One's company, two's a crowd

Cai Yani, pictured here with one of her cats, has produced scores of single dining-themed videos that have gone viral on Youku.com. [Gao Erqiang / China Daily]

Former photo editor's single-dining cooking classes go viral online as city slickers adjust to independence or simply relish some 'me' time

Cai Yani, a former photo editor, has posted nearly three dozen videos online espousing the joys of cooking alone. The show is called Eating Alone (Yi Ren Shi).

At first, she wasn't too sure if anyone would watch them. So far, 9 million people have proved her wrong on Youku.com, China's YouTube. The most popular episode, about a spicy boiled fish dish, triggered 709,000 hits.

Each episode features one person cooking and eating a single meal, in both senses of the word. Cai, a Shanghai woman in her 30s, handpicks the hosts and asks them to choose one simple course. She has also written a book on the culture of single dining.

No one talks in the videos or interrupts the musical soundtrack. The whole process, including the ingredients and kitchenware, is illustrated artistically with large captions in an attractive typeface.

Some courses are for beginners, such as tofu with preserved egg (episode 1); some, like the spicy boiled fish (episode 18), require slicing skills; others are more off-kilter, such as the clip about making fried noodles in a bun (episode 32), a kind of hot dog without the sausage.

Cai said the food was inspired by Japanese manga comics and is popular in Japan and South Korea.

Eating alone is a rising trend in big cities. According to a report by the Huffington Post last year, Americans eat half of their meals alone as people increasingly delay marrying and work longer hours.

Shanghai seems to be following suit. According to China's sixth census in 2010, there were over 1.4 million single-person households in the city, accounting for 17.2 percent of all households. The number was up 3.8 percent from 2000. Over 60 percent of people who live alone in the city hail from other provinces.

In the past it was normal for a family to have three or four generations share the same living quarters and meals. But the size of the typical Shanghai family has shrunk from an average of 4.9 people per household in 1949 to 2.5 in 2010. And more young people are choosing to live on their own.

Cai said most of her followers come from Shanghai, followed by Beijing.

"Big cities attract migrant workers or those in search of a better life, and many of them have experienced living along," she said.

Even though her episodes only run for three minutes, they often expand beyond the subject of cooking. Some of the hosts tend to flowers or play musical instruments during the show; others are shown cleaning their room or getting made up.

One hat designer is even depicted taking her pet turtle for a picnic (spoiler alert: she eats the Japanese hot dog, not the reptile).

Waiting game

Cai has been living alone for the last decade. Three years ago she resigned from the magazine she was working for. What and where to eat suddenly became a daily puzzle.

After growing tired of convenience store food and the stares of strangers at restaurants, she came up with the video-sharing brainwave.

"Even couples get cold-shouldered by waiters in Shanghai because they don't want to waste big tables," she said. "They often give you the worst table, especially if you are alone, so you just want to finish your food quickly and leave."

One unexpected result of her success is that her family has stopped pressuring her to get married. "Now they can say: your daughter is married, but mine has a book," she joked.

Li Jie, a 32-year-old engineer who has lived alone in Shanghai for four years, is a huge fan.

"Her videos are great. There are more and more single women like me and it's nice to enjoy some food in peace by oneself," she said.

Li hails from Anhui province, 600 kilometers from Shanghai. Her parents found work in other cities after they were laid off during the reform of State-owned companies in the 1990s, and Li was left with her grandparents.

She added that's why she has never found dining out alone awkward. "I have been alone from a very young age."

Cai held a picnic-themed exhibition last month. She set up tents and invited people to relax and enjoy free food, drink and cooking tips. She said she was overwhelmed by the response.

Her videos are not exclusively for singles, but also for those who sometimes just appreciate their own company.

Take episode 17, for example, in which a married man demonstrates how to make clay pot rice. In his case, the guy just likes making breakfast for himself in the early morning, while his wife prefers to sleep.

"In the end, we all have to eat alone at some point," said Cai. "It sounds a bit sad, but even when you're alone you should treat yourself to a good meal now and then."

lixueqing@chinadaily.com.cn

 

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