09. Marinated Raw Crabs

food in entertainment, or a problem of control

Hi there. Welcome to Active Faults.

The latest season of SEVENTEEN’s group reality show features an episode with a baffling title. “The Gejang” is a parody of The Menu (2022), filmed in an unknown studio location, with freakish overhead lighting, a legion of suited extras moving in unison, and sporadic screams of “Yes, Chef!” in toll. The game is for SEVENTEEN to taste-test platefuls of “gejang”, marinated raw crabs, before identifying the ones prepared by a member’s mum and another member’s grandmother. They need to recall the exact flavour of a homemade dish they’ve enjoyed for decades, ever since the trainee days when they were broke, exhausted, and relying on their families for provisions via post. Spoilers alert: they recognised it in one go.

…from 99 identical plates

It became a surprisingly emotional episode for the fans. On Bilibili, the onscreen comments were filled with teary emojis and exclamations like “it’s making me miss my grandma’s cooking” or “that’s real love right there”. China, and dare I say Asia in general, is a place where food is the absolute centrepiece of human relations. It is the beating heart of every single social occasion. It threads itself into every conversation. It’s memory materialised. It is diffused across our consciousness like air because it’s how we tell time, so much so that there goes the saying “民以食为天”, “people regard food as God”.

What we consume, we worship. You know where else that happens?

Today, let’s talk food in entertainment and fandom.

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This is where I’ll start: I’m not interested in how delicious marinated raw crabs look on our phones. I want to talk about how food and eating are perceived and interpreted by the fans in relation to the celebrities, not visual representations of food in media content. I want to talk about the affect that food evokes among the audiences, the symbolic value of sustenance in an industry painfully concerned with the corporeal body.

Almost at any given moment, the Chinese entertainment headlines on all social media platforms are at least half-filled with discussions of a celebrity’s body and, specifically, their weight. Who gained some, who lost some, who’s regrettably gone a bit pudgy around the waist and whose jawline got sharper. You could argue that fat-shaming is commonplace in show business and this is the case for entertainment everywhere, period. To that I’ll say no, no, China is on a different plane entirely.

For entertainers in a country that’s simultaneously obsessed with food and being skinny, starvation is a sign of hard work, resilience, and discipline. All foods are the forbidden fruits beckoning you towards irredeemable corruption, and if you are strong enough to withstand the snake’s whispers, you are to be among the Gods. To Chinese celebrities, all foods are means to an end, a way of demonstrating their immunity to sin, their dedication to their careers, their allegiance to their fans.

Look towards the amount of celebrities inventing new dieting methods and spreading the gospel on the internet. Guan Xiaotong with her viral low-calorie sandwich, actor Yin Zheng with his daily dieting updates, where he films himself eating boiled chicken breasts with no seasoning and a lot of begrudging sighs. Actor Bai Jingting was praised after his castmate anecdotally shared that he wore a mask throughout a hotpot party and didn’t eat a single bite. Food exists to be resisted. It needs to be tamed into losing its vigour and bite (pun intended) and allowing the not-eating-eater to rise above it.

Of course, girls get it a lot worse than the guys. Every gram of weight gained equals two or three Weibo hot searches. I say this with absolute seriousness that for a lot of female celebrities in China, anorexic skinniness is a badge of honour and an ideal state. A new slang, “paper-person” (纸片人), is created in recent years, just to put words to an updated beauty standard. Earlier this month, Xinjiang actress Gulinazha or Bextiyar Gülnezer was “crowned” as such, thanks to a video in which she wore a backless top with all of her upper body bones clearly visible. You can count up every single one of her vertebrae.

The same is observed next door. My South Korean friend told me about the #Pro-Ana hashtag on Twitter that’s widely popular in SK, where pro-anorexia communities congregate and share photos of their weight loss. Rose from BLACKPINK is a frequently cited role model, as well as Jang Wonyoung from IVE. On the opposite end of the spectrum you’d find the relentlessly fatshamed Jeongyeon from TWICE or, more recently, Giselle from aespa. Testimonials from current and retired idols like VCHA’s KG confirm a culture within K-pop entertainment companies to encourage eating disorders. From big names like Girls Generation to pre-debut trainees, most women in K-pop were once coerced into fasting, so much so that their benchmark of “binge eating” is tragically warped. ITZY’s Chaeryeong went viral on a reality show for her definition of overeating as “a whole tub of Pringles and an entire watermelon”. I could be here all day enumerating a dozen other examples. To women in entertainment, food is fatal to your professional life, and you must starve to near-death to prolong it.

