WEBVTT - The Lunar New Years Special: Mia Cracks The MSG Case 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.640 Hey, they're listeners. This is producer DJ Daniel. The following 0:00:03.640 --> 0:00:06.680 episode was recorded before the horrible events in Monterey Park. 0:00:07.080 --> 0:00:09.920 The team will release an episode addressing the situation once 0:00:09.960 --> 0:00:18.760 more details have emerged. Thank you and enjoy. It's's aluter 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:21.720 New Years. Yeah, happy New Years. It's it's it's it's 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:24.000 the New Year's Special. It's me Mia, I've got I've 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:27.320 got cherine with me. Yeah, how how are you doing? 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:28.560 I guess I guess it's I guess it's not the 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:30.560 New Year yet when we're recording it, but it will 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:33.320 be by the time you hear this. That counts. That counts. 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.120 I'm good. I'm I got a cat recently and I 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:41.640 called it funny. And then I learned later that this 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:44.279 year is the year of the Rabbit. So yeah, I 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:50.080 feel really happy about that. It's for this year. Yeah, exactly. 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:54.760 So I'm good. I'm good. That's the that's that's Having 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:58.000 new cat is an amazing way to start any year. Yes, yes, 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:00.520 I agree, it was very exciting that. Do you know 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:04.160 what else is very exciting? Transitions? They paid me to 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:08.600 do this for some reason. All right, this this this year, 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:11.640 we're going to talk about Chinese restaurant syndrome and the 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:15.800 whole sort of anti MSG craze. So that was I've 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:18.760 always been so big. I don't know. I grew up 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:21.039 in like, uh, I don't know, a diverse area in 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:23.800 San Diego, but we would always go to fun like regularly, 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:27.279 and the no MSG was like all over the menu 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:30.160 and everything. It's like this thing that I mean, every 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:32.560 restaurant I went to basically was just like come to us, 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:36.120 there's no MSG. So I'm really curious how it started 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:38.840 because growing up I was like, Okay, MSG is bad. 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:41.320 I guess you know what I mean to So, yeah, 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:43.559 I feel like it wasn't It wasn't really, it wasn't 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:46.000 as intense where I was growing up, but that was like, 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:48.000 I don't know, it was it was a very white 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:51.400 suburb but and people people were still freaked out about MSG. 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:53.840 But it wasn't but like the the the Asian restaurants 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:58.440 didn't like talk about it ever, I don't know, but 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:00.320 it was still it was still very sort of like 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:02.000 like I remember I would go like eat dinner with 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:04.160 like white families and they're talking about MSG, and I 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:08.639 was like what for a good amount of time, Yeah, 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.240 having now talked about MSG for a bit. We should 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:14.600 we should ask like what what is MSG? And the 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:19.040 answer okay. So MSG stands from mono sodium glutamate, which 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:22.720 is it's just a salt, basically salt with like glutamate, 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:24.240 and it has a bunch of a mommy in it. 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:27.040 I'm gonna read this thing from Kenji from Serious Eats 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:30.240 because every every every single article started that starts about 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:32.440 this has like this exact paragraph in it. So I'm 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:34.760 just gonna read it instead of trying to rewrite this 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:39.640 paragraph that I want to. MSG is a sodium salt 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.920 of glutamic acid and a amino acid. It was first 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:48.120 isolated in ninety eight by Japanese biochemist Takua Ikeda, who 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:51.360 was trying to discover what exactly gave dashi, the Japanese 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:55.560 flavor broth with Comba, Japanese giant sea kelp. It's strong 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:59.920 savory character. Turns out that comba is packed with clutamic acid. 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:02.639 It was a Kita who coined the term mummmi, which 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.920 roughly translates a savory to describe to glutamic acid and 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:09.880 other seminar similar amino acids. Until that point, scientists had 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:12.160 only discovered the other four flavors sensed by the tongue 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:16.160 and the soft palate, salty, sweet, sour, and bitter. By 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:20.239 nine pure crystallite MSG, extracted from the abundant kelp in 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:22.480 the c around Japan, was being sold under the brand 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:26.280 name a Gi No Moto roughly Element of Flavor. The 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:29.040 company exists to this day. Now keep that in mind. 