Recently part of my work with the television station took me to the city of Chong Qing to do a documentary on Sichuan Hotpot. I studied the whole process, start to finish, from the selection of the red fiery peppers and "flower peppers" that are used to the creating of the "stock" of bone soup and suet, red peppers mixed with precise amounts of garlic, ginger, seaweed, wild mushrooms from the mountains and other ingredients. It is an art. Different meats and vegetables are cooked in the fiery soup, and people love to sit around and enjoy each other's company around a steaming pot, relishing some time together for relaxation and sharing. They also say that the heat of the peppers dispels the dampness that comes from living in the river valley.

The origin of hotpot is with the laborers who worked on the boats that plied the Yangzi River 150 years ago and carried the goods from the river into town. Their life was difficult, requiring them to carry load after load of very heavy baskets, chests and bundles up the hill on shoulder poles. They did not make very much money, and they were often in a hurry, so they did not have much time or money to eat.

It became the custom to get the cheapest protein they could find, the innards from cows and other animals, and throw it in a big pot with hot peppers and other spices and vegetables, to have a quick nourishing broth to eat. With time, hotpot became a very popular food with all the people of Chong Qing, and now you can find hundreds of different kinds of hotpot in thousands of hotpot restaurants that dot the streets all over town.

Because the origin of hotpot was with the laborers, I arranged to have dinner with the "stick-men" who still work the river, bringing cargoes up from the cargo boats and barges transporting goods on the two rivers that meet in Chong Qing. The day I was there, they were carrying huge baskets of stones up from the river in pairs, one wiry "stick-man" at each end of the pole, hauling them up to a construction site halfway up the steep stairs that rise up from banks, working in perfect unison. At the end of the day, they came around to one of the restaurants that served the "original" hotpot of the laborers. We ate together that night, cow stomach, duck intestine, pickled Chinese cabbage, solidified pigs' blood, fried peanuts with coriander and some sorghum spirits to keep warm in the evening chill.

They told me about their life. That day they had run at least 50 trips up from the river (two trips would have made me tired) each. I did not inquire about their pay, but I know it wasn't much.

They all saved everything they could and sent it home to their families in the mountains of Sichuan. They were proud of their children and for some, grandchildren, who were now able to go to school.
 
Up from the river

Elyn MacInnis, second row, spends time learning about the work of the "stick-men" and the origins of the traditional hotpot.

They have strict rules for handling the work. A "boss" assigns them to a job, and when I asked what they would do if their boss wasn't there, they told me that they would just ask the boss's wife! This way there was never any question of unfairness or jealousy.

The people who run the restaurant told me that the "stick-men" have a very high level of honesty and never steal from the cargo. They look after each other -- if someone is sick they will be taken care of. I could feel their kindness and their deep sense of community.

I was struck with one similarity between their lives and life in the foreign community in Beijing. I have found that perhaps the most important thing to cultivate in our congregation is consciously making the effort to be family for each other. It is hard to be away from home and not have close friends and relatives, especially when there are difficulties, and there can be great joy when we can share our lives with each other.

The same is true for the "stick-men" in Chong Qing. Both situations require compassion and an exercise of love that is wide and generous, and my dinner with the "stick-men" was a wonderful reminder of this.