In one little corner of the internet, Buddhist nuns–unadorned, unpretentious, and unassuming–have garnered an impressive following. The NHK documentary program Yamato Ama-dera Shōjin Nikki, or Diary of Devotion: Yamato Ama-dera Temple, has been airing since 2016 and has drawn an especially emotional audience. One episode, uploaded to YouTube on March 7 of this year, reached 76K views in just three weeks. The comments on the video, all written in Japanese, are an outpouring of adoration, and perhaps what one might call “longing.” “It calms my heart and makes me smile,” writes one commenter. “I really want to meet them!” writes another. One admits, “I’m jealous of these nuns’ lives! They’re always so energetic and smiling.”[1] The program itself is simple, yet deeply charming. It follows the daily lives of three Buddhist nuns as they harvest food from the mountainside they live on, help their neighbors, pray, and cook vegetarian meals made almost entirely from fresh, local ingredients.
The nuns of Ama-dera Temple are not alone. Recently, Buddhist-style cooking has drawn quite the following, especially on the internet. In Japan, China, and South Korea, nun-chefs and monk-chefs, along with “traditional”-style farmer-influencers, have come into vogue. While they follow Buddhist dietary rules to varying extents, this new wave of eminent cooks all use traditional East Asian methods and recipes to evoke a sense of comfort and nostalgia in their viewers. In the case of the Buddhist nuns and monks, many parts of their diet date back to 250 BCE and trace their roots to India. The appeal of this ancient, traditional cuisine to modern-day viewers is twofold. In one way, cuisine linked to traditional philosophies is inspiring to viewers. In the hands of Buddhist monks and nuns, cooking can be an act of devotion, a way of acting out their philosophical values in the world. As the hungry audience feasts their eyes on the elegant monastic cuisine of Jeong Kwan or the delicious yet simple fare of the Ama-dera nuns, they are also encouraged to think about where the food came from and what it means to live a devoted life. These philosophies of food production and creation help assuage modern anxieties, but they also offer possible solutions to current environmental crises.
However, the other element of traditional cuisine’s appeal is in its aesthetic evocation of nostalgia for a more spiritual, rural past. Aesthete-farmer influencers like Li Ziqi create a colorful escapist fantasy for the viewer in which they do not have to confront the stark contrast between modern life and the cinematically constructed lifestyle of the influencer. Furthermore, many of these online influencers use their deceptively simple, down-to-earth aesthetics to promote conspicuous consumption. In today’s East Asia, traditional-style cuisine, especially Buddhist cuisine, continues to exercise a special pull on the imagination. There is a danger, however, that its nostalgic aesthetic can reign supreme, swallowing up all else in a world where seeing is believing.
Part I: From Ashoka to Tenmu: A Quick Survey of Buddhist Influences on East Asian Cuisine
In Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History, Rachel Laudan tells the story of how Buddhist ideas about food and influences from many Asian regions coalesced into today’s Eastern monastic Buddhist cuisine (Japanese: shōjin ryōri). As Buddhist ideologies traversed the majority of the Asian subcontinent, the staple foods of Buddhist cuisine changed over time and place. However, certain rules remained important. One is the general avoidance of meat; Mauryan ruler Ashoka’s edict banning animal sacrifice in the 3rd century BCE is echoed by Japanese Emperor Tenmu’s 675 CE ban on the killing of many animals.[2] Both were interpreting the alleged words of the Buddha: do not kill, but cherish all life.[3] The nuns at Ama-dera, too, abstain from meat-eating, as well as contemporary shōjin ryōri chef Tanahashi Toshio, who holds that meat is bad for the human body.[4] Tanahashi and Korean nun Jeong Kwan, both acclaimed for their Buddhist cooking, are outspoken against the use of the five pungent vegetables (Korean: oshinchae, Japanese: gokun): garlic, green onion, wild chives, chives, and leeks.[5] [6] Even far from home, these ancient taboos are still mostly observed in today’s East Asian monastic cuisine.
Of course, the influence of Buddhist cuisine on the popular grammar of food in East Asia cannot be understated. Buddhist monks played a significant role in pioneering tea and sugar production in China. They also brought tofu and seitan into the mainstream.[7] Later, Chinese monks brought such staples as tea and tofu into eminence in Japan. While the specifics of Buddhist cuisine are still touted by high-profile Buddhist chefs, generalized Buddhist influence on East Asian cuisine has proliferated almost to the point of becoming invisible to the naked eye.
