China Decode: China's Bid for AI Dominance, and Chinese Food Trends (ft. @BlondieinChina)

25:33Alice Han:If we look at Nobel Prizes, for instance, there have only been 13 Chinese-born winners of the Nobel Prize since the Nobel Prize began. That is just about 1 % of the total number of winners of the Nobel Prize. I would also like to ask the question, you know, why? Why is that? Is it that China had a, you know, a difficult time in its history and education was somewhat circumscribed? or is it that there's been a bias against China? If we look at the winners of the Nobel Prize, there have now been three. We had Liu Xiaobo. He was a dissident. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. We had Tu Youyou.

26:23Alice Han:In 2015, she won the prize for the discovery of a novel malaria therapy, which was incidentally developed from a 4th century traditional Chinese medicine text. So really extraordinary if you want to read into that story further. And the other was Moyen, and he got the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2012. So those are China's three winners of the Nobel Prize in modern times. And, you know, when we think about the very first one, I was in Beijing at that time. It went to the dissident Liu Xiaobo, and the Chinese government reacted with great displeasure, bordering on fury. It said that the Nobel Committee once again displayed its arrogance and prejudice against a country that has made the most remarkable economic and social progress in the past three decades.

27:20Alice Han:So that left no doubt that the mind of the Chinese government is that these Western institutions have been prejudiced against China. And that's one of the reasons, at least, why China hasn't featured that greatly in many of these prizes that we now venerate so highly.

27:40James Kynge:Yeah, we'd have to run, as an economist, I'd say we'd have to run regressions to see, you know, what were the most important variables at play, if there is an innate bias, or really the education system was stacked against these Chinese mathematicians and scientists for a long period of modern Chinese history relative to Europe's. But what I did think about when I read these stories were two things. Number one is the way in which China is actually rising up the global institution rankings for universities. And number two, that it's surprising to me that, as you mentioned, James, the three Nobel Prize winners from China.

28:23James Kynge:It's in literature, medicine, and then the Peace Prize. It's not in areas like physics and chemistry and economics. You know, areas where, you know, I know for a fact that China is quite strong. And it all links back to even the first story that we mentioned, AI. Because if you look at the breakdown, and I've mentioned this many times before, of the top-tier AI talents, and there's a couple of data sources for this, around the world, the plurality, I think it's something close to 40%, is from China, mainland China. And that speaks to the fact that you've got amazing physicists, mathematicians, scientists coming out of Chinese universities that go to European, American research institutions, universities, labs, companies, and help develop the products and technologies in those areas.

29:21James Kynge:And yeah, that's not really being reflected by some of these prizes, which I find very interesting, to your point. But number two, the FT just ran a piece, I believe, a week or so ago, about how China is quietly rising up the rankings. It's not yet in the top 10 that's still dominated by the UK and the US in terms of top 10 universities around the world. But China now has 85 of the top 1 ,500 or so universities. That's up 13 from last year. The US has the most at 184, which is down from its peak of 201 in 2023. And 65 % of US institutions slipped down their rankings. 40 % of British institutions fell down the rankings, and 61 % of Chinese institutions rose.

30:13James Kynge:So, you know, we're potentially going into a period, to your point, James, where maybe the deck isn't going to be stacked against these, you know, mathematicians, scientists, engineers, because now we're actually going to have serious cutting-edge research institutions and universities that allow them to do, you know, really cutting-edge and globally recognized science. But maybe I'm too Pollyannish. But I think it's connected. What do you think?

30:40Alice Han:Yeah, I mean, I do definitely. I think, you know, Chinese intellectual endeavor is really on the march. And we can see that in the rise up the league tables that Chinese universities have accomplished. We can see it in so many other different areas. So I wouldn't expect history to be any guide to the future when it comes to China's ability to win field medals or Nobel Prizes in the sciences, such as you've just mentioned. I think it's going to be very, very closely contested with China, maybe even taking the lion's share at some point in the future. Yeah, I think we're at this pivotal moment in history, and it really is across the board.

31:23Alice Han:And it just says that China has risen and is now on the march.

31:28James Kynge:We'll be back with more after a quick break.

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34:58James Kynge:Welcome back. We're joined now by the amazing Amy Lyons, perhaps better known as her internet persona, Blondie in China. Amy has been in China for a decade and explores everything about Chinese cuisine and food trends, among other things. And you can find her on YouTube and Instagram at Blondie in China. Amy, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast.

35:19Alice Han:Amy, thanks so much for coming on. It really is a great pleasure. You know, between Alice and me, there is no question as to who is the great culinary expert. Alice is, in fact, brilliant in the kitchen. And I am, to put it mildly, pretty hopeless. But please kick off by telling us a little bit about the food culture in China. We probably, a lot of people in the West tend to have the view that it's a bit monolithic, that it's basically what you might get in your average standard Chinese restaurant in London or New York or Sydney or somewhere like that. Have you found any surprising discoveries as you've been going around China and presumably doing quite a bit of eating?

