Today’s Episode
Discover how a young woman from the UK fell head-over-heels for Chinese food and became one of its greatest storytellers. In this episode, meet Fuchsia Dunlop — the first foreigner to train at a Sichuan chef school, and explore her delicious journey into Chinese cuisine.
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大家好，欢迎回来 MaoMi Chinese！
今天我想跟大家介绍一个非常特别的人，她的中文名字叫扶霞，英文名字是 Fuchsia Dunlop。她是一个英国人，但是很多中国人都说，她可能比中国人更了解中国菜。为什么呢？她的故事真的很有意思。
扶霞在英国长大。她小时候，不太了解中国。大学的时候，她第一次来到中国，那是1990年代的事情了。那个时候的中国和现在不一样，生活简单，外国人也不多。但是在那一次旅行，她爱上了中国菜，她觉得中国菜实在是太好吃了、太丰富了、太神奇了。她吃到了以前从来没吃过的味道，也看到了完全不同的做饭的方式。她一下子就爱上了。
后来，她决定不只是吃，还要真正了解中国菜。于是，她做了一件非常勇敢的事：她去了中国四川成都，进了一个厨师学校。她是这个学校里第一个外国学生。每天她都和中国厨师，和中国学生一起学习做中国菜。她每天都努力练习，比如切很细很细的丝，用很重的锅炒菜，等等。她说，中国的厨房让她感觉像进了一个新的世界。
扶霞不仅会做中国菜，她还写了很多本书，介绍她看到的、学到的、吃到的东西。她的书不仅介绍中国菜，也介绍中国的文化和人。这些书在西方非常有名，也帮很多外国人第一次真正了解中国菜和中国文化。
很多中国人说，她是“中国菜最好的外国朋友”。她尊重中国的传统，尊重中国厨师的智慧，也努力让全世界看到，中国菜不是“外卖店里的炒饭和炒面”，而是一个非常有历史的文化。
我特别喜欢她的一句话：“如果你想了解一个国家，你一定要了解它的食物。”
希望你们也喜欢今天的故事。你最喜欢的中国菜是什么？欢迎给我们留言，和我们分享！
Hello everyone, welcome back to MaoMi Chinese!
Today I want to introduce someone very special. Her Chinese name is Fuxia, and her English name is Fuchsia Dunlop. She’s British, but many Chinese people say she might understand Chinese cuisine even better than we do. Why? Her story is truly fascinating.
Fuchsia grew up in the UK. When she was young, she didn’t know much about China. It was only when she was at university that she came to China for the first time, back in the 1990s. China then was very different from today — life was simple, and there weren’t many foreigners. But during that trip, she completely fell in love with Chinese food. She thought Chinese cuisine was unbelievably delicious, incredibly rich, and full of surprises. She tried flavours she had never tasted before, and she saw cooking techniques that were completely new to her. She fell in love instantly.
Later, she decided she didn’t just want to eat Chinese food — she wanted to understand it properly. So she did something very brave: she went to Chengdu in Sichuan, China, and enrolled in a professional chef school. She was the first foreign student in the entire school. Every day, she learned Chinese cooking alongside Chinese chefs and Chinese students. She practised hard every day — cutting vegetables into extremely thin shreds, stir-frying with heavy woks, and so on. She said that being in a Chinese kitchen felt like entering a whole new world.
Fuchsia can cook Chinese food very well, but she also writes books about what she has seen, learned, and tasted. Her books don’t just talk about Chinese dishes, but also about Chinese culture and the people she met. These books are very famous in the West and have helped many foreigners truly understand Chinese cuisine and Chinese culture for the first time.
Many Chinese people say she is “the best foreign friend of Chinese cuisine”. She respects Chinese traditions, respects the wisdom of Chinese chefs, and works hard to show the world that Chinese cuisine is not just “fried rice and chow mein from takeaway shops”, but a culture with deep history and meaning.
There’s one sentence of hers that I especially like:“If you want to understand a country, you must understand its food.”
I hope you enjoyed today’s story as well. What’s your favourite Chinese dish? Feel free to leave a comment and share it with us!