See, I get scared of heights, so our producers laced me
With this thing to keep my mind off it.
Oh, my god...
This might be the last episode.
So, uh, I-I not even gonna use the... I'm... I'm gonna... yeah, all right. Cool.
I'm gonna use it. Just go, just go.
I don't... I don't want to say shit.
We're in fucking hunan. We're doing the show.
Huang's world... hunan. Fried rice.
Fried, uh, wide noodles.
Hand-pulled... oh, no... hand-pulled noodles.
Fuck this shit.
You want to do some dance moves on the brave man's bridge?
- Yeah. - Feels hot.
Oh, it feels ready for kabobs, b.
You put the kabobs on the grill?
You putting kebabs on the grill? Whoo!
- It's hot, it's hot.
Seems like the kabobs.
Based fobs... Welcome to "huang's world," hunan.
♪ Y'all in the wrong world ♪ so look here, man ♪ welcome to "huang's world"
♪ world traveler ♪ the food, whoo, good and delicious ♪
♪ shanghai, moscow, check out the pictures ♪
♪ l.A., new york, m-I-a, oh, london ♪
♪ the schedule's vicious ♪ welcome to "huang's world"!
Vice!
My parents are back for this episode in shandong.
We had to bring my mom out, number-one shandong representer.
Right, mom? We're number one!
Yes! My family's from shandong.
- Yes. - Yeah.
And what's shandong known for, mom?
- Mantou. - That's right.
They are like the bagel makers of northern china.
They make the big, white buns, And they made mantou by train station, right, mom?
Yes.
Growing up, my family moved from china to taiwan.
I wasn't born at the time, and that's how my father made
A living for feeding this whole, big family.
Are you excited to be here in shandong?
Yeah. I love it. Yeah.
I'm come... come home with my wife, But, you know, it's freaking cold here.
I had a very good, uh, lymphatic massage yesterday.
And I haven't exercised for a long time,
But now I'm ready for mantou time, mantou time!
Whoa, smells so good!
This whole room smells like wood, fire, sauna bread.
This has, like... it gives back.
It bounces back. That's what you want.
I'm gonna break this open. Look at that.
Ooh! Look at the steam.
It's like the difference between, like, A real butt and a fake butt.
Like, a fake butt is, like, hard and it doesn't move.
Like, this looks like... this is a real butt.
I've never had a mantou this good.
So the chi, your center, the energy... chi... That go into the dough.
That's very scientific. It's not a myth.
It's really interesting for me to come to shandong
And to connect with this. - Yeah.
I just think that we're people with a very incredible culture
And history, but that the last few generations, We disconnected from it.
And that it's our job to reconnect with it now.
And that's why I came to shandong, And that's why we're going to hunan.
It's a great start.
I think you will do a good job reconnecting the people, The culture, and everything.
I really think that it's time for more chinese people born
Around the world to connect with the history and culture,
'cause otherwise it'll go away.
Yes.
We will try.
What's up, based fobs?
We in qufu, the hometown of the god confucius.
This man is single-handedly responsible for the way
We treat friends, family, and ourselves.
Go to the club and drink molly water.
I like order and balance, But I think every once and a while you have to turn up.
Mm.
Hey!
Lu cuisine refers to the cuisine of the northern chinese region.
And two main concepts are restraint, And order and balance.
Now, these ideals come from confucius, And when it's manifested in the dishes,
You get a cuisine that's very light, delicate,
Heavy on the seafood, and infused with bone stocks Throughout every dish.
You get a very clear, sharp, utilitarian flavor,
And one of the best examples of this cuisine Is eight immortals soup,
Which is symbolic of chinese mythology...
Eaten for texture with a lot of nutritional value.
The chicken ball technique is fire.
It really looks like a stripper hand job technique.
I've seen this technique in jamaica, queens.
They say, in shandong, they judge an opera singer
By their voice and a chef by their soup.
This dude's super old-school.
He wants me to learn everything, So we're watching every single part of this dish.
But I guess if it's food for immortals, Time is not of the essence.
Even before we came in, too, that stock...
Probably took him a good three hours to make that stock
On top of the time we've spent spooning chicken into spoons,
Steaming tins of chicken in spoons.
Putting dried crab roe on chicken in spoons That were being steaming-tinned.
I think I have offended him.
I got the sea cucumber in here, the abalone, the chicken breast.
One of the clearest, cleanest But deepest-flavored soup I've ever had.
You taste all the pork, all the chicken, and it forms
This little baseline that all the seafood just jumps off of.
It's a virtuous dish... Order, balance, cleanliness, clarity.