36:04Oh, yes. I can really empathize with people who think that Chinese food might just be their local Chinese restaurant menu because growing up in Australia, yes, we do have access to so much amazing Chinese food. But I didn't realize the depth of Chinese cuisine until I lived and studied in China. And it took me by surprise at first, because I remember going down the road and trying restaurant by restaurant and being like, well, that was so different to this. And this was so different from that. And then I started traveling more and realizing when it comes to China, food, just like the history, just like the culture changes as you go from city to city, province to province, village to village.

36:45And I think that's the beautiful thing about China is it has this 5 ,000 plus years of history and everywhere has been developing in its own way in kind of separate communities for the most part. So you have this really beautiful culture that's tied to the food as well. So when you're eating something, it comes back to the history, it comes back to the geography, and every single place is so different. For example, right now I'm in Kunming. It's the capital of Yunnan province. And in Yunnan, you have such a diversity in eating from the north to the south, even just from hour to hour away, because you've got like mountainous snow-topped regions in the north.

37:25And then in the south, you're bordering Laos and Myanmar. So it's super, super tropical. And you also have so many different ethnic minorities here as well. So let alone Chinese cuisine, you cannot sum up in a sentence Yunnan food in itself. You cannot define it. So Chinese food, there is no one Chinese food. There is no way to describe Chinese food because it is just so diverse. And that's the exciting path I've been on in the last 12, 13 years that I've been based in China. And it's been such a window into the culture.

37:58James Kynge:That's incredible. And I have to say, shout out to the fact that Amy and I went to high school together. So we've known each other since we were 13. We also did a trip to Yunnan a couple of years ago where we had a lot of the cuisine, the delicacies, the mushrooms in that region. But what I love about your content, Amy, is that you really have no fear to go into the far-flung places of China and really talk to locals, be it in Yunnan or Dongbei, Northeastern provinces of China. And you really show the authenticity of how people eat day to day. But I want to zoom out a little bit and think about social media, especially in the realm of Chinese content in the last couple of years.

38:39James Kynge:And what I sensed, and I want to see if you feel the same way, is that when iShowSpeed, this African-American kid showed up in China, did a lot of live streaming with Chinese creators and people, that really kind of changed the narrative about China. And then all of a sudden, you see a lot of content creation about traveling to China, uncovering the real China, China maxing. I'm living a very Chinese time of my life. The whole shade and narrative around China has shifted, I would say, on social media in the last two years. But you've been there for longer, over a decade. How has it evolved? And where do you see it going right now?

39:18James Kynge:It's definitely evolved. I think it was a perfect storm around the time that iShowSpeed came to China. I'm not sure what happened first, but I see it as a chain of events. Firstly, or somewhere in there, there was the TikTok went offline and a lot of people came to Red Note. And I think that was such a beautiful time for social media because Red Note is such a beautiful place in Chinese social media. It's one of my favorite platforms to post on here. And seeing foreigners come to Red Note and get a window into Chinese culture, I think that played a really big part as well. I also think that around the same time, Chongqing as a city started to go viral.

39:58And I think it was a really cool moment for China to have a city that wasn't Shanghai or Beijing going really famous and showing a different side of China, not the China that people think they might know. I mean, it was only three or four years ago that when I was going to Chongqing and making videos, I was describing it as the world's biggest city you've never heard of. And now the world has heard of Chongqing. So even in that way, China has evolved so, so much. And it's just been so lovely having a little bit more positive dialogue around China or getting more insight into the nuance of China.

40:32And that's been lovely to see as a creator who has been here for so long and has seen a lot of negativity in the past towards China. So I just think it's cool that people are coming here and seeing it for their own eyes. And I think that will continue to evolve as now there's been a spark that's been ignited about China. And I think people are starting to interact more with Chinese culture. And I think that's really cool to see.

40:56Alice Han:Amy, you've said that, you know, that there is, you know, quite a distance in terms of the understanding of people abroad and what's going on in China. What would you say, if you could give an example of like a food trend or a dish in China that's blowing up in China that Western audiences really don't have much of a sense of at the moment? Okay, so right now in China, a cuisine and a place that's really taking off in a way that like three years ago I was saying Chongqing is going to be the next big thing. I think Guiyang is going to be the next big thing. Guizhou is a province in China and Guiyang is the capital city.

