Full coverage: ‘看中國’外國青年影像計劃專題

Editor’s forward: "Looking China" International Youth Film Project is co-organized by the Academy for International Communication of Chinese Culture (AICCC), Beijing Normal University and Huilin Foundation. The program focuses on the young participants’ personal experiences of Chinese culture and encourages them to discover and tell Chinese stories from their own perspectives.

As of the year 2018, students from 35 countries were invited to participate in the "Looking China" project. They were stationed in 11 municipalities, provinces and autonomous region here in China. Every filmmaker has worked out a 10-minute short film about Chinese culture around the topic of "Ecology, Biology, Lifeology."

Hot pot, which means "fire pot" in Chinese, is a traditional cooking method with its history to be traced back to over a thousand years ago. It remains one of the most popular means for the Chinese to share food with friends.

Hot pot is not just tasty, it's also considered good for health according to traditional Chinese medicine experts. Some people believe that eating hot pot can help you to warm up the body in winter and to sweat and cool off in the summer. The spices in hot pot are believed to remove phlegm from the body, peppers are used to relieve pain and remove the smell of raw meat. Gingers are supposed to prevent coughing and beef oil is considered to strengthen the "yang" part of the body.

 
In order to experience the local food culture in Chongqing, a southwestern city known for its hot pot, director Kyllian A. Roux from South Africa and his team visited a hot pot museum there and searched for the history and changes of Chongqing hot pot.

Through observation and comparisons, he realized the connection between food and the environment. He said at the end of the movie, "Ancient Chinese regards the unity of the body and nature as the highest level of life. The unique features of local environment bestow special characters on its inhabitants. We ask nature for food, enjoy the beauty of taste and build our own lifestyle in this process. This is how we are closely connected to the environment."

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