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:30.720 That's going to be important to the last part of 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.760 the story. But you know, in the meantime, you know, 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:37.040 around around around nineteen noweight, once this is discovered, that 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:39.960 it turns into this sort of enormous industry. Um here's 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:43.360 from a pretty good Men's Health article about it. By 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:46.440 the nineteen forties, number of American companies were producing MSG 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:50.119 domestically for the consumer, the most famous being accents. Okay, there, 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.040 there's like it's spelled acts. It's it's accent, but it's 0:03:53.040 --> 0:04:00.200 spelled a c apostrophe C E N T. That's not Yeah, no, 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:08.400 that's I lost me, Yeah said, which was it's it's 0:04:09.560 --> 0:04:13.480 advertising is a bleak place. Yeah, that's that's a different episode, 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:18.480 I think partially, yes, also partially this episode. But yeah, 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:20.920 the thost famous one being Accent, which was advertised as 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:25.280 pure mono sodium glutimate that quote makes food flavors sing. 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:29.800 Various food magazines and community cookbooks featured the additive as 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:31.920 an ingredient and the likes of fried chicken wings and 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:35.799 barbecue sauce recipes. By nineteen sixty nine, fifty eight million 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:38.520 pounds of MSG were being produced in the US per year, 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:42.000 says food a story in Ian Moseby PhD. For an 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:46.120 entire generation, the ingredient was presented in a dizzying array 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:50.400 of food products breakfast cereals, TV dinners, frozen vegetables, baby food, 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.400 and soup produced by beloved brands such as Campbell's and Swanson, 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:58.080 which today offer foods products free of MSG additives. And Okay, 0:04:58.080 --> 0:04:59.760 if you think about this for a second, it's actually 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.960 really weird that MSG s thought it as a Chinese thing, 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:07.799 because like, okay, MSG all told has only been around 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:10.680 for like a hundred years, right, It's heavily used in 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:14.120 the US for like thirty or forty years, Like it's 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:17.240 not in it's not really in China for that much 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:19.039 longer for this in the US, and it's used in 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:22.320 just like a bunch of American food. How did that start. 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:26.760 Do we know how that association started and continued? Yeah, 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:29.160 well we'll get it. Most it mostly has to do 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:31.480 with like it has to do with restaurants, and it 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:33.520 specifically has to do with the part that we're getting 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:36.320 to about this letter, which is weird. And I will 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:38.400 say like that there are a lot of Chinese families 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:43.120 that like just use MSG for like they're cooking. My 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:45.920 my house never did it because we're lazy and most 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:49.360 of our cooking involves like as few ingredients and prep 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.400 as possible, so we just like it's also really in 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:56.240 uh Beingnameese food. I feel like uses it a lot too. 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.359 That that was my first association with it. So I 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.599 just know, say because I'm I was don't all fourteen, 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:07.040 I just said, okay, this is Vietnamese, but that's really 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:11.039 interesting to just know, like, well it's Japanese too, like yeah, 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:14.760 I mean it's Asian, It's yeah, yeah, I don't know, 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:16.880 but like it is just it is just it's just interesting, 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:18.560 like the like people in the U s were just like, 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:20.960 I don't know, it's like it's it was in everything. 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:23.000 People in the US were also just using it to 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.599 cook food. This is also a thing that like people 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.400 in China use a lot too, So it's not that 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.320 like Chinese people don't do. It's just like everybody. Like 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:33.880 the moment everyone got it, they were like, oh my god, 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:36.360 this makes our food tastes better. She's more of it, 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:40.560 of course, I mean, I'm assuming. Once it got demonized, 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:42.760 it was like, oh, this is a Chinese thing, but 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:46.200 I don't know for sure. Yeah, I will be patient. Yeah, 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:48.360 so this is this is in fact the next thing. 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:53.720 So nobody really cared about it until nineteen sixty eight 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:58.000 rolled around. Well, so for those sixty years, MSG was like, yeah, 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:02.240 just use it. Yeah, yeah, Um, I'm forgetting where I'm 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:04.159 going to read apart from this journal article, and I've 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:06.880 forgotten to put in what journal is from because I'm 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:08.920 a hack and a fraud. I think it's a general 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:13.440 Natural health sure about that, right, Yeah, sure, it's it's 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:16.920 from It's from some journal sub doctors wrote it quote. 