Everything we learned about confucius Is in the eight immortals soup.
This dish was so hard to make.
It just reminded me how hard it is to be a chinaman.
It's a real hard life.
They said this is the spot to buy bootleg.
Whoa, what is this?
I need this.
This is so awesome.
Oh!
We're in! We're in!
♪ Fat man in a little hoodie ♪ fat man...
Hey, uh...
- Huang. - Huang's world.
- World, world. - Huang. World.
- Huang's world. - Huang's world.
Huang's world.
Yo, so it's a cold, polluted day here in qufu.
Show 'em the smokestacks, c.V.
Yeah. Perfect setting for some kung fu.
So, I think the homies are eating lunch right now,
But as soon as they're done and nourished,
Then they're gonna teach me some kung fu.
How's it going? - Good.
- Join us. - Cool.
How'd you guys all end up in qufu at a kung fu school?
Honestly, it was a hangover idea while eating pancakes.
It was suggested... why don't we go Join the monks and do some kung fu?
And here we are.
This is basically what my mom used to make At home... like tomato and eggs.
- We have a bit of a variety. - Yeah.
But every day, you get rice.
- Yeah. - So, that's your base.
Yep. Then we get three, maybe four dishes.
Eggs, we get some sort of vegetable, And two dishes with chicken.
They're pretty tasty, and they give us the energy
And the protein that we need to keep training.
You guys like it out here in qufu?
Yes and no.
It's so weird being away for so long,
And then it's like, obviously, the little things That you miss from being back home
That you don't have out here like cheese.
You don't really get any western food out here at all.
We're not even in qufu.
We're one hour away from qufu.
It's like we're isolated so that we've, like,
Pretty much only got the one thing to focus on,
Which makes training and everything like that a lot easier.
Yeah. You don't have any other distractions.
What's kung fu done for you, like, in terms of, like, your mind-set?
Pain... you deal with pain so much better
Than you ever could before... like, you realize that.
You were soft before you got here, and then suddenly,
You know, you're getting kicked or, like,
Master stretches your leg up past your ear
And stuff like that, then it's... that's pain.
There's like an inner strength because you've already
Gone through, like, some deep-ass pain.
You push yourself.
You definitely push yourself, and in many ways.
Not just the physical, also the mental, emotional way.
Obviously, we're away from our families, our loved ones.
We are having a culture shock.
Different food, different people.
I like kung fu 'cause it really feels like a microcosm of life,
In that, like, life... it's not a competition Against the world or other people.
You're fighting yourself every day.
There's no way you're gonna have all good days here.
And so you can get through these bad days
Because there's a positive thing coming out of it.
Down or depressing all the time. Yeah.
- Like, good things are coming. - Let's go check it out.
- Let's do this. - All right, man.
Ooh!
Man, I'm not flexible.
Kung fu's always something I've seen as chinese.
But whether it's kareem abdul-jabbar Or these kids from England putting in work,
Culture crosses racial boundaries Because race is just a social construct.
I didn't see any chinese students at the school.
But it was reassuring to find foreigners sustaining
A culture in its natural habitat here in china.
He's gonna show us a few moves.
Whoa.
Was that that hot fire?
Yo, so me and nick are on the road.
It's about, like, 5 days before christmas.
- Yep. - You definitely got a shorty.
And, uh, what better place to shop for the ones... Oh.
You really care about than samsang?
Dude.
No, care loves chanal.
- Chanal! - Oh, my god.
- Great bags. - She would freak out.
Does she also like scarves and stuff like that?
She loves cashmere, in particular. Yeah, cashmere?
Yeah. Well, I would recommend hermrs beijing.
Oh, wow.
- So fire. - Should we go in?
Yeah, let's check it out.
Hey, you guys got socks in here?
You, so we're in qingdao, northeast china,
Right near beijing in hebei where they've announced
All the red alert pollution days.
And you can't breathe.
The air is literally heavy On your body, your face, and your lungs.
We're about to eat at a 100-year-old restaurant here
That's known for squid-juice dumplings
Before we meet up some locals and drink beer, Because confucius once said,
"man cannot drink beer on empty stomach."
Hmm. Yes, yes, yes.
You got to break it down.
Yeah.
Nitro boom.
It's ground pork, squid juice, shrimp.
Unh.
Cali up.
The key to rolling a good dumpling,
You have to make the shrimp shape along the side.
Oh, got it.
Cali up.
Gonna eat some of this food we made.
These are local qingdao dudes.
They own, like, pubs and restaurants in the city.
Mmm!