The paradox is that fans often love to see their idols eat. Celebrities have garnered attention for eating well, eating lots and eating in a compelling way, a hunger-inducing, I-must-also-order-fried-chicken way. That’s seen as approachable, endearing and down-to-earth (接地气). In neiyu, nearly every actress has marketed themselves as a “foodie” (吃货) at some point, because that could be cute and niche if done correctly. Over in South Korea, MAMAMOO member Hwasa became the synonym of “gopchang”, barbequed cow intestines, because of how delicious she made it look. She appeared on a reality show devouring them at a restaurant, and allegedly boosted the city’s gopchang sales after the episode aired. The clip made me crave it and I don’t even eat intestines. Of course, you must have a perfect body even if you love eating. That’s just a given.

Perhaps that is the fundamental tension about food in fanquan: you must enjoy it without it seemingly affecting you. You must have it and entertain us while having it, but only conceptually. You must let it pass through you like a whiff of air, the kind that’s blown out of restaurant vents, warm, tempting, drool-worthy, distant.

Charyeong made her Pringles comment on a popular YouTube show “Not Much Prepared” (차린건 쥐뿔도 없지만), hosted by rapper and singer Lee Youngji. It has a simple premise and an even simpler set design, the rougher edge completely intentional. Celebrity guests join Youngji in her matchbox flat and chat over a drink or two. Most of the time, they get under-the-table drunk. The camera crew sit inches away and supplies canned laughter like they’re part of the show.

The intimate, stripped-down element made it one of the most popular programmes in the current K-pop scene. It is a must-hit in an idol’s comeback schedule. Compilations of the show have millions of views on Bilibili alone, not to mention the cross-platform traction some of the clips have gained. Three seasons in, Youngji has consolidated a groundbreaking genre of reality content: food-centric comedy where you barely eat. She would prepare pizzas, pastas, seafood platters and every kind of party food for the guests, but I rarely see them clear their plates. Her home bar offers more brands of alcohol than an average convenience store could stock, but you don’t see everyone enjoy a drink for the sake of it. Youngji, on the other hand, does the eating and drinking for all of them. Food entertains the audience by being resisted by the idols out of dedication, and savoured by Youngji in an appetising way. Two birds with one stone.

Youngji on her show

Youngji made a name for herself on the reality show “High School Rapper”. Aged 17, dressed in her uniform, in possession of a croaky voice and an electrifying flow that won her first place. She was also the first female rapper to have won the notoriously cutthroat rap competition “Show Me The Money”. This career path protects her from many confines a female idol would be subjected to. She can sport an androgynous aesthetic, appear on camera without makeup, do shots, fall into laughing fits and scream into Karaoke mics without keeping up an immaculate appearance.

Even if she were to pursue idolism seriously, I doubt the South Korean beauty standards would be satisfied with her image. Youngji is considered too tall and curvy, not dainty enough for crop tops and camisoles. One of her recent hits, “Small Girl”, talks of this exact anxiety of non-conformity. She’s probably too “masculine”, having occupied male-dominated corners of entertainment with no intention to leave (both rap shows and variety shows 예능). Fans of male idols tend to feel “safer” about Youngji. She’s considered less of a threat and more of a “bro”, lacking feminine sex appeal to be dateable. They can guest on her show without raising suspicions of a secret relationship, all because she is a non-idol. It makes her the antithesis of the faces sitting in front of her on “Not Much Prepared”. Therefore, she eats. Food is the freedom granted to you when you are ousted from the game. It is only when you aren’t consumed by the onlooker as eye candy that you can consume what you need.