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:21.600 In the spring of nineteen, Dr Robert Homemana wrote to 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:24.560 the New England Journal of Medicine asking the assistance of 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:28.440 the journal's readership and invite identifying the source of phenomenon 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:33.840 that Dr Goa labeled the Chinese restaurant syndrome CRS, numbness 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.960 of his back and neck, palpitations, and general weakness after 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.960 he consumed meals in Chinese restaurants. Dr Gua hypothesize that 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.000 the source of his syndrome might be a reaction to 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:46.080 the soy sauce, the cooking wine, the high sodium content 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:49.080 of the food, or to the flavor enhancing mono sodium 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.760 glutamate m s G. Within two months, the journal received 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:54.960 a flurry of letters from readers who had noticed a 0:07:54.960 --> 0:08:01.120 similar phenomenon after eating restaurant prepared Chinese food. So this 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:05.240 is the start of this whole thing. And there's one 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:07.920 thing I need to point out right away that is 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:11.040 in almost every single article about this that is wrong, 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:15.960 which is that this this this, this article says that 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:20.240 he's talking about Chinese food, which is true, but very 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:22.240 specifically and this and this is this is going to 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.720 be very important in about ten minutes. Well, I don't know, Tennis, 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:29.360 it's gonna be important soon, which is he specifically has 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:33.320 a thing about how this is about northern Chinese food mhm. 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:36.120 And you know, this is something that is something that 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:38.920 everyone everyone sort of misses. The other thing that's interesting 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:42.240 about this is that you know, he says it could 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:44.880 be MSG, but you know, she he's treating MSG exactly 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:46.559 like all of the rest of the other stuff that's 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:49.160 in this that's in the food, right, he lists soy sauce, 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:51.760 he lists cooking wine. Maybe he's like, okay, maybe there's 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:54.840 too much salt, right, Like he's not really doing an 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:59.599 MSG thing. But everyone who reads this immediately focuses on 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:02.880 the M s G. Okay. So before I started researching this, 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:05.680 I had heard that this whole letter was actually fake. 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:09.760 It was actually a prank. And you know, this is 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:13.319 this is a thing that's like, it's kind of like okay. 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:16.880 So the story behind this was that it was supposed 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:18.640 to have been a prank by a white guy named 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.079 Dr Steele who made it up as a joke. And 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.000 this is a sort of like a folk like okay, 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:25.400 So this story is not true. The story I am 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:27.080 about to say is not true. It turns out this 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:29.520 letter is actually real. But there was there was basically 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:31.920 a story that went around that it was this guy 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:33.559 named Dr Steele who had made it up as a 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:35.600 way to get published in a journal for like a bet, 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:39.040 because like Dr Steele like claimed responsibility for it, and 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:42.800 that got out to researchers. But it turns yeah, and 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:44.520 so for a bit everyone was like, oh my god, 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:45.960 this whole thing was started by a prank. But it 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:50.319 turns out that's also not true. So this American Life 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:56.480 figured out that Dr Robert is a real guy. Uh 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:59.040 dcr Steele had pretended that he said that he made 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.199 it up the name. It's not true. This a real guy. 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:03.200 They talked to his family and his colleagues and all 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:05.920 of them were like, oh no, guad like wrote this thing. 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:10.560 And interestingly, there's a lot of racism here too, because 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:15.920 Dr Steele had claimed that home Man, which is okay. 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:18.360 So this is where things get weird. Um I'm saying 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:22.080 good because that's how you actually pronounce it. Um. It's 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:28.400 spelled h O m A n k w okay whoa yeah, okay, 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.280 so this this is this is some Yeah. So this 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:34.360 is a wad Giles bullshit, the previous attempt to sort 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.560 of romanize Chinese. But just think of way Giles and 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:41.040 it is the band of my existence. It's dogshit. Hi, 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:43.120 this is mea and post I made a mistake here. 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:46.560 K w okay is actually the standard Cantonese spelling of good. 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:49.040 Sorry about that. I am a dipshit who does not 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:52.120 speak Cantonese. Yeah, and enjoy the rest of the show. 