41:34and Guiyang is such a cool city and it has such an incredible food culture and it's really going viral in China and in Shanghai for example it's the kind of the hottest food cuisine that you can be having right now and it's characterized by being quite sour because geographically Guizhou province is very mountainous and there's not a lot of salt reserves in Guizhou province so historically people haven't been able to preserve their food through salt they've had to resort to other means like pickling and fermentation. So as a result, to this day, Guizhou food is very, very sour, and I find it very addictive.

42:10You also have some of the best potatoes in China there. You have these beautiful hot pot dishes with sour soup fish. And yeah, it's one of my favorite cuisines. I'm going to say it, my favorite cuisine right now. And I think for a lot of people in China, it is as well, but I don't really see it popping up much in the West. And I think people are still on their Sichuan food trend right now, but I think that'll start developing. But even in the last few years, you do see Chinese food trends in the West changing. I think generally, at least in Australia, a lot of the food that we would see growing up was more Cantonese because that was also the major source of the diaspora to Australia and also other countries around the world.

42:54But then you've also seen this gradual transition to more Sichuan dishes. You see a huge trend of si 'an dishes like biong biong noodles that have just gone viral around the world as well. So I think Guizhou food will be the next thing to take off, but we'll see.

43:10James Kynge:Okay. What's your favorite dish there? I need to go out. James and I need to find some place in London. I'm not sure if we will, but we'll have to find. What's your favorite dish within that region? Oh my gosh, there's so many. I take my food tours through Guizhou because I like to eat there. My favorite dish, they have this beautiful hot pot called qingshuaytang, which is essentially a clear broth hot pot. And then you choose all your ingredients, but the ingredients that you can find are so varied because in Guizhou province, you have a lot of mountains, you have a very favorable climate. So you'll see like 30 different kinds of leafy greens that you can add to your pot, things that you have never seen before.

43:50And then the sole is in the sauce, which the sauce bar itself has hundreds of ingredients, including at least 10 different types of chili. And you have to use different types of those chilies. And people are masters of knowing how to pair chili with chili. They have this smoky chili here that is created through the ashes of a fire. You put dry chilies in the ashes of a fire and then you ground it up and you add water to it. And it adds this gorgeous smokiness. And so you have a lot of smokiness here. You have these sour flavors. It's spicy. It's incredible. But I'm not sure if you can find that overseas.

44:26James Kynge:I don't think so. I've actually never come across a Guizhou restaurant.

44:31Alice Han:I must say, I tell you, listening to you talking about Guizhou food makes me think of how much of a time lag indeed there is. I mean, it was only in 2012 that we here in the UK got the bao dumplings. There was a chain that was set up at that time. well, actually a tiny restaurant called Bao, B-A-O, which means dumpling in Chinese in London. And now it's become a bit of a chain. And now Bao dumplings is sort of enter the language. And, you know, my kids' generation, they all know what a Bao dumpling is. But so maybe it'll take 10 years before the Guizhou food gets here. Yeah. And I think with social media, food and food culture is spreading really rapidly, whether that be overseas or even just domestically in China.

45:17I feel like you wonder whether food traditions can continue in this age where people are moving around and there are more Westernization, Western influence that's happening in China. But I think social media has just helped people understand more about Chinese food traditions domestically. And I think that with social media, it's a great tool to let people know everywhere about dishes that you may not have heard of. And I just encourage anyone who thinks and they've dismissed Chinese food. They think, I don't like Chinese food because I don't like what's on offer at my local Chinese restaurant.

45:52I don't think it's possible for anyone to say they don't like Chinese food because there is just so many different types of Chinese food. I just encourage people to come here and try it for themselves.

46:01James Kynge:That's awesome. This is a comment and a question. I'm on my feed. I'm seeing a lot of Zendaya and Tom Holland. They're doing the Spider-Man tour in Shanghai and people are following, you know, where they've been to in terms of this noodle store or this matcha store. And stores are moving very quickly to rename things after Spider-Man or after them. It reminded me of Jensen Huang's tour after Trump's meeting in Beijing with Xi Jinping in May, and in which Jensen Huang did a big food tour. And then, you know, people were renaming foods in their stores after him, after he was seen eating their foods.

46:40My question, I guess, to you is, I feel that the Chinese food scene moves so quickly.

46:46James Kynge:There are always these new stores that come up and new trends and everything. What's a way that we can keep up with it? and what are some exciting things that you are seeing that are happening in the food scene in China? Oh, yeah. How to keep up with it. That is the question. I am also trying to keep up with it. I think the best way to keep up with it is to get on Red Note because I think the best content about Chinese food is from Chinese creators that are from the places that these foods come from, and they're posting a lot on Red Note. They're also on Douyin, but I think Red Note's a great place if you're trying to dip your toe into the Chinese social media scene because you also have a lot of friendly functions like translate.