Part II: Eating Philosophy: How Buddhist Cooking Could Save the World
While Buddhist influence on individual ingredients and flavors is important to consider, cooking is never just about food. Cooking choices and techniques are tangible pieces of culture that accompany us through time. Therefore, the philosophy of Buddhist cuisine is also an important area of study when it comes to understanding the influence of traditional philosophies on East Asia today. Buddhist ideas about the importance of fresh, seasonal ingredients, one’s position in relation to all other beings in the universe, and ways of handling and understanding food are all preserved by the continued popularity of Buddhist cuisine, both online and in one’s own kitchen. These ideas are all the more compelling because they offer potential solutions to environmental crises facing East Asia today.
In Cuisine and Empire, Laudan calls the Japanese shōjin ryōri developed in the 15th century “at once ethical and aesthetic.”[8] I would argue that this description applies to nearly all Buddhist cuisine. No one better embodies this than Korean Buddhist nun Jeong Kwan. In her own words, she is a “nun…not a chef.”[9] Yes, the food she creates at Baegyangsa Temple is beautiful to look at, and it has brought her great fame, including an appearance on Netflix’s series Chef’s Table. Yet Kwan sticks to her principles. Her food is strictly vegan and oshinchae-free. Moreover, she grows her ingredients in a garden free of pesticides and with no fence to protect it. Her philosophy to “let nature take care of it”[10] is consistent both with her Buddhist principles and with the popular food trends of today, where “farm-to-table” and “all-natural” foods are increasingly in demand.
Her way of cooking, itself, embodies Zen Buddhist philosophy, with important implications for today’s world. She explains: “We live and breathe together with nature. So we must understand the essence, the intrinsic nature of the plants, the ingredients. Only then will we know how to slice it…to bring out its true flavor and scent. The ingredients and I are one.”[11] Her words echo the writing of influential Zen Buddhist Dōgen, who taught: “If the whole universe is Buddha then food is Buddha also.”[12]
If the whole universe is Buddha then food is Buddha also.Dogen |
In the 13th century, Dōgen pioneered the idea of elevating cooking to a form of meditation. This mindful way of handling food, and the understanding that the ingredients, the wild boars that steal from Kwan’s garden, and we, are all part of one system, speaks to many of today’s anxieties about mass production and environmental degradation. As centers of industry, especially (to varying degrees) steel and car manufacturing, China, Japan, and Korea all face their share of environmental challenges, including air, soil, and water pollution.[13] Although progress to improve the environment and increase food safety has been made in recent decades, especially in Japan, and policy has become more eco-focused in all three countries,[14] these worries persist, understandably. The vision of Jeong Kwan’s garden offered in the many YouTube interviews and articles that showcase her lifestyle is a comforting one; it shows us a place untouched by the colossal and terrifying changes of modernity. However, Kwan’s content is not simply a balm; it is also a call to action. Because Kwan’s cooking is intrinsically linked with her Buddhist philosophy, it not only soothes, but instructs. Her way of growing and using ingredients forces the “non-chef” to follow Dōgen’s imperative: “We must think deeply of the ways and means by which this food has come.”[15]
Kwan’s content is not simply a balm; it is also a call to action. Because Kwan’s cooking is intrinsically linked with her Buddhist philosophy, it not only soothes, but instructs. Her way of growing and using ingredients forces the “non-chef” to follow Dōgen’s imperative: “We must think deeply of the ways and means by which this food has come.” |
In the hands of figures like Jeong Kwan, cooking and eating Buddhist cuisine is not just about following certain arbitrary rules and taboos passed down over the ages; it is the practice of Buddhist philosophy, ethical and aesthetic, as Laudan says. The online popularity of Buddhist “non-chefs” like Kwan and the Ama-dera nuns speaks both to the visual appeal of the beautiful food they create and to the way their approaches to food can answer deep, needling questions about the relationship between humans and the environment. In an environmentally fraught age, Buddhist philosophy has the potential to guide people in making sense of the world around them–and making it right again. At least, that is what one would hope.