Yo, this is one of my favorite dishes.
Nice.
Wow.
I've had this dish a lot of places.
This is the crispiest one I've ever had.
So dry, so crispy.
Yo, this one I made isn't bad.
Mmm.
Mm. Mmm.
- How you doing? - Great.
Hey! Yeah.
Okay. Where are you from?
- Reno, nevada. - Nice, nice.
What brought you out here to qingdao?
My wife's from qingdao.
I started up the brewery here five years ago.
Qingdao does have the beer culture.
It's just not what you'd think of as craft-beer culture,
Like what we might think of in the states.
- Yeah. - Here, try this.
- Oh, thanks. Nice. - This is the yabasu stout.
It is really good.
Yeah, it's got a chocolaty thing. It's a light, refreshing stout.
Yeah. Should we sit down and have some beers with these guys?
Let's go to the bar. All right. Cool, man. Let's do it.
What was the biggest adjustment for you Coming from america to china?
One cool thing about china is, like, it's not that serious,
And we're not trying to be this polite or whatever.
And taking off your shirt and drinking beer
In the summertime is totally acceptable.
I could go back to the states, And I'd be like, "this is boring."
Yeah. Like, "there's nothing going on."
Like, "I want to go back to asia, like,
Where everything's happening, and it's crazy."
Yeah, china's savage. It's super savage.
It's like taking acid for the first time. You're like, "fuck!"
Like, "I don't know where this is going, actually."
Like, "that was maybe a bad idea."
- Yeah. - Like, "here I am."
No, china feels like an acid trip.
- Yeah. - It definitely does.
You know, like... Do you feel the same way he feels about...
Like, the way he feels about china, Is that how you feel about...
I think it's interesting to talk to you guys,
'cause you guys look at america and the west As this place with all the diversity,
But when I come to china, it's crazy.
Like, I really... china opens my eyes.
But I think it's just 'cause you grew up here and I grew up there.
-Hmm. -Right. -So, grass is always greener.
Yeah.
This is china's puberty, kind of teenage years... Need to be reckless.
You got to stand in the back of a pickup truck
And do a keg stand and go crazy. - Yeah.
- It's necessary. - Yeah.
Cheers. Gan bei.
33 years in america, This is the greatest shit I have learned.
- Whoo! - Whoo-hoo!
It's all foam.
All right, holiday, you got to do this.
Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Holiday, holiday!
- No, no, no. - Okay.
It's not all right.
Oh, maybe.
Wait, wait! I'm not finished!
"you no finish!"
I'm no finished!
I am finished.
Mix, mix, mix, mix, mix!
Number one!
Yo, I think I'm the only chinese person here That doesn't like drones.
C.V., they love the drones?
Riceland breaking news.
The d.P. Of life, christopher velona, Has just crashed a drone
Into ancient chinese history, all right?
- Oh, my god. - We have security on-hand.
This guy's so tight at you right now. So tight.
I mean, mao destroyed a lot of stuff in china,
And he never crashed a drone into a building.
So, we're gonna make the trek now from shandong,
My mother's home province, known for lu cuisine
And all the delicate foods that you've seen,
To hunan, which is my father's family's home province,
Known for spicy foods, hot tempers, and generals,
Because there's no province in china That's produced more generals than hunan.
Some of the famous ones you might know, like general tso,
Mao zedong, who's responsible for the cultural revolution.
And the seminal dish in hunan cuisine and also
My life, mao's favorite dish, is red cooked pork.
And without this dish, there probably isn't baohaus,
There probably isn't "fresh off the boat,"
And there definitely isn't "huang's world."
Here we are at the fire god temple.
And there were times when this place was full
Of street performers and street vendors, But during the cultural revolution,
Mao destroyed it, and nothing was left.
But in 2000, people started to rebuild this, And it's a phenomenon that lasts,
I'd say 15, 20 years in china.
People are trying to reconnect with their past,
Reconnect with the culture, because everything
That the fiery temper gave mao and gave china, It kind of also took away.
Yo, we're inside huogongdian right now, And this is krystal.
She's going to join us for lunch today.
Very excited and interested in conveying... Yeah.
The, uh, ideas of china around the world.
That's what I've been writing about.
You want to introduce the world to china?
No, introduce china to the world... the world.
Oh, okay, okay. I like this. I like this. Really?
Yo, usually, you only see the carts at, Like, cantonese food dim sum. - Yeah.
But this is pretty cool.
They put all the hunan food, in like, the dim sum carts.
So, they brought us a bunch of the hunan specialities here.
