With the holidays comes eating, especially if you’re Asian. We eat to celebrate the good times, the bad times, and everything in between. The holiday season is no different — with all this eating, I thought about a producer/reporter friend of mine, Adam Yamaguchi, who made a video about his trip to China and a restaurant that served only penis. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out: Penis Restaurant: Vanguard.
For Asians, this should not be too shocking of a video. When we eat an animal, we eat the entire animal. Pick off every piece of flesh from the head to the tail, including sometimes the skin, bones, eyeballs, etc.
And actually, this isn’t just an Asian thing: people from the rest of the world don’t waste any part of the animals they eat. They literally eat every everything (including penis). If you don’t believe me, go to a good “ethnic” market and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Americans, on the other hand, seem to waste most of the animal. My immigrant mom used to say that I ate like an American, which needless to say, was meant to be disparaging. And deep down, I know it’s wasteful. (My stepfather from Hiroshima claims that the eyeball is the best part of a fish. I’ll just have to trust him on that one.) Other than highlighting the wastefulness of most Americans, to me, Adam’s video just reminds me of how un-Asian (is that a word?) I really am.
