The History and Culture of Southern China's Borderlands
The region surrounding southern China is a topic of great debate among historians, with many questions remaining unanswered about the migrations and interactions between different groups that have shaped the area over time. As people from other parts of China migrated into South China, those living there either fled elsewhere, conquered others, or mixed in with the new population. The exact details of this process are not well-documented, but as one delves deeper into the region's vernacular culture, it becomes clear that the history is still largely buried beneath the surface.
The Zhuang-Dai and Tai languages are just a few examples of the diverse linguistic landscape of southern China, with many speakers exhibiting characteristics that are mutually intelligible across different dialects. For example, the Dai Lue and Dai Yai languages are almost identical to those spoken in Thailand's central regions. This blend of cultures has led some researchers to question the traditional notions of identity and belonging in this region. The stateless highlands are often seen as a symbol of cultural diversity, but it is worth exploring the culinary borderlands that separate Chinese from Tai traditions.
The decision to learn Thai is largely driven by an appreciation for language as a centering force in our lives. We have always been drawn to the food and culture of southern China, but as we explore this region further, we realize that our perspectives are often shaped by a "Coastal Han gaze" – a term that acknowledges the dominance of coastal Chinese culture in our initial experiences. For example, when trying Kusa, a traditional Dai dish, we used to refer to it as "bile soup," unaware of the loaded implications of that term.
Now that we have had more time to explore this region, we can appreciate Tom Kom, a meat-based stew from Thailand, without any romanticized notions. Our experiences are becoming more nuanced, and our appreciation for local cuisine is growing. We are excited to spend four years in Thailand, learning the language, getting to know the food culture, finishing out our visa, and then returning to China – likely Yunnan province, Guizhou, or Guangxi – where we hope to fully immerse ourselves in the cultural heritage of this fascinating region.
Our journey is far from over, but we are eager to explore the complexities of southern China's borderlands, and to shed light on a culture that has been largely overlooked. As we embark on this new chapter, we look forward to sharing our experiences and discoveries with you – and to demystifying the culinary traditions of this remarkable region.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enAlright, I don’t like clickbait, oversharing our personal life, or believe it or not beating around the bush too much… so if you’re just curious, the answer to this title of this video is about four years.That said, the reason we wanted to make this video though is to share with you guys some longer term interests that we’ve had, because there was a reason we chose to move to specifically Thailand and not Philippines or Malaysia or wherever… we’ve had this plan to pop down there for at least a couple years for a while… and the whole COVID zero/lockdown situation just sort of expeditated that plan.The reason why Thailand is specifically relevant though is gunna take good bit of explaining, because I promise – I promise - that we’re not transitioning to “Asian Cooking Demystified”.But. If there’s two themes that I hope we’ve been able to communicate here on this channel over the years its this: first, how much we adore the food of the Chinese southwest and second, and this might be a little under the surface… but how bullshit the idea of culinary nationalism is – and what I mean by that is the simplistic idea that you can use completely and convincingly use the variable “country” to describe variable “cuisine”.Now, I a lot of ways I get it, Nation states are how we’ve been taught to categorize and perceive our world. Because In this unfathomably vast 510 million square kilometer planet with 7.9 billion unique humans each with their inner world that’s creative and complex, that speak over 6000 languages and a basically unknowable number of dialects… that all of that can be neatly sorted into just 195 nation states. It’s just… how we make sense of the world.And in a lot of fields that’s not a terrible starting point, because the modern state is a standardization machine. From language to education, to how you can make your living to how you can use the physical space around you… borders tend to formalize, homogenize and systematize. Most things. But… not everything.For one, food is a little bit different – it can be super super local, and it’s something that can be adjusted and experimented with by every single human that goes into their kitchen. It’s the kind of thins that’s intrinsically… vernacular.Now, that’s not to say that borders don’t matter for food, they obviously do, they set the trading network so they set what’s generally cheap and available, and they can also set the language which’s how recipes spread.But you can’t seriously look at Hubei food vs Dongbei food vs Cantonese food and lump them all together… and at the same time you also can’t seriously look at Malaysian food and Singaporean food, or Bangkok food and Chaozhou food, or I dunno, American food and Canadian food and say that they’ve got nothing to do with eachother. What a cuisine is is just a collection of ingredients and ideas… and historically at least borders have been super porous to both.So that rant aside that brings us to… why specifically Thailand, and I’m really sorry but this explanation is