The chief editor of CCTV revealed the truth: Why Chinese officials enjoy eating and drinking extravagantly

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A few years ago, a friend from a policy research office told me: Why are officials at the grassroots level so fond of eating and drinking? Why do they have such a strong desire for food? Apart from the fact that eating together as a group helps to avoid accusations of greed and disciplinary action, the key reason is that they are used to poverty and fear hunger – after all, most of these officials in key positions are over forty years old, and many of them were victims of the three-year natural disasters; therefore, their desire for food remains very strong and persistent... My friend’s words make sense. The Chinese have indeed suffered from poverty and hunger, but this obsessive consumption of food is it merely a reaction to those times of starvation? Can this abnormal eating habit be simply seen as a way of compensating for stomachs that have been under strain for so long? If that’s the case, and it’s merely a physiological attempt to make up for past deficiencies, then it’s somewhat optimistic: once the economy improves and there is more abundance of goods, this food obsession will naturally disappear. But the reality is far from so simple. If we attribute excessive and unrestrained eating habits solely to a group’s history of poverty and hunger, then how can we explain the astonishing feasts in the southern provinces? The media has reported that Shenzhen consumes dozens of tons of snakes in a single day. If eating snakes has become a hallmark of Shenzhen, then in Hainan it is common to eat birds; over the years, the once abundant bird species in Hainan have been reduced to almost none. It has turned out that among the highly affluent, the tendency to focus life’s desires on food and pleasure has not diminished at all; rather, it has grown even stronger. Data shows that the largest markets for wild animals in the world are located in Asia, with Australia, Hong Kong, and Guangdong being particularly prominent. On the list of Chinese dishes, one can find monkey brains, bear paws, snake gallbladders, deer blood, pangolins, giant lizards, Yangtze alligators… As the saying goes, \"Everything that flies in the sky is eaten except airplanes; everything that swims in the water is eaten except ships; everything with four legs is eaten except benches…\" To outsiders, this seems utterly insane – it’s nothing short of a form of dietary extremism. No wonder some say: China has the deepest and most unfathomable stomach in the world. That’s not even a stomach at all; it’s the biggest animal graveyard. Or, it should be called a “dinosaur stomach”. Drinking and toasting, playing games of chance, mess and filth everywhere, leftovers of food… these are indeed a hallmark feature of Chinese culture. This is true not only in official circles but also in private interactions among ordinary people, with the cost being slightly lower. From work-related banquets held in the name of a group, to weddings, funerals, and gatherings during festivals as private occasions, which one is without the exchange of drinks and meals? Which administrative level does not have its own \"reception center\"? Which organization’s accounts do not contain an entry for \"entertainment expenses\"? Friendship, relationships, face-saving, business deals, approvals, loans… all of these can be discerned through food and drink. The courage, energy, strategy, boldness, and ** of the Chinese seem to burst forth in a spectacular manner only at the moment when cups are clashed together; it seems that only under the influence of alcohol can they reach the peak of their vitality. The West also has **, and there are improper deals as well, but they generally take place away from dining gatherings; even in casual social meetings, the style is simple. A few years ago, the media reported that businessmen from Beijing and Guangdong would show off their wealth by spending hundreds of thousands of yuan on a single table at a restaurant*, until the restaurant could no longer display the price tag... Such displays of extravagance are astonishing, and what’s even more puzzling is the idea that this constitutes a sign of success in business and a glorious life. Such extravagant spending on pleasure and luxury surely wouldn’t happen with people like Rockefeller. In fact, those wealthy people in the West who are far richer than us often lead a simple and modest life; their achievements in life consist mainly in accumulating wealth and paying taxes. At the same time, they give away a large portion of their assets to others through things such as high income taxes and inheritance taxes, as well as by making voluntary donations to churches, supporting charitable causes, and establishing funds. According to statistics from a few years ago, the amount of social donations in the United States each year exceeds 140 billion dollars. There are over 300 charitable foundations, and each of these foundations has funding amounts in the billions... As someone once pointed out, “Americans are undoubtedly the most extreme individualists when it comes to rights, but in terms of morality, they are probably the most typical ‘publicists’” (Yuan Weishi, *Signposts and the Quest for the Soul*). According to a 1990 survey by the international organization World Values Survey, 82% of Americans volunteered for at least one (with an average of 2.4) charitable organization, while this figure was 68% in Germany and 65% in Canada……