Part III: Seeing is Believing: The Aesthete-Farmer
In the end, the delicious food made by Jeong Kwan and the nuns of Ama-dera, whose popularity has been mostly online, is not tasted; it is seen. There is a danger here. When traditional, Buddhist- or Daoist- inspired food is divorced from the ethical and becomes mainly aesthetic, it loses its power to help the viewer think about taking action in the world and becomes nothing more than a vehicle for nostalgia. This leads us to one final chef, this one inspired by China’s traditional Confucian-Daoist-Buddhist cuisine[16]: Li Ziqi, famous for making stunning, seasonal food in her rural mountainside home using traditional methods. In January 2021, she broke the Guinness World Record for most subscribers for a Chinese-language channel on YouTube.[17] Her videos, which often garner over 30 million views on YouTube and even more on Douyin (Chinese TikTok)[18], can only be described as “eye candy.” Saturated with color, they intersperse glimpses of idyllic Sichuan countryside with well-framed shots of Li Ziqi hard at work on her cooking, her fine-featured face in focus and trees laden with fruit slightly out of focus behind her. The story Li Ziqi’s videos wish to tell is clear: the world is abundant, tradition is hard, manual work are beautiful, and life is good. Yet the appeal of her life’s supposed simplicity and the natural beauty of the lush, lonely Chinese countryside contrasts oddly with the feature-film quality of the videos, themselves. The most concerning, puzzling part about Li Ziqi’s media presence–and what sets her apart from the Ama-dera nuns and Jeong Kwan–is that it is not quite real.
On liziqicn.com, the viewer of Li’s rustic, traditional life comes face-to-face with a jarring clickable banner: “Li Ziqi is most known for her creativity in preserving and innovating a great variety of traditional Chinese food. Shop now with 7 day delivery.” In addition to over 30 food products, including “Li Ziqi Spicy Instant Noodle” and “Li Ziqi Qing Honeysuckle Herbal Tea,” viewers can purchase from an extensive line of Li Ziqi clothing, jewelry, and kitchenware.[19] The soothing simplicity of the life Li Ziqi projects into the internet is a tool to encourage conspicuous consumption. She uses Confucian-Daoist-Buddhist cooking techniques less as an expression of devotion and philosophy and more as an aesthetic evocation of nostalgia.
Of course, Li Ziqi and her production team cannot be blamed for their product; they are simply fulfilling a niche in the Chinese and international market. Li is part of the recent fugu trend in China, a cultural craze for reviving historical traditions ranging from wearing hanfu (pre-Qing clothing styles)[20] to actually moving to the countryside and practicing traditional agriculture and crafts, as Li did in 2015. This trend of harnessing nostalgia for an ambiguously traditional, more “earthy” past in order to sell products and gain media influence is certainly not limited to China, though. Robbie Hodges, in his article on the fugu trend for travel magazine Suitcase, identifies Li as part of a growing group of “aesthete-farmers” in a “cult of wholesomeness.”[21] Indeed, fugu has somewhat of a Western counterpart in “cottagecore,” a U.S.- and Europe-based trend focusing on pastoral tranquility as well as baking, sewing, and other traditional pursuits that rose to eminence in 2020.[22]
Both fugu and cottagecore answer many of the same anxieties that Jeong Kwan’s content and Yamato Ama-dera Shōjin Nikki do. They construct a vision, a soothing virtual dream of an untouched rural world. They assuage fears about environmental degradation, urban isolation, and poor food quality. Still, Li Ziqi’s videos are distinct from the others in several ways. For one, there is little to no dialogue or explanation of her methods, allowing viewers to gratuitously consume the beautiful and the uncomplicated without addressing how or why. Where Shōjin Nikki is about daily activities, relationships, and community, the focus of Li Ziqi’s videos is primarily visual. Furthermore, the lack of commentary and the distinct visual focus frames Li Ziqi as a character, rather than a real person, allowing the viewer to project their emotions and values onto her, rather than vice versa. Ultimately, Li Ziqi’s lifestyle (which, Hodges speculates, is most likely quite expensive)[23] is not achievable for viewers; it is simply pleasant to look at. It does not offer a solution to today’s crises, simply a way to ignore these issues and live in an idealized version of the past. Functionally, it is little more than escapism.
