Origins of today's You Tiao

[Bamboo Grove]

Where I am, the way to eat is to dunk it in black sweetened coffee. Like doughnuts in the West. The coffee should be from a coffee shop whose Teochew owner does his own roasting, of course.

It's very similar here in Thailand as well.

[holyman]

in xishuang ban'na in yunnan province, youtiao was made from flour with sugar added. so it is sweet, and much smaller in size, like 20+ cm, compared to the large ones in beijing.

[ankong]

I have read some about Yue Fei on the internet, I found some resources state that the four chinese characters tattoed on his back are " 精忠报国 ", I wonder that which one is correct for the first characters " 精 " or " 盡 "?

[Ian_Lee]

Sooner or later I predict that the term 油炸鬼 will replace the term "You Tiao" in Mainland and Taiwan.

Why?

Because in the popular movie "Kung Fu Hustle", one of the Kung Fu masters is called 油炸鬼. He liked to speak English and even sighed his last words before death in English.

So now maybe the street kid in remote Lhasa is more familiar about 油炸鬼 than "you tiao"

[blackadder]

deep fried stuff, like fish and chips here in Scotland, hehe, still yummy

[bhchao]

Who and who in Chinese history resembled General Yue Fei most?

General Yuan Chonghuan

It is hard to imagine that a talented general like General Yuan would execute his own subordinate officer in one of the campaigns against the Manchus, out of jealousy for the subordinate's talent.

When General Yuan got framed, he had no one to rally to his support. He was surrounded by hostile eunuchs and all the subordinate officer's friends refused to help him when he was falsely accused of treason.

If he had not burned his bridges, he might have received some help in clearing his name.

[mrchiu]

Qin Hui is not a villian because he sounded the retreat when the Yue Fei was about to counter-attack. He is a villian because he executed Yue Fei under false pretenses. As for whether retreating was wrong, we will never know because there are no 2 versions of history.

What if Yue Fei was allowed to continue but ended up losing. There would be no Southern Song: maybe no Zhu Xi the most important Confucian scholar since Mencius, etc. It is unfortunate that nowadays people are so aggressive that they think they will win every war. Or that military victory is more than important than dealing with consequences afterwards (yes I am reffering to Iraq war!).

Qin Hui is especially vilified but there have be countless traitors throughout Chinese history. In 2000 years of history, China has lost plenty of wars in the past, and many times to foreigners whether they are Manchus or Bitish. What about all the bad officials who made the people suffer without losing a war eg. millions of Chinese people starved to death under the Communist regime. Maybe there should be a breakfast food called Oil Fried Mao.

[creamyhorror]

Qin Hui is especially vilified but there have be countless traitors throughout Chinese history. In 2000 years of history, China has lost plenty of wars in the past, and many times to foreigners whether they are Manchus or Bitish. What about all the bad officials who made the people suffer without losing a war eg. millions of Chinese people starved to death under the Communist regime. Maybe there should be a breakfast food called Oil Fried Mao.

:nono:nono:nono:nono

[jbradfor]

I found some resources state that the four chinese characters tattoed on his back are " 精忠报国 ", I wonder that which one is correct for the first characters " 精 " or " 盡 "?

Does the phrase "better late than never" still apply after five years?

It is 精. Here is a photo from his Temple and Mausoleum in Hangzhou. Look to the left, you can clearly see it.

[dumdumdum]

Qin Hui is especially vilified but there have be countless traitors throughout Chinese history. In 2000 years of history, China has lost plenty of wars in the past, and many times to foreigners whether they are Manchus or Bitish. What about all the bad officials who made the people suffer without losing a war eg. millions of Chinese people starved to death under the Communist regime. Maybe there should be a breakfast food called Oil Fried Mao.

hahaha... wont happen. on the contrary, mao will still be up as monument in the near future we know, for obvious reasons. remember, qinhui didnt suffer any dishonour when he killed yuefei. it was until decades after he passed away when the grandson/great grandson of emperor gaozong took over.

oh looking at the pic above, that reminds me the original statue was destroyed during the cultural revolution. this was a cheapo remake with no historical or artistic value, cos the traditional methods and aesthetics of statue making was lost. so much for a 'ethnic hero'.

one thing about qinhui, among all the traitor name-calling, the 宋体字 or song-style characters we used today as 'proper chinese font', was said to be his invention.