Since Youngji’s success, other celebrities have followed suit and made their own programmes in this format, like Lee Hyeri with “Hyeri’s Club”, Kyuhyun with KyuTV, and Daesung with Zip Daesung. The list goes on. Guests come on the show, make some food or get presented with some food, and take a couple of performative spoonfuls. It is true that the purpose of these shows are in-depth conversations, so the eating aspect could be naturally sidelined. But why is food involved in the first place if it ends up as a “side dish”?

My theory is that food humanises entertainment. It gives celebrities relatability and connectability, revealing that they participate in this act of consumption as often as we do. We all have our respective “gejangs”, culinary compositions in which histories ferment and out of which emotions arise. We may never know the celebrities personally, but we will always be united by the emotions we feel through tasting food. This is why you see fans constantly asking for dinner recommendations when they interact with their idols, before going away and eating the same dish. This is why you see fans visiting the restaurants they frequent, for reasons other than trying to bump into them. It’s about the collective experience of nourishing our bodies in the same way. After all, friends are people you break bread with.

It’s also why there are daily update accounts on Twitter that post enlisted idols’ meals in the military. Going off of the publicly viewable menus on the barracks’ websites, the account owners would photoshop the items onto a food tray and chronicle them for two years. A lot of fans find it intrusive and over-the-top, but many others need this knowledge to assuage the blow of this “military blank period” (军白期) and the pain of separation. It keeps the idol within our proximity in impossible and tangible forms.

Through food tray accounts, you’d also realise just how abusive the idol industry is. Woozi is probably eating nutritionally balanced, regularly spaced and sustaining meals for the first time since he debuted. All enlisted idols get bulkier throughout the service for this precise reason. Fans let the weight gain slide, of course, for this one instance only. We need to cut them some slack when they are literally in the trenches. Food is a privilege imparted as a gesture of benevolence. They must lose all weight before they discharge, though. The rules are rules.

Ultimately, food in entertainment boils down to an issue of ownership. At no point in time do the celebrities own their bodies, because modern fandom decides what they should look like, head to toe, from hair length to muscle mass. Fandom consumes their bodies, financially supports the well-being of those bodies, and therefore wants to control the food they ingest. Licensing some, denying others. Permitting at times, depriving almost always, until control feels like closeness and connection bloat into total possession, a perfect union.

Most idols see this with full clarity. They play submission like a trick in the book, volunteering details of their weight fluctuations, workout regimes and even results of health check-ups, everything happening in and on their bodies. I know a lot, too much, about the protein intolerance that Mingyu of SEVENTEEN experiences. ATEEZ talks about their colonoscopies. Thirst-trapping gym photos are obviously in the equation. A recent video of BTS members’ bodybuilding has trended their names almost instantaneously.

A text I sent my best friend that I only see the incredulity of in hindsight

Beyond concerns for their privacy and the fan-idol boundary being overstepped, I find the implication of this submission a lot more disturbing. If they surrender their bodies to the fans and most fans will never be able to confirm the physicality of their bodies—never touch and smell and see their bodies up close—where does the flesh go? Both sides would feel detached from the human being behind the persona of the performer. The body becomes a vessel for performance.

July saw the release of Tencent’s new cooking competition show, “一饭封神”, which was to me an obvious attempt at replicating the success of South Korea’s Culinary Class Wars. Hundreds of chefs across China go through rounds of challenges set up by the star-studded judge panel, including actor-turned-chef Nicholas Tse. Meanwhile, both iQiyi and Youku are supposedly in the process of filming cooking varieties that are projected to air later in the year. It seems like 2025 is the inaugural year for “美食综”, delicacy realities.

According to an interview, the production team at Tencent wanted to highlight the diverse “character profiles” of the chefs more than the food itself, letting the non-entertainers (素人) appeal to the audience in an identifiable and resonating way. My interpretation of that is they want to pan-celebrify the chefs. The end goal of these shows is for us to look past the food entirely. When we look beyond what’s on the plate and regard them as performers, we fall back into the pattern of neiyu: consuming and investing in the bodies, not the art they make.

Judging by how I haven’t heard about “一饭封神” from my friends or seen any clips of it on social media, I’d say the agenda has failed. However, it doesn’t mean that food will return to serve its original purpose in entertainment content, which is to spark joy. Food will continue to be a device, a telescope, in which the stars seem closer than they really are.