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on potatoes: beloved most parts of the world, disdained or perceived as inferior in the parts of the world i have heritage.

potatoes gained popularity in inland china and in the north, in places with drought and frost, but were always 'insignificant crops' in the southeast, where i have most of my heritage (because caloric sufficiency was already achieved with rice).

the people of the south largely perceived potato to have 'inferior texture' (and also they just didn't go with our rice-based dishes). they also often caught viruses in our humid climate near a lot of water.

in fact, 'tu dou' (or 'underground beans') mean 'potato' in mandarin, in northern china, but 'tu dou' in my southern chinese languages mostly mean 'peanut' (which preceded the arrival of potatoes).

we call all potatos (including sweet) 'fan shu' instead, or 'foreign tubers'. there was very little potato in my life. i still mostly don't love it, but mentioned above, as our climate was the same when my ancestors moved to places like singapore / malaysia / thailand. still rice based primarily, potatoes still caught viruses, rice is still religion.

in fact, the slightly derogatory (now reclaimed to be cute) term that mandarin speakers from the north had for people from the south, like me, was 'xiao tu dou': little potato. it had to do with how *our* potatoes were actually peanuts. because we were not potato eaters.