Like the... All right, this is made with rice ground into flour,
And then they fry it with scallions, so it's the flavor
Of a scallion pancake, the texture of fried rice.
Really dope.
Glutinous rice ball, here.
My grandma on my dad's side loved this.
Tangyuan, all right?
And a good one... you can chew it, and it's chewy,
But it doesn't stick to your teeth.
The pigs blood soup is fire.
It's very clean with some good essence... really nice.
The thing to really understand About hunan cuisine...
Is spicy, right... spicy food.
I feel like some dishes is, you know, A little bit too spicy for me.
Oh, yeah? Yeah, you know, there's an idiom here that says
That, "hunan people don't afraid of spicy food, But the hunan people is afraid
Of there's no spice in their food."
I know you're right about politics, and one thing
That's interesting to me is, when you read the history,
Where mao was telling people, "hey, do away with everything old...
Old culture, old customs, old ideas, old habits."
- Yeah. - Right?
And then this place got destroyed, But then now mao's outside of it.
So, like, how do you reconcile the ideals that he had,
The actions he had, with the result now?
I feel like people, you know, maybe in my age, they believe,
Kind of... they separate their knowledge about mao Into, like, two parts.
And they believe that mao they respect for
Is the one that, you know, lead us to build this country.
And so, the belief that if we can rebuild this place,
So that we can rebuild our images in our hearts.
And even, you know, maybe the mao statue here,
Because it attracts tourists and they respect him.
They will take pictures of it, and you know.
Yeah, because there's an economic benefit To selling chinese identity now.
Maybe that's what mao didn't expect himself, too.
It's very funny.
Through the years, through the generations,
History is repeated, repurposed, adapted,
And used for the purpose of whoever is in control.
Yeah, history is a girl that, you know, Been decorated by everyone is in the power.
So, being in china for, like, 13 days, You see a lot of hot-trash architecture.
Real brutal stuff back there.
But you are really mistaken if you think china
Doesn't have beautiful architecture that competes With the rest of the world.
Welcome to windows of the world.
Oh, my god.
Whoa!
Yo, that t-rex's butthole was fire, boy.
Yo, there's two weddings simultaneous Shooting in the fountains here.
I touched the statue of liberty.
Oh, my god. See the archery? Oh.
This is what we're about to do to all the other food shows this year.
Oh, yeah.
Human panda.
We've chosen this place to check out china's finest architecture
With our friend douglas song, because he's a civil engineer.
You hit us up on instagram, on the riceland tv account.
You can end up on the show like doug.
What's up, man? How's it going?
- Good, good. Yourself? - Good.
Any day you can wake up and stand In front of the pyramids, it's a good day.
Yeah, hunan got all everything around the world.
But at a different scale.
Did you come here when you were growing up?
Yeah, when I was, like, a child... Yeah.
My mom would always take me here every year, Like, at least once or twice.
I think this is very special in china, Because very few people even got to see
These things on the internet or in books.
So, this might be their first exposure to the pyramids.
Yeah, we can't really go out, so we have everything
Here in our country, in our town, you know?
Yeah, well, you actually left china, Went to australia and studied.
What's the perspective change That you have from leaving china?
I think the most important thing is that, I started to think really critically.
I feel that in china, it's the sort of thing
The education... there's exactly the same answer.
The teachers say something out of something.
Yeah, so, in china, what you're saying is
Is that if a teacher tells you something, that's the answer.
- Yeah, that's the answer. - You don't question it.
You have a standard answer.
Oh.
In a western education, they ask you to think a lot,
Like, maybe you're wrong, maybe you're right, but...
Yeah, no, I think it's really important for people
In any country or city to know there isn't one, right answer. Yeah.
I really hope that as china starts to open up, People start to see the real thing.
I thought children now in china are getting better
Than the last generation, so I feel it's improving,
And I think it's the same thing with the pyramid.
What we should so is, like, think what's the real thing?
And then have the desire to actually go out and, you know,
To see the outside of the world, to explore, you know? Yeah.
Do you... do you mind if we stop And ask them questions, real quick?
It's very good.
That was great. That was great.
Amazing pyramid.
At this point in the trip, You just start to crave american hot trash.
Yo, so we're gonna have the producer nick join us here,
'cause we ordered a bunch of food, And he also misses eating american food.
And to be honest, this restaurant really feels
Like chinese people, picking what they like about america,
Reinterpreting it, and curating it in this, like, hunan diner.
Yeah, it's crazy to see what they picked out, you know? Yeah.
That is super weird, but really good.
The bread's actually nice.