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:54.920 They heard someone say ga and we're like this is 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:59.400 k w It's like no, no, it's not. Please, So 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.720 that's bad. It's literally the worst. Like if you if 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:05.400 you ever you know, so sometimes if you if you're 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:08.240 if you're looking at anything something that's just spelled really weirdly, 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:11.360 like or for example, like the way that schenkai check 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:16.679 is spelled is actually like like it's actually a way 0:11:16.760 --> 0:11:18.760 Giles thing like that. There's there's a whole bunch of 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:24.400 like like that. Yeah, yeah you can find um, I 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:26.440 don't know that that's I mean, that explains a lot, 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:29.400 but yeah, it's what and part part of everything that's 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.440 happening to you here is that like so and then 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:34.640 this is also gonna be important later. KOs is a 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:38.920 is a Cantonese last name. Um, but it's it's it 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.440 gets really really confusing really quickly if you don't know 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.120 what's going on, because if if if you're reading, if 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:47.640 you're reading a word that's in Chinese in the US, 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:51.240 it could either be in Mandarin or in Cantonese, and 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.679 it also could be either written with the terrible way 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:56.400 Giles one, or it could be in opinion, which is 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:59.760 like the one that's actually sort of usable. Um but 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:04.800 Dr Steele because again the way it's written is h 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:09.160 O m A and k w o kay and Dr 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:12.440 Steele claims that he wrote it to be like human 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:18.120 croc of shit like how man kruk. Yeah, excuse me, 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:25.679 people like people believe, yeah, well he's dead, so yeah, 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.840 that's that's so disgusting. Yeah, like this is this is 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:35.559 so racist, and it's like, you know, but this like 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:39.800 people people believe this for a while because yeah, I 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:45.240 don't know, but okay, so eventually people figure out that 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:47.440 it's not true. And I'm going to read something from 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:49.520 from this American Life piece where they talk about how 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:52.160 they figured out that it was actually like that Homenko 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:55.520 was like actually a real guy. And when you read 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:57.920 the original letter, there are details that seem more likely 0:12:58.000 --> 0:12:59.880 to come from her father was just a close father 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:03.200 than from Howard. How Howard steels the doctor, like when 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:05.160 he said he booved to the US, which the real 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:08.680 doctor Good did, and how he's very specific the syndrome 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:12.520 happens with Northern Chinese food in the sixties. How many 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:15.840 white guys in Philadelphia could have made that distinction? Also, 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:19.280 oh man cool is an actual Cantonese name. What are 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:22.600 the odds that dr steel through together random sounding Chinese 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:26.360 syllables to arrive at that? So, okay, I read that, 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:29.319 and I had a revelation. I I cracked this case. 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:31.920 Why the funk open? I figured it out. I figured 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:34.240 out what was going on with this letter. Okay, I'm 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:37.280 so excited for this. I'm cold hypen this up for 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.440 like hours, I'm so excited. So I'm bts of this. 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:43.520 We have like a group chat essentially, and I didn't. 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:45.760 I wasn't sure if I can make this recording. But 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:49.880 then Mia dropped that that bomb, being like I have 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:53.960 this big break breakthrough, and I was like, I gotta 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:55.880 be there. I just gotta be there. And so I 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:58.400 kicked James out because James couldn't make me time I 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:02.920 could make. And so here I have I have. I 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:09.079 have not told Sharine what the breakthrough this is? Same time. Okay, 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:15.959 So is Cantonese right? And she specifies in this letter 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:19.720 that this is about Northern Chinese food. My thesis right 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:24.080 here right now is that this whole letter it's actually about. 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:28.040 It's actually about Cantonese anti Northerlan sentiments. This is a 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:32.200 whole last thing in China. Canton or like the region 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:33.680 that was called Canton on the west is like where 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:35.320 Cantonese people aren't. This is like this is the very 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:38.560 south of China, right there is a whole last thing 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:42.080 in China. Let like, people from the North people from 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:44.400 the South hate each other. Um, it's actually very weird. 