In the kitchen, the line between performance and true devotion, between ethical cooking and cooking to achieve a “traditional” aesthetic: it is as thin as the blade of a knife. |
In truth, Li Ziqi, Jeong Kwan, and the Ama-dera nuns all hold much of the same appeal. All of them benefit from the rural aesthetic of their gardens high in the mountains of China, South Korea, and Japan, respectively. All of them call upon traditional religious or spiritual imagery, although the nuns are more vocal about what these traditions mean to them. The overall draw of their online presences could be summed up as “longing for the simple life”–or is it more than just that? In the kitchen, the line between performance and true devotion, between ethical cooking and cooking to achieve a “traditional” aesthetic, is as thin as the blade of a knife. Perhaps, ultimately, the difference is spelled out in action alone. In a world where the virtual reigns, the concrete work of Jeong Kwan, for instance, who practices farming and eating according to her philosophy, and the Ama-dera nuns, who not only cook according to Buddhist teachings, but are active in taking care of their community,[24] stands out. They call us not just to consume, but to try to understand that which we are consuming, and through this, ourselves. It is the difference of a single motion, the motion that connects us, atom-to-atom, to the world we inhabit–the swift fall of the knife.
They call us not just to consume, but to try to understand that which we are consuming, and through this, ourselves. It is the difference of a single motion, the motion that connects us, atom-to-atom, to the world we inhabit–the swift fall of the knife. |
[1] Users katsumi- enikki, Mama Kilut, and 최복희, March 22-27, 2021, comments on “やまと尼寺 精進日記「如月（きさらぎ） 白菜じまい 春の声」,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf4wFBk1y6w.
[2] Rachel Laudan, “Buddhism Transforms the Cuisines of South and East Asia, 260 B.C.E.–800 C.E.” in Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History. (University of California Press, 2013), 128.
[3] Bodhin Kjolhede, “The Buddhist Case for Vegetarianism,” in The Global Guide to Animal Protection, edited by Linzey Andrew, by Tutu Desmond. (University of Illinois Press, 2013), 246.
[4] https://kyotojournal.org/online-special/the-art-of-tanahashi-toshio/ Note: I would properly cite this, but the website is for some reason no longer accessible.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Jeong Kwan, “[Next in K-Story] Food story that fills your soul with Buddhist nun Jeong Kwan,” YouTube, December 21, 2020, video, 12:56, https://youtu.be/ibBZBd8ieX4.
[7] Laudan, “Buddhism Transforms Cuisines,” 120.
[8] Laudan, “Buddhism Transforms Cuisines,” 129.
[9] Kwan, “Food story that fills your soul,” 2:21, https://youtu.be/ibBZBd8ieX4.
[10] Jeff Gordinier, “Jeong Kwan, the Philosopher Chef,” New York Times Style Magazine, Oct. 16, 2015.
[11] Kwan, “Food story that fills your soul,” 10:45, https://youtu.be/ibBZBd8ieX4.
[12] Dōgen, “Fushuku Hampō,” in Cooking, Eating, Thinking: Transformative Philosophies of Food (Indiana University Press), 153.
[13] Mary Alice Haddad and Stevan Harrell, “The Evolution of the East Asian Eco-Developmental State,” The Asia-Pacific Journal 19, no. 1 (2021), Article ID 5557.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Dōgen, “Fushuku Hampō,” 158.
[16] Laudan, “Buddhism Transforms Cuisines,” 124.
[17] Echo Zhan, “Li Ziqi breaks YouTube subscribers record for Chinese language channel,” Guinness World Records, Feb. 3, 2021.
[18] Adrienne Matei, “Country life: the young female farmer who is now a top influencer in China,” The Guardian, Jan. 28, 2020.
[19] https://liziqicn.com/.
[20] Evelyn Wang, “Why Han style clothing is taking China’s Gen Z by storm,” Vogue Business in China, Feb. 6, 2020.
[21] Robbie Hodges, “Sorry Hygge, You’re Out: How Fugu Became The New High Luxury,” Suitcase Magazine, May 22, 2020.
[22] Anita Rao Kashi, “’Cottagecore’ and the rise of the modern rural fantasy,” BBC Culture, Dec. 8, 2020.
[23] Hodges, “Sorry Hygge.”
[24] やまと尼寺精進日記, “弥生桃のお茶会春はこぶ,” YouTube, 29:32, Mar. 10, 2021, https://youtu.be/xYu14pZEvuM.