Another Dramatic Soliloquy

Premier Wen Jiabao is getting out his band of violins again with another sad tale to appeal to the masses that he is just like them.

In comments that were published yesterday in China Education News, Wen opened up about his family background and how his family was "constantly attacked" in Maoist campaigns.

Senior leaders do not usually talk about their pasts, but Wen told students and teachers at Nankai High School, his alma mater in Tianjin last week that his father was dismissed as a teacher and sent to look after pigs.

"After I went to high school and university, my family suffered constant attacks in the successive political campaigns," he said. Wen comes from a family of teachers and during Mao's campaigns to root out his adversaries, the party attacked and demoted citizens thought to have bad "class" backgrounds or suspect pasts. His father and grandfather were victims.

"In 1960, my father was also investigated for so-called historical problems. He could no longer teach and was sent to work on a farm on the outskirts of the city to tend pigs, and then later worked in a library," he said last week.

His grandfather constantly had to write "self-criticisms" according to surviving files from his school, Wen said. He died of cerebral hemorrhage in 1960.

"I was the one who carried him on my back to the hospital," he said.

Wen added his grandfather's self-criticisms "are filled with one self-criticism after another, written in small, neat characters," he added.

The 69-year-old Wen seems to be persistent in advocating political reforms perhaps because of his personal experiences.

Others think he is still too vague on his call for reforms or that he lacks support from other senior leaders to be taken seriously.

"I come from the people, and had a hard childhood, so I feel sympathy for all poor people and have given all that I can for the sake of their happiness," he said.

"My childhood was spent in war and hardship, and the poverty, turmoil and famine left an ineradicable imprint on my young soul."

If that's not dramatic enough, I don't know what is.

However if Wen really was determined to make things better for people, he really needs to prove himself with action and specific words otherwise his efforts of being a "man of the people" is just another illusion.

Seasonal Treats

White truffles from Alba

Around this time of year Chinese people get excited over hairy crab. Aficionados debate the merits of eating a female crustacean over a male one as it's all about the roe than the little bits of meat people pick out of with a series of tools. There's the ginger sauce that goes with it as well as the Chinese wine with a preserved plum in it to counteract the coolness.

The steamed crabs are eaten with a lot of ceremony and tradition.

As the crabs cannot be farmed, so each year the numbers vary. This year there aren't many crabs, but I've heard they are of a high quality.

Meanwhile the Italians also look forward to this period with the appearance of white truffles.

Truffles shaved on top of veal cheek agnolotti

They grow near the roots of oak trees and it requires dogs and pigs to sniff them out. However the forests are public domain and it's a game of finders keepers. The competition for white truffles -- the bigger the better -- is so tough that some truffle hunters resort to violent acts -- like killing an adversary's truffle dog -- as revenge for what they believe is stealing.

While the truffles may look like potatoes, they are pungent. A colleague asked me to describe what they smelled like and I didn't know where to begin except to say they are earthy.

They are usually kept with arborio rice and eggs in the same container so that they can absorb the truffle flavour.

White truffles are best eaten with the simplest of dishes -- a fried egg or pasta with butter.

Risotto with Piedmont cheeses, chanterelles and truffles

Then the ceremony begins with the white truffle shaved table side and the earthy aroma engulfs the senses.

One of my most memorable encounters with white truffles was many years ago at Grissini in the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong, where I had a fried sunny side up egg with truffles shaved on top. It was absolutely heavenly. Another dish was a simple risotto flavoured with the truffles. Amazing.

Since then I've been thinking about them every late October and November. And now a decade later I was very lucky to try them again last night at 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo in Central. A delegation from Piedmont, Italy was there and brought with them some white truffles from Alba.

The truffles were quite large and pungent too when released from their glass case. The excited maitre d' ceremoniously shaved the truffles onto each of our plates, four courses that included roast lobster, veal cheek agnolotti, risotto and beef tenderloin.

The thinly-sliced truffles graced our plates like giant light brown snowflakes that enhanced the flavours of each dish.

Beef tenderloin with chestnut and porcini ragout with truffles

If you ask me to choose between hairy crab and white truffles, the latter wins hands down.

Honestly I have yet to appreciate all the tedious work that goes into deconstructing a small crab when shaved white truffles on a bed of risotto is utterly satisfying.

But not all is lost -- I'll try some hairy crabs next week and let you know if my conclusion has to be amended.

In the meantime viva tartufo bianco!

Absurd Revenge

The Chinese government was not satisfied with holding artist and activist Ai Weiwei -- illegally -- for nearly three months. The authorities have now slapped him with a 15 million RMB tax bill for back taxes and fines he apparently did not pay. He has 15 days to pay up.