47:28And it's also a great way to understand China as a whole. I know a lot of my Chinese friends, they use Red Note like Google. So if you have a question, you can type it in even in English and it'll come up with an answer that'll be correct and authentic. Whereas if you type into Google something about a regional dish, you're going to be getting a lot more diluted search results because it'll be coming from platforms that are writing from a bit more of a removed perspective. So I think getting on Red Note is a great way of keeping up to date with trends and in terms of food as well. There's a lot of food things happening.

48:04There's always a new hashtag to use. And to be quite honest, I find it hard to keep up myself. People can always check out my videos if they want to dip a toe into different kinds of foods that you might find in China and then use that as a springboard to do a bit of exploration for yourself. If you find a dish that you like, maybe do a bit more research into where it comes from. And yeah, it's a endless hole of content that you can get into on Red Note, that's for sure. And I mean, I've been doing food exclusively, food content exclusively coming on six years now, and I've only just scratched the surface.

48:40There's always more to explore.

48:43James Kynge:Awesome. Okay, one last question for you, Amy. Can you name one dish that you were the most excited about? It could be a dessert, a drink, something that you've had recently that people need to get on a plane to have. Oh, I don't know if it would be get on a plane, but two nights ago with my parents, I actually ate insects for the first time, which was a really exciting moment for me because I've always been a little bit scared to try. But here in Yunnan province, They have a lot of different ethnic minorities and people who like to eat insects. So it was really cool. My parents and I were at this barbecue place.

49:18They had an entire insect buffet. And we actually just had a plate of insects, deep fried insects. And we got to go through this kind of process together where you escape. It's something that I love about food adventuring in China, which is you have something that you might be a bit afraid to try because you've never tried it before. But as soon as you've tried it, you now know that's no longer scary and your vision kind of widens a little bit. And at this stage, the more you try, the more you grow and the more you learn and the wider your vision becomes. So it was really cool to experience that.

49:53And they were actually really tasty. I would definitely have them again. We had a millipede, a scorpion. We had wasps. I don't know, Alice, if you remember when we were in Yunnan together, we went to the mushroom market and they had all of those wasp nests with wasps in different stages of development. We had those wasps, which was, they were really tasty. But I mean, I don't know if that's something that people will be getting on a plane for, but that's just something that recently happened that really excited me. It's something maybe a little bit more approachable. I had these incredible breakfast noodles a couple of days ago as well in a city called Mengzi.

50:30and it's a rice noodle. They're really thick and they're very bouncy and you basically dip it into this dipping sauce. It's called janshui juanfin but it's also called mujangze janshui juanfin and mujangze is this type of berry and I don't know if you've come across it before, Alison, you're cooking but it's got this citrusy aroma. It kind of tastes like lemongrass And a lot of people, they also get the wood of that tree and they shave it into their dishes. Anyway, the dish was citrusy and deep in flavor and spicy. And it's topped off with papaya jelly, where they use the seeds of papaya. They rub them together.

51:17They make this jelly and then they put a popsicle in it. It was very interesting. And it was a breakfast like I've never had it before.

51:24James Kynge:Oh, wow. Wow. Yeah, it just reminds me that there's so many weird and wonderful things that you come across when you travel in China. And on that note, Amy, thank you so much for your time and enthusiasm that you shared with us. We're actually getting very, very hungry now. It's evening in London. So James and I will be looking forward to dinner. Thanks for having me, guys. All right, James, you know what time it is. It is prediction time. As you peer into the future this week, what do you see?

51:50Alice Han:Well, I am actually going to twin two of the topics that we've had today. One is food. We were hearing all of that scrumptious food content from Amy, and the other is winning prizes. And so I'm going to predict that the number of Michelin-starred restaurants in China, which stood at 99 in the latest edition of the Michelin Guide, which covers the year 2025, is going to rise sharply over the next 10 years. I think this is probably a pretty safe prediction, Alice, but I'm going to say that by 2035, there will be at least 200 restaurants in China that have at least one Michelin star.

52:40James Kynge:Okay, so my prediction is more in the realm of economics. So we're going to have a July Politburo meeting, I think, any day now this week. And that's designed historically to assess China's growth in the first half and then project what kind of fiscal monetary measures will be needed in the second half. And I think even with the slowdown that we're seeing in the economy, I don't think we're going to get massive stimulus that gets announced. I think that we're going to see a very measured approach to both fiscal and monetary in the second half of the year. And somewhat related, I think, especially if the Fed hikes in the next meeting, we might see further weakening of the CNY against the dollar, especially if there is a bias towards one to two hikes by the Fed.

53:26James Kynge:I don't think we will see a move from the PBOC and that naturally will, I think, lead to a stronger dollar against the CNY. That's very wonkish, but it's stuff that's relevant for people who follow markets and economics. All right, that's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to China Decode. This is a production of Prof G Media. Make sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss an episode. Talk to you again next week.

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