My Dad was born in Shanghai in the year of the dragon. When he left China in 1949, he had to leave without the chance to say goodbye to his parents or brother. He had just enlisted with the Nationalist Army's Medical School right before the entire school evacuated to Taiwan, retreating from the Communist Army.
Taiwan was in pure chaos and supplies weren't available for weeks at a time. Food was very scarce and my Dad told us that there was only one rice bowl for his class of 100+ medical students, with only one large steamer of rice and one bowl of chili sauce for meals. The students would take turns eating out of the same rice bowl and flavoring it with the chili sauce.
The rice bowl was saved and for many years, it was passed from classmate to classmate, until the mid-1990s when my Dad's class donated the rice bowl to the Nationalist Military Medical School in Taiwan, where it is still on display to this day. It honors the struggles and hardship endured by this group of brave young men so many years ago.
There are two characters describing rice in Chinese. 米 (Chin. mǐ) rice, is uncooked rice grains and 饭 (Chin. fǎn), means cooked rice and is also synonymous for food or meal. For Chinese people, rice symbolizes a link between Heaven and Earth and has been the source of life for centuries.
