did you talk about when i get old enough, i'm going to america. i'm not. i'm not staying here. >> yeah, we did that. john sauer not uqora or america. yeah, i told them you weren't dressed up like john wayne or anything. no no no no no no no no no no no. >> they say you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy. i don't know if that's true. we all come from someplace, that's for sure. but new york city in masa takayama's case, seems far, far away from the little town he grew up in.

do you know what i like? i like sichuan, and i love the food here. you know what else i like? torturing my friend eric ripert. i don't know why. maybe it's because he's so nice. you high man, you look high. i am, but i like it. yeah, you can pretty much tear his toenails out, and he'd still find something nice to say about you. he's so polite. yet if you look closely and i do, his discomfort can be exquisite. >> he's the devil. >> look at it. i took a walk through this beautiful world. >> felt the cool rain on my

shoulder. >> found something good in this beautiful world. >> i felt the. and colder sha la la la la. sha la la la la la. sha la la la la. sha la la la la la la. >> it's the spicy sensualist heartland. of all the things i love about china. the collision between very, very old and very new. an exploding middle class. a lot of history and food that can burn you down to a charred, smoking little stump.

sichuan province, located in the southwest of china, over a thousand miles from beijing, a region so fertile and lush that it's been referred to as china's breadbasket. and its capital, chengdu, despite its ever growing skyline, it hasn't lost its deep culinary roots and traditions. and i figured if i'm going back to sichuan, i should bring a friend, someone unused to the, how shall i say, level of heat commonly found in the food here. someone who's never been to china before and is unused to its ways. i'm talking, of course, about chef eric ripert of such three star michelin restaurants as new york's le bernadin. so welcome to china, eric. thank you. first time to mainland. >> yes. and i'm very surprised already about what i see in the

city here. >> i was expecting like a kind of a gigantic chinatown that we have in new york. >> that's a racist right there, i'm telling you. >> no, it's very surprising. the streets. >> they're very clean. >> it almost looks like a european city, except for the air. >> the air quality. i mean, maybe you've noticed that haze. yeah. it's like, that's not good, but i'm definitely out of my comfort zone. >> really? for sure. yeah. >> well, good. well. i'm hungry. are you hungry? >> yeah. >> noodles. that's where you should start around here. chengdu is famous for little spots like this. dandan chen xu mian, named after a much beloved chengdu noodle snack. oh, yeah. now we're talking. >> i've never been good with sticks. >> never. >> this is not bad. i can grab it. kind of. >> oh, yeah. >> that is awesome. >> so it's so spicy. the

peppers get me and i'm like, oh, yeah, well, this is just day one, man. i'm surprised you don't drink beer with that dude. >> it's only 1120 in the morning. what kind of animal do you think i am? >> because there's nothing to soothe your tastebuds. >> this is a good sort of, uh, intro. so we're gonna have fun. oh, man. we're gonna eat. well. you're gonna drink a little more than you like, okay? and i have to stress this to you now, eric, you cannot refuse. >> don't look at me with eyes like that. >> i'm saying it's drinking culture is very important here. and if we go to, like, a formal meal, your ability to drink leads to a number of assumptions about you. you know, your general manliness, size, your worth as a human being. >> i'm comfortable with my size. >> think of yourself as an ambassador, not only for for america, but for france. eric. >> but i am an ambassador of. le bernardin

as well of the people who work with me and so on. >> right. you don't want people on the other side of the world thinking that le bernardin sends out there. to represent. >> you know what? >> you're scaring the out of me now seriously? >> yeah. you can't let the team down. >> to me, it's more insulting to be faced at the table. >> no, no. not here. it's perfectly okay to be faced at the table. that's completely acceptable. it's going to be a wild week. >> yes, i have the sense of that. >> here's something they talk about a lot in sichuan when discussing food. two elements of flavor personified by two ingredients that are integral to so much of the cooking around here, the sichuan peppercorn, known for its flowery, aromatic flavor and its tingly, mind deranging, mouth numbing effects, a phenomenon called mop and the spicy chili peppers like jinqiao, or the even hotter facing heaven chili, provide the l.a. pure heat. so if you imagine, like ilsa, she wolf of

the ss tormenting you with nipple clamps as the la the ma provided by the pleasantly deranging peppercorns would be like the naughty nurse with the ice cubes. eating mere. >> oh. man. now have. michael cloud. >> what's your what's your feeling on msg? >> i don't mind msg yeah, i think it's good stuff. i do not react to it, right? >> no, no me too. nobody does it. so it's a lie man. >> well do you find a lot of natural msg in tomatoes, in breast milk, in parmesan? yeah, in a lot of products. yeah. >> you know what causes chinese restaurant syndrome? racism ooh, i have a headache. it must have been the chinese guy. >> most of the traditional very famous dishes of sichuan

