陳曉卿：他用美食記錄中國

Text by Lan Xiaojiang Translation by Bian Jiajing Photos by Liu Jun & Yang Ming & CFP （圖片由受訪者提供）

陳曉卿：他用美食記錄中國

Text by Lan Xiaojiang Translation by Bian Jiajing Photos by Liu Jun & Yang Ming & CFP （圖片由受訪者提供）

CHEN XIAOQING FOOD IS THE WAY OF DOCUMENTING THE CHANGE IN CHINA

Every friend of mine got excited when he or she heardNihaowas going to interview Chen Xiaoqing, the general director of the series documentariesA Bite of China, and then swallowed. Finally, he or she would say: Thank Chen and his documentaries for showing the whole world the profoundness and broadness of Chinese dietary culture. But gentle Chen for the first time, refuted this as he heard my report: we are not to expand or to enrich what, just documenting the ordinary daily life. To tell stories with open mind is the real confidence in our own culture.

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It's necessary to introduce the phenomenal documentaryA Bite of Chinaat first.

In 2012, a documentary about foods all over ChinaA Bite of Chinabecame a national hit suddenly and especially popular among young people, although its original intention was just a normal documenting and discovery on foods made by CCTV9. It's reported that it has been played on all kinds of video platforms for over 800 million times, and its overseas sales have added up to 350 thousand dollars each episode. The audience of A Bite of China 2 surpasses some hot TV shows and series, which makes it most-watched documentary in China by now. Thousands of people are talking over this documentary online, and some self-created works such A Bite of Anhui and A Bite of Hubei appear online. Even some foreign fans made similar works A Bite of Germany and A Bite of France. This documentary becomes an entrance for foreigners to know about China and to communicate more with this country……The generation after 80s and 90s have never been so enthusiastic about their own hometowns and the foods from their hometowns. Many of them begin to call themselves“ foodies”and regard A Bite of China as Bible of searching for traditional foods all over the country. The foods documented into A Bite of China are all labelled as top classics and sold out very soon.

For outsiders, it is the general director Chen Xiaoqing and his team that made A Bite of China so hot. However, Chen doesn't like this saying.“As a documentary maker, I don't like to raise anything or push my audience into anything. The audience are mature, and you must make what they really want to see. When you reveal something touching and sensitive in the upmost superficial layer, they feel the attraction of documentary. This maybe the reason why people likeA Bite of Chinaso much.”

Down to earth, honest, unassuming— that's people's impression of Chen and this also helps build a mass base for his work. After the success ofA Bite of China, there are still many people coming across him while queuing up for snacks. He said his attitude and style of eating had never changed. He loved checking out some locally popular restaurants.“Only when I am sitting among the people speaking Sichuan dialect, I feel that the taste of hotpot is just right,” he explained with his honest smile.“Maybe there is a small change. In the past, when I came to a new place, I would normally ask native people on Weibo or directly ask taxi drivers. Now, there are usually acquaintances showing me around. For example, I just came back from Wuhan. A traffic police found some delicious hot noodles with sesame paste and fried tofu skin with three delicacies for me.” He then paused and said,“After all, many taxi drivers are not native. Like when I was in Qingyuan, Guangdong, the driver was from Pinggu, He Bei.”

During the 19th Shanghai TV Festival, Jury for Documentaries Chen Xiaoqing was discussing the appraisal with the Committee Chairman Yves Jeanneau.上海第19屆上海電視節，作為紀錄片評委的陳曉卿與評委會主席伊夫·讓諾商議評審。

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Shihang, a famous scriptwriter, who started to know Chen more than decades ago in the famous online community “Xici Hutong”, said, Chen was very shy and clever. For this comment, Chen smiled bashfully as usual. “ People who are clever, just like my friend Zhang Lixian (a famous publisher) said, need to do your work awkwardly.”

During the shooting of Bite 2, Chen and his team spent 500 days in more than 150 places. “We are using western methods of shooting, and the most stressful part is field study. We record one or more inspectors in one place, and every episode is 50 minutes, so the study costed more than 100 days in average.” One of the stories was 6 minutes' shot film and about bee keeper. They shot twice, did the field study three times, passed through places for over 2000 km.

After the success of Bite Series, he did more awkward work. “During the process of Bite2, we touched something about the society, such as leftover children. Because while we were shooting the foods, all the rural foods were presented by old people. The young move to the city and work, and children are left to the old. As a documentary maker, you can't help recording this.”

Yet the in process A Bite if China 3 once again focuses on Chinese food in a worldwide sense. From Chen's opinion, as a documentary maker, this is still the contemporary age that cannot be neglected. “Chinese economy has developed, Chinese get richer, and Chinese foods will be newly recognized by the world. And this is just the developing rule. Chinese food has a 3000-year history, but it doesn't mean it's superior to other culture, for culture has no hierarchy. I hope we can stay confident of our culture,” said Chen. “I also hope our young people can see delicacies, and know more about China through knowing about Chinese food. Keep the ability to think independently and not be deluded.”

