Mengzi Cross-bridge Rice Noodle Food Cultural Tourism Festival,Honghe

The 2nd Mengzi Cross-bridge Rice Noodle Food Cultural Tourism Festival has kicked off at Mengzi County, Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province on October 21. The county plans to apply for the name of “China’s well-known city of special food”, and declare a place in the Shanghai Great World Guinness Book of Records for a tin bowl that has a diameter of 2.228 meters during the festival.

Mengzi is the birth place for many firsts of Yunnan and China: China’s first private railway, Yunnan’s first customs, post office, foreign bank, corporation and consulate, as well as thermal power plant, etc.

Cross-bridge rice noodles are a traditional Yunnan dish born out of one woman's desire to provide her husband with hot meals.

2nd Mengzi Cross-bridge Rice Noodle Food Cultural Tourism Festival to open

The press conference of the oncoming 2nd Mengzi Cross-bridge Rice Noodle Food Cultural Tourism Festival was held yesterday (September 20) in Kunming.

The 2nd Mengzi Cross-bridge Rice Noodle Food Cultural Tourism Festival will be held at Mengzi County, Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province from October 21 to 23. The county plans to apply for the name of “China’s well-known city of special food”, and declare a place in the Shanghai Great World Guinness Book of Records for a tin bowl that has a diameter of 2.228 meters.

Situated in the center of a fertile valley basin on a plateau 1000 meters above sea level, Mengzi is about 12 miles east of Gejiu, the capital city of Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture.

Mengzi is the birth place for many firsts of Yunnan and China: China’s first private railway, Yunnan’s first customs, post office, foreign bank, corporation and consulate, as well as thermal power plant, etc.

In the 19th century, Mengzi was a trading centre for commerce between the interior of Yunnan and the Hanoi-Haiphong area of Vietnam.

In 1886, a French convention chose Mengzi to be the center of trade in Yunnan province for importing and exporting goods via Tongking in Vietnam. Facilities for this opened 2 years later.

Gejiu became a county in 1913 and a city in 1951. With the improvement of communications and transportation between cities of Gejiu and Kaiyuan and the other counties nearby, plus the development of trade between southwestern China and the countries of Southeast Asia, Mengzi's ties have increasingly strengthened with Gejiu and Kaiyuan. The whole area has become a border economic centre. In addition to tin, the county's natural resources include coal, manganese, lead, zinc, and antimony.

Cross-bridge rice noodles

Cross-bridge rice noodles are a traditional Yunnan dish born out of one woman's desire to provide her husband with hot meals.

According to legend, there used to live a scholar named Yang who preferred studying for the imperial exams amidst the tranquility of an island in Nanhu Lake, Mengzhi County, Yunnan province rather than at home. Therefore, Ms. Yang had to walk from their home to the island every day to deliver his meals. As the distance was great, her dishes always arrived cold. She experimented with different methods to keep her dishes warm, but nothing worked. One day, she made chicken soup and when Mr. Yang raised his soup bowl to his lips for a sip, he found the soup still blisteringly hot.

Ms. Yang then realized that her chicken soup, with its insulating layer of chicken grease, could keep at high temperatures for long periods. From that day on, ingenious Ms. Yang used her chicken soup as meal foundation rather than meal accompaniment. Everyday she would walk to the island with a large bowl of her soup, along with various thinly sliced, uncooked ingredients, such as rice noodles, meat, and vegetables. She would then toss the uncooked items into the scalding hot liquid onsite, ensuring her husband a hot meal. As she had to cross a bridge to reach the island, her dish came to be known as "cross-bridge rice noodles." Mengzi County was hence called the home town of "cross-bridge rice noodles."