The Meaning of Chicken

We are in Beijing and are 1-1-and 1 for meals so far. The most dirt cheap meal I have had in my life was the best of the day. Yesterday I was brought to contemplate the meaning of the word Chicken. Chicken has come to signify many things in our society we often think of tender white meat or cowards when we think of the word chicken. This is a very narrow definition of the word and does not take into considertation the complexity of the great and marvelous creature upon which we feed. "Chicken" must be taken in its entirity as an entity. A chicken is not just a pair of filleted white meat breasts or a animal that behaves similarly to people we desire to mock. A true chicken is everything that a chicken must need to be a chicken. It could be argued that any tissue mass containing the same genetic make up of chickens as a species should indeed be considered chicken and marketed as such. Being in China has reduced our communciation abilities to below neanderthal level. Two sophisticated individuals are reduced to totally inept cretins at the mercy of the kind soul that decides to try to help what the short bus just dropped off. So we found ourselves in such a predicament communicating with butchered mandarin and pictures trying to negotiate a lunch. What was understood by all parties involved, through both verbal communication, and graphic reference was indeed a "chicken" dish. When said dish was delivered it was quickly discovered that many details had been left to the mercy of assumption. Over the course of the meal it was difficult to imagine what this "chicken" truly was. Indeed no part from beak to tips of "talons" could be eliminated as possibliities it was soon decided that what indeed had been served before us was either finely disected chicken knee caps or gizzards fried with delicious coating of chinese stuff . As I gnawed around the various cartilagenous parts of the "knee caps" we realized that ordering "chicken" had to have limitations. graphic depictions needed to have large pices of chicken shown thus eliminating the possiblity of small organs parts being considered as part of the definition of "edible chicken." Later on in the evening we found a similar place with an english translated menu that mentioned the possibliity of being served fried chicken kidneys if we so deisred. I contempalted a repeat of the delicious "knee caps" and opted for the kung pao chicken which was indeed what we culturally condiser chicken. Today we hit the Great Wall and then we will be on a train locked in a car with staring faces for thrity hours as we go to Chengdu.

jai jian

Grericag