After being documented, steamed pork in Jun'an is soon renowned all over China.均安蒸豬被報道后，立刻揚名全國。

Behind the scenes of A Bite of China .《舌尖上的中國》拍攝幕后。

身邊每個人聽說《NIHAO》要采訪《舌尖上的中國》總導演陳曉卿，都是同樣的反應：先是興奮驚呼，然后猛吞口水，最后，充滿欽佩地說：他和《舌尖》向全世界弘揚了中國美食文化的博大精深。

然而，一直溫和的陳曉卿卻在聽到這句表揚時，變得有點嚴肅。他說：“我們不是在弘揚什么，只是記錄尋常智慧。以一個開放的心態去講故事，才是真正的文化自信，才是正確的三觀。”

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有必要先介紹一下《舌尖》現象。

2012年，一部講述中華各地美食的紀錄片《舌尖上的中國》，突然在全國尤其是年輕人群中引爆了，雖然，它的初衷只是央視紀錄片頻道的一次常規探索。

據說，它在視頻平臺播放次數超過8億次，海外單片銷售額高達35萬美元。在很多國家，它甚至被當成了解中國的窗口。網上迅速出現了“舌尖上的安徽”“舌尖上的湖北”等網友自創作品，甚至有外國朋友做了“舌尖上的德國”“舌尖上的法國”。80后、90后們對自己家鄉和家鄉的傳統美食從未有過的熱情高漲起來，越來越多的人開始自稱為“吃貨”，《舌尖上的中國1、2》也被當成了搜索中國各地美食傳統的“寶典”。而被“舌尖”拍攝過的美食立刻成為 “名品”，迅速被市場搶購一空。

在外界看來，掀起這一傳奇的就是《舌尖上的中國》總導演陳曉卿和他的團隊。不過，他本人并不喜歡這個觀點。“我是做紀錄片的人，我特別不喜歡去掀起什么，去讓觀眾看什么。觀眾都是成熟的，你得拍他想看的。而流露到最淺表層面的動人之處，就是紀錄片最有魅力的。這可能也是《舌尖上的中國》吸引到大家的地方。”

接地氣，實誠，不擺架子，是很多民眾對陳曉卿的印象。《舌尖》成功后，依舊有很多觀眾在排隊買小吃時意外碰到他。他說自己吃美食的習慣從來沒變，最喜歡到當地找當地人最喜歡去的小館子。“只有坐在周圍都是說四川話的人堆里，我才覺得吃下去的那口火鍋，味道是對的。”他憨憨地笑著說，“不過，以前我去一個新的地方，會提前發一個微博詢問網友，或者問出租車司機。現在，一般都有熟識的當地朋友帶著我了。比如我剛去武漢，就是一個交警帶我找到了特別好吃的熱干面和三鮮豆皮。而且，現在出租車司機也很多不是當地人了。我之前去廣東清遠，開車的出租車司機是河北平谷的。這大概就是城市的變化。”

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十幾年前，就與陳曉卿在網絡社區“西祠胡同”相識的名編劇史航說：“陳曉卿，是一個羞澀的人，一個聰明的人”。他的記憶力極好，在什么地方吃過什么樣的食物，見過什么人，說過什么話，常常張口就能說出來。肚子里不知道有多少關于美食的故事和往事。

不過，聽到“聰明人”這個評價，陳曉卿還是露出招牌的羞澀。“聰明人——就像我的朋友老六（《讀庫》主編 張立憲）說的，是要下點笨功夫的。”他說。

《舌尖2》的拍攝也是用的笨功夫。整個過程中，他和他的團隊用了500天，輾轉了150個拍攝地點。“我們用的是西方的拍攝方式，最辛苦是做田野調研。一個地方派一個到多個調查員，如果每一集播出50分鐘，那么平均的調研時間是100多天。”據說，其中有一個關于養蜂人的6分鐘短故事，團隊去現場拍攝兩次，調研了3次，輾轉2000公里。

《舌尖》系列成功后，他下的笨功夫更多。有的是在表達方式上，更多的，我覺得是在對表達方向的思考上。“《舌尖2》，我們觸碰到一些社會層面的內容比如留守兒童，那是因為我們發現凡是農村的食物，它的主人公都是老人，年輕人都進城務工了，孩子都由老人帶著。作為一個紀錄片人，看到這些你無法不把它記錄下來。”

而即將拍攝的《舌尖3》又將把目光放在世界框架下的中國美食，這大概依然是他覺得不可忽視的當下。“中國的經濟發展了，中國美食當然也在世界范圍內會被一步步重新認知——這是符合發展規律的。中國美食有3000年的文化，但這不代表高于別的文化的，文化沒有高低之分。我希望，我們能保持這個文化自信。我更希望我們的年輕人看到美好的食物，通過食物了解當下的中國，但能始終保持獨立思考的能力。”