In America, fish didn’t have bones. 

This was only partly true; fish anywhere had bones. It was a biologist’s truth. But in the States, fish weren’t eaten with bones. They were picked clean before delivered to a supermarket, everything bone-like sucked out early in the distribution process. I loved this about America. My yearly summer visits to Seattle consisted of fish, fish and more fish. Fish to my heart’s content. More importantly, boneless fish. Salmon, trout, tuna—it all slid into my mouth like warmed butter, soft and easy. An excess of collagen was no longer part of the recipe. It was practically a miracle. No more bones in teeth! A whole new world of wonder, utterly different to the one common denominator fish in China held.  

There was an unsaid rule in Chinese restaurants. It read: If there was fish—any fish dish—there would be bones. And if there were bones—any kind of bones—there would be the unified act of spitting the bones out. One, two, three, plop! It didn’t matter how many people were eating. Everyone spat their bones out in unison.  

This was a sight echoed everywhere in China. I saw it at the dinner table, the supermarket, the nearest Sam’s Club when sampling. Most often it was when there was a gathering of all our relatives, who branched out into uncountable numbers. Platters of dishes spread across the table, cousins and aunts and uncles alike crowding in the cramped room with chopsticks on hand. Voices crossed each other like string and knotted into a tangle of talk. Amidst the gossip, such as if so and so had made it into university or not, politics and business talk swelling the room into a ripened atmosphere of cheer, there was the plop! Bone hitting teeth. Bone curled in tongue. Bone arching through air. Bone landing on table. Plop, plop, plop! A chorus of bones. 

There was an art to it. We spread old newspapers below the dishes and smoothed them out so that each one was shared by two people. Elbows clicked against elbows; heads leaned against heads. Mouths opened, teeth biting down on tender fish flesh, a feel around for any sharp, protruding edges, and then the stripping down of those bones to their most naked forms. They were laid to rest on newspaper graves, black lettering forming their coffins. A practiced art. A survival instinct. 

China had honed this instinct from the start of its legacy. It was present from the first stretch of the Yellow River, the mother of all living creatures, because fish had bones in China. People would die if they didn’t learn how to spit those bones out. People did die. Children died because bones picked apart their throats. Children died because geographical location dictated diet, and sometimes the short end of the stick was given instead of picked. But people learnt how to spit those bones out. Children learnt how to spit those bones out. And people learnt to craft a longer stick. They made better dishes with fish—more tasteful dishes—with seasoning and cooking and all kinds of recipes.  

Changsha had dried fish. Small fish the size of a finger, flavored with salt and spice. Suzhou had orange ‘squirrel’ fish, sweetened with wine and diced like a pineapple. Hangzhou had fish dipped in vinegar and gravy. Fish sour and thick, but rich and tasteful. The soft, white fish meat pulled away from its skeleton like a breeze carried off the earth; it was gentle. It was no longer what it had once been. Around the dinner table, with the whole family gathered, I felt the wind in the bones. 

In China, people still die from choking on fish bones. People still spit the bones out onto old newspapers. People still go plop, plop, plop! like a chorus of bones. People still eat fish with bones, because over time, it has become something more than a survival instinct. Something more than simply natural selection and the unfortunate circumstance of geographical location. It has become a tradition, an activity, a normality. An enjoyment. My grandfather loves his fish with white wine. My sister and I compete to see how many bones we can spit out in a minute. One of my cousins uses the bones as a teeth-pick. Another collects uniquely shaped ones. This evolution from survival instinct—from eating fish with bones because it was the only fish available—to finding joy in the act is something that has taken thousands of years. In these centuries, cooking has been the catalyst for this slow, steady walk to the creation of food culture so potent in China today. This walk will continue on for time immemorial. 

There is a certain beauty in America’s boneless fish. But I think in the end, it goes like this: 

In China, fish have bones.