ancient cuisine, chinese food, soudui, stir-fried pebbles, street food, yangtze river

Stir-Fried Pebbles: Chinese Vendors Are Making a Dish Made of Stones

Chinese street food vendors have amused the world by creating a unique cuisine; stir-fried pebbles, also known as soudui (suck and throw). It has been dubbed “the world’s hardest food.” The delicacy is prepared by stir-frying small river pebbles with chili, oil, garlic, rosemary, and purple perilla.  The meal costs around US$2, and those who ...

Nathan Machoka

Stir-fried pebbles.

China’s Receding Yangtze River Reveals Submerged Ancient Buddhist Statues

The summer of 2022 has seen record-breaking high temperatures across China. As a result, receding Yangtze River waters have revealed three Buddhist statues. As water levels of rivers and reservoirs go down, historical treasures and archaeological relics emerge. Amid this drought, the water levels of the Yangtze River have immensely dropped, and in the process, ...

Nathan Machoka

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway Bridge.

Three Gorges Dam Under Scrutiny as China Reels Under Heavy Flooding

China is receiving the second-highest rainfall in over five decades and the results have been devastating. Large areas around the Yangtze basin and its tributaries have borne the brunt of the floods. The Three Gorges Dam was constructed in 2006 to control floods and has proven to be ineffective. And some are apprehensive about whether ...

Max Lu

The Three Gorges Dam.

Traveling Along the Amazing Yangtze River of China

China’s Yangtze River is the longest river in Asia at 3,975 miles in length. Globally, it is ranked third after Africa’s Nile River and South America’s Amazon River. The drainage basin of the Yangtze takes almost one-fifth of China’s total land area. The Yangtze River delta alone accounts for almost 20 percent of the country’s ...

Raven Montmorency

The Yangtze River through the Three Gorges.

One of the World’s Oldest and Largest Fish Is Now Extinct

Chinese paddlefish, which reached up to 23 feet in length, have become extinct according to a recent paper published in the journal Science of the Total Environment. The species survived on Earth for almost 200 million years and was driven to extinction due to human activity. An extinct species Chinese paddlefish were native to the ...

Armin Auctor

A Chinese paddlefish.