Bird flu blues in India? We stopped eating chicken months ago. By we, I mean only cautious Indians in China. For the rest, locals as well as Westerners here, bird flu is for the birds.
In Mumbai, ministers get photographed biting into chicken legs to encourage people to eat chicken, even though the bird flu virus has been found in chickens. In China, the government appears to go out of its way to take all possible measures to fight the flu ? culling birds by the million, vaccinating them, banning the sale of live birds, as well as killing of chickens in markets? Periodically, Hong Kong bans the import of birds from the mainland. The agriculture minister warned last month of a possible massive outbreak.
As in Mumbai, photographs of luminaries biting into chicken legs appear here too, that too on page one. Only, here it is not ministers urging people to risk their health, it is those in the business of selling chicken. Every year, at the slightest news of bird flu, the local head of KFC is photographed eating chicken. KFC is the largest fast food brand in China, with over 800 outlets.
KFC needn?t bother; most Chinese are quite sceptical about bird flu. Huang, a 30-year-old driver in a multinational, said with a shrug as he bit noisily into spicy Schezuan chicken, ?Chickens have been dying in the villages since I was a child. The villagers would just cook them and eat them. It was seen as a free meal. That?s what they do now too.?? This refusal to believe in the existence of the most hyped disease after AIDS, is coupled with complete faith in the government?s claim of having vaccinated all chickens.
No problem
Two days ago, the first batch of 200,000 ?disease-free chickens?? arrived in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, and were immediately booked. These come from 10 designated poultry farms in the city, and have coloured rings and numbers on their feet, to denote the district they are from. The rings cannot be removed and hence cannot be re-used on unchecked chicken.
However, city markets certainly don?t seem to take the warnings and bans too seriously. Live birds in cages are available in bird and flower markets. Live chicken is sold alongside vegetables; the killing, cleaning, and cutting, all done right there. The chicken sellers? infants sleep nearby; dogs roam around, and there?s not even a wash basin in sight! So even if one just wants to buy fresh vegetables, the risk remains.
Factories have not stopped serving chicken in their canteens, and restaurants continue to sell chicken, with the Indian eateries proudly announcing: ?Our chicken comes from Mexico.?
The problem is not with chicken cooked Indian style, but with that cooked Hunan and Guangdong style: which is so undercooked that you can see traces of blood on the bones. Chicken claws are a popular snack in Guangdong, kept on the table along with the small eats. Unappetizing to look at the best of times, in these times, they are a positive turn-off.
The last three years have seen so many infectious diseases strike China that it makes one wonder. At one stage, it seemed best to turn vegetarian: you couldn?t eat chicken/duck/goose because of bird flu; pigs were dying mysteriously in nearby Hong Kong; and with the mad cow disease in Britain, it was best to avoid steaks in restaurants where menus proudly announced that all their beef was imported. But no local gave up meat consumption, saying confidently, ?No problem with our beef and pork,? not even bothering to mention bird flu.
It?s ironic: as long as Mao ruled China, meat was a luxury for most families. Now they can?t do without it. It?s the foreigners who are discovering the exquisite delights of Chinese vegetarian food.