or a general term for round, flattish foods. My particular favourite is the jianbing 煎饼果子, a crêpe like creation folded into a parcel and bursting with Chinese ingredients and flavour. Where can you purchase one, I hear you ask. Apparently London now has its own bing stall. I've heard bubble tea and baozi are the new hipster foods, so get ahead of the hipsters and jump on the bing bandwagon.

This is Mrs Gao and her bing stand. When I say 'stand', it's a cross between a mini-kitchen and a tricycle. These tricycles set up outside, normally by university campuses, selling a huge variety of Chinese street food. Mrs Gao, or Aunty Gao as she lets me call her, has been making her bings for well over ten years. She sells between 200 to 300 bings a day, from 3.5yuan to 5yuan per bing. Hold the calculators, I'll convert for you. Yes, 35p to 50p for a meal. Delicious, nutritious, and... parsimonious? 

Mrs Gao starts by pouring a small ladle of bing mix onto a hot plate

 Then she spreads the batter over the plate evenly using the same tool as crêpe makers

Then she breaks an egg over the top, spreads it out, and waits for it to cook

Once the egg is cooked, she flips the bing over 

On the new side, she first spreads sesame sauce and, for the brave, chilli sauce. Then she adds some kind of crunchy savoury wafer (which I don't know the name of yet) and lettuce

To finish, she adds spicy beancurd cut into thin strips and a dash of spring onion. Then she folds it up and sends you on your way

By the way, this is my 50th blog post! Thanks for sticking with me this far!

Qingdao Travels Continued 在青岛旅游 第二部

Yushan pagoda 小鱼山

Yushan Pagoda was built in 1984

Once again, thanks to our Beijing classmates, Danni and Beijia, for giving me the impetus to finally tour the city I've been living in these past nine months. From the station we made the usual trip down to the pier, then on to Daxue lu, stopping for some freshly made baozi on the way. Daxue lu is as pretty in the spring as it is in the autumn. We made the most of the newly verdant plane trees by going to Coffee Space, a kitsch little coffee shop with a glass roof and excellent cheesecake.

Afterwards we wandered into the Yushan campus of Ocean University. I have to say, I am thoroughly jealous. It's a much more aesthetically pleasing affair than our Fushan campus, with older and less square architecture and aged twisting trees. Above it all floated the Yushan pagoda.

To get to Yushan pagoda, you need to walk out of the university campus and up a few residential streets. In true Chinese tourism style, access to the pagoda isn't free; a normal ticket costs 10RMB, students/elderly 5RMB. I would say the pagoda, and especially its view, is definitely worth the fee. Even though the structure doesn't lay claim to as much history as the incongruous hieroglyphs that decorate the walls would like to suggest, it is still a beautifully made building. From its top floor, there is a wonderful 360' view of Qingdao, looking South to the sea, East to Zhongshan park, surrounded by the wide roofs and broad trees of badaguan. A great place to take tourists to get their bearings.

Gift Street, Creative 100 礼品街 创意100产业园

I am so so sad I have only just discovered this place! Situated at 100 Nanjing Lu, Creative 100 is the home of Qingdao's blossoming culture scene. It has a pottery shop, an arts and crafts shop, tea shops, an anime merchandise shop, fancy dress shops, artists studios, home decor shops, Horcrux (the Harry Potter themed coffee shop) and a book-come-coffee-come-trinket shop. I finally managed to find some non-tacky Qingdao memorabilia in Sono Cafe (I think that's the name, I'll go back and check) for a very reasonable price.

This area fills me with so much enthusiasm for Qingdao, yet it was really disappointing to see a number of vacant shop fronts. I would love to see creative 100 bustling with as many people as it has creative energy. Qingdao's art scene is quite notably lacking, I hope Creative 100 will become the first stepping stone in path to innovation and originality that would give the city a beating heart in the art world.

On a side note, Creative 100 is also home to Redstar magazine, where I am currently interning! Check out my articles on the May Fourth Movement and Korean War films here. Get ready for June's issue too! Plug plug plug.

Firewood Court 劈柴院

I read a five-star review on tripadvisor saying Firewood Court (pichai yuan) was 'like stepping back in time'. I'm sorry, what? Maybe I got my hopes up by reading that review, but Firewood Court was more like stepping into a badly made film set. So apparently the original court was built at the end of the 19th century. Today's Firewood Court was restored in 2007, when they say 'restored' I assume they mean it tongue in cheek. The shops have wallpaper with a brick pattern in order to give some semblance of an 'antique' feeling. As for what the shops sell, there's nothing traditional about it. One was selling posters of Paris and London. You might as well go to Taidong because they won't charge as much. 

Everything else was a copy of each other, most food stalls were peddling various kinds of seafood on sticks. I bought a kind of snack that I was assured was just seafood, I ate it to find out it was pork. Clearly the shopkeepers have no qualms with lying to your face about the content. I doubt they have any hesitation lying about the freshness or quality either. Furthermore, the shopkeepers openly insult passing foreigners in Chinese. Firewood court is a horrible, hackneyed place that passes for tourism. Its narrowness, perhaps the one feature giving it authenticity, just works to the benefit of the shopkeepers as you run the gauntlet down the alley, ambushed on both sides by barking peddlars.  

The museum was shut. The "tea house" on the first floor of the museum was appalling, the centre pieces were a couple of fake concrete trees adorned with plastic leaves, characteristic of the whole artificial nature of Firewood Court. If you want to see a real restored street, visit Bopilao Old Street in Taipei, a great example of how original features can be preserved, and enhanced by modernity. I hope I'm not being too obvious when I say, I wouldn't go near Firewood Court with a ten-foot bamboo pole.  If you want to find Qingdao street food, there are many other cheaper and better quality places to buy it from. 

'Til next time folks!