China News Service, Wuhan, March 12th Title: Taiwan’s short video blogger: Food bridges the two sides of the Taiwan Strait

China News Service reporter Ma Furong

Wuhan hot dry noodles, Northeast pot buns, Nanchang water boiled, Wuhu spicy hot pot, Taiwanese oyster omelette, braised pork rice, mochi ice, sand tea beef... In the past two years, Taiwan’s "post-90s" girl Zeng Xinhui has photographed and released nearly 300 short videos related to cross-strait food.

Recently, when a reporter from China News Service met Zeng Xinhui in Wuhan, she was sitting in front of the computer, browsing and replying to comments from netizens on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. "Food is an emotional bond connecting people. I hope to use food as a bridge to enhance understanding and interaction between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait." Zeng Xinhui said.

While studying baking in Japan, Zeng Xinhui became friends with her classmate Cheng Jiayi from Wuhan. From Cheng Jiayi's mouth, Zeng Xinhui learned that "Wuhan is a city with great development potential."

At the end of 2019, she came to Wuhan and started a business with Cheng Jiayi. The two of them set up stalls to sell desserts and opened an escape room shop. In September 2022, by chance, Zeng Xinhui posted a video of tasting Wuhan street fried rice to a social platform, attracting nearly 7,000 people's attention and nearly 900 people participated in the discussion. She then switched to a food blogger.

From the mainland to Taiwan, Zeng Xinhui went to street shops, university canteens, and night market food stalls, and has filmed nearly 300 periods of food on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. The comment section under the video has become a "chat group" for netizens on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Everyone promoted local specialty foods and exchanged production techniques, and the content extended from food to fields such as tourism, climate, variety shows, prices, customs, etc.

A video visiting the Ningxia Night Market in Taiwan attracted nearly 300,000 netizens on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to interact. "Many mainland netizens are puzzled, why does Taiwan have Ningxia Night Market? Are there Ningxia foods all there are Ningxia foods?" Zeng Xinhui introduced that the foods in Taiwan Ningxia Night Market are mainly Taiwanese traditional snacks, and are named after them on Ningxia Road. In the mainland, there are also many roads named after Taiwanese cities, such as Taipei Road, Kaohsiung Road, Miaoli Road, Yunlin Street, etc. in Wuhan.

From the food, Zeng Xinhui can see many similarities between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. For example, Taiwanese oyster omelettes and Guangdong oyster baking, Wuhan hot dry noodles and Taiwan sesame paste noodles, Chaoshan beef soup and Tainan beef soup, etc., are similar in terms of ingredients and production techniques. From the New Year’s Eve dinner pictures posted by netizens on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Zeng Xinhui found that although the dishes in different places are different, there are basically chickens that symbolize "good luck" and fish that symbolize "surplus every year".

"From place names to food, this kind of fusion of you and me and I have you is the embodiment of one family on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and it is also the foundation for emotional resonance." Zeng Xinhui said.

After food, Zeng Xinhui made many friends in mainland China. While visiting a shop in Nanchang, Jiangxi and Wuhu, Anhui, local friends came here to take her to experience special food and attractions; in the Northeast, she had a great time talking with diners on the neighboring table and shared dishes with each other; in Wuhan, fans like to call her "our Taiwanese girl in Wuhan"...

In addition to visiting the shop, Zeng Xinhui also went to the Huangpi countryside with her partner, following an 80-year-old man to experience the production process of Huangpi bean shreds from grinding, spreading cakes, shredding to drying; she also went to Xiangyang's century-old wonton store to find the story behind the inheritance of the food from generation to generation.

"It is worth recording when making food with craftsmanship." Zeng Xinhui said that in the future, in addition to introducing more cross-strait food to netizens, she also hopes to record the "slow work produces meticulous and meticulous" and show the profoundness of Chinese food culture.