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:46.440 So my my family is like half from the north, 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:48.960 half from the South, and like when my mom was 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:50.840 growing up, she like she would like get made fun 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:54.200 of for how she like rolled dumplings because people were like, oh, 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:56.320 you rolled dumplings like a Southerner And She's like, what 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:00.960 it is a whole fucking thing. It's like people hate 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:04.720 each other, yea, how else how would you know those intricracies, 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:06.520 you know what I mean, unless you were from there, 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:08.520 like had history there. Yeah, well I mean I was 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:10.920 just this is the thing that that that's persisted in 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:12.720 the U s too. You you still you still run 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:15.000 into this stuff like they're they're they're like there are 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:18.040 definitely like candidese restaurants were like you probably shouldn't speak Mandarin. 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:20.520 They're like, there's there's like this is this is still 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:22.760 a thing. It's not really talked about very much because 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:26.200 it's like it's it's kind of an internal Chinese thing. 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:28.400 But you know, the one place you actually really gotta 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:29.960 see this, you gotta see this from the Hong during 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:33.160 the Hong Kong protests in both sides, because like, okay, 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.440 so there there there's a strain of the sort of 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:39.640 like like there there's a strain of Chinese nationalism that's 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:41.760 very sort of like it was doing this like really 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.600 very sort of like anti southern racism from you know, 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:46.040 you get this from a lot of the Chinese nationalist 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:47.720 on the CCP side, there's another faction of like the 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:50.240 Hong Kong protesters who's like, thing was like, we're not 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:52.760 actually Chinese because we're not like the Northerners. You're a 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:55.880 communist and like evil, which which is really funny because 0:15:56.400 --> 0:16:00.200 like you know, like okay, the if if you if 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:02.600 you run through the actual history of communism in China, 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:05.720 it's like, okay, like like one of one of the 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.680 one of the largest communists like strikes that ever happened 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:12.760 was in Hong Kong. Like sure, fine, but you know, 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:16.800 but obviously, like I'm simplifying all of this enormously because 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.240 it's very complicated. There's a lot of regional ship that's 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.040 going on here. Yeah, but so your your thesis is 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:26.720 that the person that started all of this was like 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:29.520 maybe like from the South or like just like yeah, 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:31.840 I mean that is that is definite, Like that is 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:34.000 that is like the like that is the most Cantonese 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:36.280 asked name I've ever heard, like that that that guy, 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:38.920 that guy, that guy is definitely from southern China. And yeah, 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:41.600 my my thesis is specifically it's this Cantonese guy going 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:43.920 a funk. Those nerds that there's I hate their I 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:45.880 hate their asses, I hate their food, their food at 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.920 ship eating it makes me sick. But because because it's 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:51.600 the US that the subtlety of this gets lost and 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:54.240 everyone just runs with it is like Chinese restaurant syndrome. 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:57.800 Even though this is the this is this is my theories, 0:16:58.160 --> 0:17:00.680 this is this is like this is like kind of 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:05.439 semi obscured, like Chenny's like internal grudge v point, Like 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:07.879 like knowing the origin point makes a lot more sense 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:09.760 now to be honest, like, why would this be some 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:14.520 random like why would he specify a region, like a 0:17:14.600 --> 0:17:17.320 very specific region that that's just I don't I don't 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.200 know that that that that that's my theory. I could 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.760 be wrong about this, but all it fits with all 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:28.120 of the details, so it checks out. It checks out, 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:32.560 I think. Yeah, So okay, alright, so so this this 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:35.199 letter happens and there's like a flurry of letters rather 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:39.960 people talking about this, and okay, I want to talk 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.640 about why this got picked up the way it does. Um, 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:47.480 I'm gonna still yeah, this is this is I'm going 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:50.480 to read from every single article in this also goes 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:52.280 exactly the same way. So I'm gonna read from Mens 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:54.359 Health version. So you get this section of it before 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:56.280 I talked about why it's I think like not sufficient 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.960 to capture what was happening. Mostly describes the late fift 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.639 is a time of heightened anti Chinese sentiment. By the 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:06.080 nineteen sixties, domestic and international politics had shifted towards a 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:09.400 fairly clear anti communist agenda. In fact, he says during 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:13.000 this time, anti Chinese sentiments were so widespread and accepted 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:18.119 that most Americans didn't consider their apprehension to be racial bias. Now, 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:22.240 this is true as far as it goes. But we 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:24.399 need to go to ADS and we'll come back from ADS. 