However Ai feels the government's action is more a reprisal for his criticism of the the Communist Party.

"If it's a tax problem, I'll pay. But if it's not, I won't pay," he said.

He told the BBC he is only a designer in the design company Fake Cultural Development that his wife Lu Qing is the legal representative of. He added there were only three employees in the company.

Ai said his wife was given two notifications stating he had to pay more than 15 million RMB -- 6.8 million RMB in back taxes, 6.8 million RMB in penalties and around 3 million RMB for interest in delayed payments.

His lawyer Pu Zhiqiang thinks Ai will probably lose his freedom if he is not able to pay up.

"The penalty is targeting the [Fake] company... but if Ai and his company refuse to pay, the worst situation is that Ai will be arrested again by the authorities," Pu said. "The whole matter is ridiculous because so far there is no evidence to show that the [firm] is involved in tax evasion. And there is also a lack of an open and fair hearing on this case."

Pu added the authorities confiscated the original documents from Ai's company, including its account books and records of its operations so they cannot check if these allegations are correct.

In addition, officials did not specify any particular transactions or dates when the company apparently failed to file their tax reports, Pu said.

"Accounts for tax purposes should be investigated by the tax bureau, not the police. But it's the police that took me away to an unknown place for 81 days to investigate taxes, Ai said yesterday.

"I just want to say, if a country is determined to do something in the world, it's a must to protect every citizen's human rights well [and] building up a fair legal system [is] the only option," said Ai. "However, I am feeling so [unsafe] in my country."

Ai felt the authorities were targeting him because even though he insisted he was only the designer of the company, the authorities claimed he was the "actual controller" of the firm.

"They finally made up this new title... I know this matter is targeted at me. The authorities warned that they would give me a hard time when I was detained," Ai said.

"The officials [from the Beijing taxation bureau] said that they are not fining me, but the Fake company. But when I asked: 'Why was my name singled out by the government, at the Foreign Ministry briefings?' They still said to me: 'This has nothing to do with you.'"

On his Twitter page, Ai wrote: "They [taxation officials] told me seriously: 'If the country says you have evaded taxes, then you must have evaded them.'"

He noted discrepancies in the tax amounts the authorities were charging him. He said when he was first detained in April the amount was 60 million RMB, and then after his release it dropped down to 20 million RMB.

"Now the authorities say they will set me free if I pay the [15 million RMB], set according to my financial capability," he said.

After the entire fiasco of detaining him and the massive international outcry, the authorities will not let go of Ai. It wants revenge, albeit a financial one to punish him for how he has made them look silly.

But in fact they are the ones creating more grief for themselves

In his interview with the BBC, the interviewer asked Ai how he was going to pay the fine. He said perhaps they would have to sell the family home and of course most people will be sympathetic to Ai's cause even more.

To make up monetary amounts for Ai to pay is outrageous without any clear indication of exactly what his company has done wrong.

But this is China, where they will do whatever they need to do to prove to themselves they are still in power.

The Fleeing Rich

It's not surprising to find that nearly half of all the mainland's super rich are considering emigration.

According to a newspaper article today, the survey was done by the infamous Hurun Report that surveyed people one-on-one in 18 major cities with assets of more than 10 million RMB. It also found 14 percent of 980 millionaires had either already moved overseas or were applying to do so.

The average respondent was 42 years old and was worth more than 60 million yuan.

Forty-six percent said they planned to emigrate, citing better education for their children overseas and concerns about security of their assets in China due to political and economic uncertainty. A third were either in the process of or investigating "investment immigration".

Interestingly the report did not list the most popular destinations for mainland millionaires though Hong Kong is probably top of the list. The city has attracted some HK$50 billion in investment immigration, and the effects can be seen in the property and fashion markets.

A Xinhua report also said that developed countries with good health care systems and less polluted environments like Canada and Australia were top destinations for mainland millionaires.

Other reasons for wanting to emigrate include the lack of legal framework in protecting assets, rising living costs and taxation. Some -- such as corrupt officials and businesspeople -- just wanted to leave because they obtained their money illegally. The increasing wealth gap also made the super rich uncomfortable living among their fellow citizens. Perhaps it's because they feel resentment when they ostentatiously show their wealth?

"This massive insecurity about the safety of their assets is like a huge black cloud hanging over their heads," said independent business commentator Ye tan was quoted as saying in the survey report.

The Hurun Report is "infamous" because once people's wealth is listed on there, not long afterwards many are hauled in by the Chinese government for corruption and soon after that they are either languishing in jail or executed.

It's no wonder they don't want to be scrutinized by anyone about their wealth.

Nevertheless it's interesting to note that while the super rich are benefiting from the system, they now feel they have accumulated enough to leave... how patriotic is that?