It's soft and crusty, almost like a chinese pineapple bun.
You have the power... what?
What, you just tasted this, right?
It's crazy. It's super peppery.
It tastes like the hunan pepper spices.
Mm-hmm. It's so spicy and it's sweet.
I never understood why hispanic people or asian people
Get so pissed off about, like, An obviously non-authentic restaurant.
And now, I can finally kind of understand.
It should say the hunan hoagie, maybe not cheese steak. Yeah, yeah.
And I actually really like a lot of the weird, hybrid, fusion...
The american versions of ethnic food in america. Uh-huh.
But the difference is white people have the power,
And they have this need to tell people, "I made it better." uh-huh.
"I just took your brown people's shit and I made it better." mm-hmm.
I say that all the time, you know?
- Yeah. - Um... Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah?
But it's so good to eat american food. Mm-hmm.
I bash it a lot, but dude, I fucking love this shit.
Wow.
In china, is this restaurant very popular?
It was good.
We had the cheeseburger, that hawaiian burger,
Philly cheese steak. - The cheese steak.
Yeah, we're pretty full. I'm stuffed. I'm stuffed.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm ready to eat chinese food tomorrow.
- Yeah. - Thanks, man.
It's cool to see what chinese people curate And take from american culture.
For a long time, we've done shows,
And I never wanted to show this dish because it's kind of our,
Like, hunan wenhua... culture, right, and know-how.
But the more and more I travel, I've seen a lot of hybrid versions,
A lot of mistakes, a lot of fusion and people not
Understanding it, that I wanted to come back to the source
And show you how it's done.
Because if you goons Are gonna be making red-cooked pork at home,
You better do it the right way and represent.
All right, so here comes the oil.
Hunan red-cooked pork, now, You're gonna kind of cook it in oil.
It's gonna be sautéed, in a way.
It's a hybrid method.
All right.
So, he has the chilies, some other garlic, Scallions in this casserole.
Oh, it's gonna cook for an hour or so,
And then I'm gonna taste my first hong shao rou in hunan.
So, we've actually invited wei, Who's local hunan "cool girl" to come dine with us.
Yes, "cool girl."
And talk to us about, like, The food and the city and everything.
So, this is the star of the show... Probably the most famous hunan dish all time.
It is probably the most seminal dish in my life, right?
And it's a real moment to come back home and eat this dish.
The skin here is so bouncy.
It's the perfect skin.
It's jumping out the gym.
The layers... the fat's all melted,
And I think the signature of hunan hong shao rou
Versus sendo... you taste the chili, you taste the garlic,
And there's a more twosome texture.
You know, when I talk to my pops or my uncles or my aunts.
Like, we didn't leave china on our own accord.
You know, there was a civil war, and a lot of our ancestors
Got killed, and they were forced to taiwan.
And my parents were born there 'cause they were the last of the bunch.
And then they left taiwan, as well, 'cause they
Didn't know the status, then came to america, And I was born there, but...
As an overseas chinese, Like, you're cut off from your history.
And some of us are cut from our language.
And some of us are cut off from our culture.
And it's really powerful to come home.
It's really powerful to come home and connect
With something in a story that you've tried to keep
The fire alive for 33 years in america.
I think mine's better.
We're here in confucius' cemetery, And you'll see hundreds of tombstones all around
Because every single one of his descendents Is buried here with him.
And I didn't realize it till I came, But at the very core, the essence is family.
Family is what gives you strength And teaches you to love.
♪ I can't figure it, I can't figure it out ♪
Whether you're chinese, jamaican, mexican,
When you come home and you see it face to face,
You'll realize it was always there with you.
♪ I can't figure it, I can't figure it out ♪ I'm a child of the diaspora,
And I dedicated my life to keeping my native culture And identity alive in america.
But it wasn't until I went back to my native land
And saw my culture face-to-face that I realized...
♪ I can't figure it, I can't figure it out ♪ ...How much the origins affected me in the way I looked,
The way I cooked, and the way I loved.
Even though I wasn't physically here, in a way, My spirit never left the building.
♪ Always on my mind I was connected the entire time.
♪ I can feel you now and it was all just waiting for me to come home
And write the next chapter of my history.
♪ I can't figure it, I can't figure it out ♪ because there's something about our motherlands,
Native sons, and overseas fledgling communities That are all one in the same.
♪ I can't figure it, I can't figure it out ♪
♪ ohh
♪ I can't figure it, I can't figure it out ♪
Yes.
♪ Ohh I like that.
It's all right. Asians don't know how to drink.
These things happen.
Eddie!