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:26.480 I will tell em what else was going on in 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:39.480 that week? Hell yeah, all right, and we're back. We're back. 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:42.119 We're talking about how this like letter to like a 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:45.040 journal in New England suddenly became an entire like national 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:49.800 American thing. Okay, So the way this happened is that 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:54.040 this got picked up by the news. Now there's a 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:58.080 huge New York Times article about this, and that article 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:04.280 is published on May nineteenth, nineteen. Now, Sharine, do you 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:09.600 know what else was going on in May? I've heard 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:12.000 a lot of ship went down in the sixties. Yeah, 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:17.320 so this is this is right, This is like smack 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:20.720 dab in the middle of May sixty eight in France. 0:19:21.280 --> 0:19:24.760 This is this is like one week after the Night 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:29.280 of the Barricades UM. Three days before this was published. 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:32.200 The situationists who are like these, this like ultra left 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:36.320 student organization who who who at this point are occupying 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:39.200 the Sorbonne like they have fully taken control of their campus. 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:40.600 They have run the cops out, they have run the 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.919 administration out. UM. Three days before this is published. The 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:47.560 students at the Sorbond, reacting to a factory occupation that 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:49.840 they heard about, send out this famous communicate calling for 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:52.639 the occupation of all factories in France, and like it 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:57.000 fucking happens, Like the workers in France take control of 0:19:57.040 --> 0:19:59.960 like a huge portion of Francis factories, like the brain 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:04.679 factories are under control of the workers um like by 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:06.800 by by this time, like this is happening, right, the 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:09.640 police have like the police are fighting them, but they're 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:15.440 losing um. Two days before this article is published, uh, 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:20.120 the sorband sends this to the Chinese consulate quote, shaken 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:24.040 your boots, bureaucrats, The international power of the workers councils 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:27.240 will soon wipe you out. Humanity won't be happy until 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:29.280 the last bureaucrat is hung with the guts of the 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:33.040 last capitalists. Long live the factory occupations, Long live the 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.200 great Charitese proletarian revolution elected twenties seven, betrayed by the 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:40.000 Stalinist bureaucrats. It goes on and on, like this is 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:44.240 just what they're sending to the maoists right like that, 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:47.080 that is that is how far left these people are, 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:52.480 Like they're they're telling the Maoist shaking your boots, Bereaucrats, 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:54.920 the international power of work, those councils will soon wipe 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:59.600 you out. Like it is wild in sense. Yeah, I 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:02.200 mean the fact that this is happening all during all 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:07.800 of that. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, that's no, yeah, no, one, 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:11.600 it's it's really important. I have never read an article 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:13.440 that actually puts this together, and it was like, it's 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:16.399 not just that going on right, Like, you know, if 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:18.080 you like the situation in France, they are a week 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:19.639 and a half out from de Gaul, who was the 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:22.280 president literally fleeing the country because he's so convinced that 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:24.480 they're about to lose the country to communism. Like well, 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:26.280 and I should say when I say communism, by the way, 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:30.560 part of that message to the to the Maoist is 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:34.600 down with the state revolutionary Marxisms like that that that 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:37.000 these are these people are like these people have are 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:39.760 Marxists who have gone like so far left they've essentially 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:42.840 become anarchists. It's it's wild and mean, you know. And 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:45.960 also what's happening, like the prog Spring is happening during 0:21:46.000 --> 0:21:49.879 the middle of this um. This is also like this 0:21:49.960 --> 0:21:52.639 is a month after the Holy Week uprising in the US, 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:55.800 which is so after MLK was killed, there were these 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:59.040