just going to be a little bit fast and loose… some of the things I’m about to say are very much unsettled, very much open areas of research, and I am not the guy to be giving you a literature overview. It’s a little hard to know where to start here though, so let me just slap up a map of the Southeast Asian highlands.Astute observers might notice that the areas in red cover what’s actually some of our favorite food in China, from Guizhou food, to Yunnan, to parts of Sichuan and Hunan… also it also contains northern Thai food, which’s probably our favorite non-Chinese cuisine, to Shan state Myanmar which’s also incredible, to Laos, which’s got a lot of crossover with Thai Isaan food which’s awesome and it’s own story, etc etc.This region has been popularized by the renowned James C Scott as Zomia - his book The Art of Not Being Governed takes a look at a lot of the non-state peoples within this region… it’s definitely a nice overview but I would also caution that his specific thesis there is a little controversial so I would also recommend pairing it with this issue from Journal of Global History.Anyway, regardless, while the foods of some of those state-fluid highland groups are obviously really interesting, it’s another less anarchist aspect of the region that we think is particularly relevant to us food wise.Now, again, it’s a little hard to know where to start here so maybe let’s just count to ten. Now stay with me here, uh… Steph will count in Cantonese, I’ll do Thai poorly, we’ll also have Mandarin, and for kicks we’ll also toss in Burmese.Neung. Yat. Yi. Tit. Saawng. Yih. Er. Hnit. Saam. Saam. San. Thone:. Sii. Sei. Si. Lay: All the things going on at once is confusing my brain. Ha. Ngh. Wu. Nga:. Hok. Luhk. Liu. Chaut. Jet. Chat. Qi. Khon-hnit. Bpaaet. Baat. Ba. Shit. Gaao. Gau. Jiu. Ko:. Sip. Sahp. Shit. Ta’hse. You see it’s not… it’s not easy.Now definitely don’t read too much into this, I can already see those idiots on twitter frantically updating their moronic ‘China occupied’ maps… but a lot of these similarities make a lot more sense when you start to dig in and really think about where “Thai” came from.Now big flashing warning lights here that this is not something that’s settled. According to my reading though, probably the most solid answer there is what’s modern day Guangxi province, but there’s scholars that argue Guangdong, pretty convincingly I think, and there’s others that even go as far as the lower Yangtze or even the Kingdom of Chu of yore. The story goes that over the years with increasing Sinitic migration into South China, the people that were living there, as tends to happen the world over… either fled elsewhere, or conquered elsewhere, or mixed in with the new population.When that was and what exactly that looked like is a matter of great debate, but once you really dig into southern China a little bit with the vernacular in mind, the more I feel like that history’s barely buried, it’s practically right there. Like, a while back Steph took one of those gene test and apparently she’s 20% Zhuang-Dai or Tai, but apparently that’s not an uncommon profile for Cantonese people.More importantly though all along this map you can find people that speak a language in the Tai-Kadai family or dialects that’re somehow related to that… some of them like Dai Lue or to a lesser extent Dai Yai or the various Zhuang languages are almost mutually intelligible with the central Thai that’s spoken in Bangkok. So to us, what we find interesting about this region, is less the stateless highlands per se but instead that this region, that this swath, seems to form the culinary borderlands between the Chinese and the Tai.Now, we know Chinese, especially Steph, so… we want to learn Thai. Now that the reason for doing this isn’t because we want to cosplay anthropologist, I mean I dunno, maybe deep down but we’ll never get that good, instead it’s because I strongly feel that language is intrinsically… centering.There was this one video I saw a while back from one of those YouTube polyglots that put it really beautifully, I can’t seem to find the video, but the general gist of it was that the primary benefit of learning language isn’t so that you’ll be able to fit in as part of a new tribe, a new group, somehow. We’re adults, it’s not happening… but instead, that group, that tribe, no matter what, will always be part of you.Now the message in that video was sort of one of those world peace sort of deals, that then it becomes impossible to hate, which I don’t think is quite correct because I’ve met plenty of expats that seem to have that capacity… but I do think that after learning a language it becomes impossible to exoticize.Because in the past, if me and Steph were being completely honest with ourselves even though we always LOVED the food in the Chinese southwest, we were probably a little guilty at looking at it with a twinge of a “Coastal Han gaze”. Like, I remember we were blown away by Kusa, it’s a Dai dish, it’s a tasty but super bitter soup, and we’d refer to it to our friends as ‘bile soup’. Which is obviously a very loaded term, and it’s not even quite correct.But now, after being in Thailand for a bit, we’re just like… “oh, it’s just Tom Kom, oh it’s a meat based one, interesting”. It all becomes a lot more… normal. And that normality, we think, makes for a lot better content.So, the plan is four more years in Thailand, learning the language, getting to know the food, finishing out our visa, and then we’ll be moving back to China – likely Yunnan province, maybe Guizhou, maybe Guangxi, somewhere that we’ll be really in the thick of it. So… yeah. Still not Asian cooking demystified, but the Chinese borderlands? I hope that you’ll let us indulge.\n"