cuisine are not made from chef. it all comes out from the family. >> aha. >> so family dishes is the the qi of sichuan cuisine. >> in my quest to set eric's perfect hair on fire, i have arranged dinner with this man gaza, who runs the sichuan cuisine museum. here he takes us to a neighborhood favorite, tian chen fangyan for some typical local dishes like pickled chicken feet, cartilaginous little bits of noble goodness. >> how do you eat this one? just to bite it and don't eat the bone, though. >> no, no, it's good. >> it's delicious. >> it's spicy. >> yeah. very spicy. >> oh, i have some beer. >> well, the food is really good, but the spices are a little bit of a challenge, i have to say. >> oh, yeah. now we're talking. you're going to love this dish, my friend. >> yeah. that's fine. the chicken in the pile of chili, chili, chili. >> laziji literally means spicy chicken. but the dish in

practical terms, is a game of finding the bits of chicken in the mountain of burning. goodness. come on. it's fun for the whole family. is that a tiny nubbin of hacked chicken or a nuclear cluster of chili seeds? the sichuan peppers are the for me, like the really super addictive. >> oh yeah, you feel them now. it's all tingling. yeah like that. right? >> there's a scientific name for the process, for what happens at sanshool is the biological agent that causes confusion in your nervous system. confusion, tingling, confusion. >> yeah. that's what i feel right now. yeah. you're gonna love this. i'm totally confused. i tell you that. oh. >> mapo tofu, my favorite. >> that one i have the feeling is the killer. look at that, man. >> that is some goodness right there for me. the apex of sichuan food. my absolute favorite, improbably enough, is a tofu dish. this tofu dish,

the legendary mapo tofu, or pockmarked granny tofu, ground pork or beef cubes of beancurd in a rich, deeply nuanced, fiery but intensely satisfying sauce of chili oil, bean paste, garlic shoots, ground sichuan peppercorns and msg. this dish, done right, has got it all. oh, that's so good. it's a perfect balance of stuff going on in here. i just love, love, love this dish. >> actually, the spiciness makes me already like a feeling that i am drunk. kind of, you know. really? >> yeah. >> i'm like you high man. >> you look high. >> i am. >> would i like it? yeah. >> and if you ever, like, have a hangover. and you will, my friend, you will. um. this will scare the evil right out. >> he's prepping me for a drinking night.

>> the glory of france. is on your shoulders. and, tongzhou, you green peppercorn fish served in a simmering vat of seasoned fish broth laced heavily with fresh and dried green sichuan peppercorns, and finished off with a heavy pour of boiling hot vegetable oil. >> i think this is the most numb you are going to feel. >> that's going to be a challenge. this one for me any second now. >> that perfect hair is going to burst into flames. oh, it's good. >> yeah. >> man, i love the food here. >> how'd that feel? >> how'd that feel? >> you know, it changes. it changes you physically. >> like, i feel like my face is changing, changing, changing, changing, changing. like my eyes are in a different position. >> i got news for you. right? yeah. you better look at yourself in the mirror, man. >> let's just slow down. don't rush. slow down, slow down, slow down a little bit.

>> slow down. >> man, does. >> peppercorns are awesome. >> i need those. >> holy cow. >> whoa! >> they are all looking at me from the kitchen. they're like, is this guy going to survive or what? survival. survival. survival. survival. >> kick back and embrace the southern charm. >> enter for your chance to win hgtv dream home 2025. brought to you by wayfair. every style, every home at the salvation army a shelter isn't just a place to rest. >> it's a chance to shed layers, let loose, and finally let it go with your gift. >> a warm bed is just the beginning. >> it's the first night of a new day when our homeless neighbors feel safe enough to close their eyes. >> they can see the way forward. but.

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those vests? oh, geez. you're going to sink like a stone in this thing. my friend eric is a buddhist, not a weekend buddhist either. a serious long term practitioner of tibetan buddhism. it's what makes him so different from me. he, for instance, is nice. i am not always so nice. >> it's something written in chinese. >> maybe, you know, gift shop this way. oh. >> whoa! >> check it out, man. >> i know. >> about two hours south of chengdu, at the confluence of the minjiang, dadu and qingyi rivers is the giant leshan buddha carved out of the cliff wall back in 713. it still stands as the largest stone buddha in the world. well, that was pretty awesome. >> that was beautiful, huh? >> and me without my selfie stick. though, eric's buddhism

diverges somewhat from the kind practiced here. as you might imagine, the site is respected and revered by all buddhists. i am respectful of faiths, not my own, and i am more than happy to let my friend do what he does. it means a lot to him. and like i said, i respect that really. pretty cool isn't it? all right. this is a tasty rabbit head dispensary. >> is it here? no. is it here? >> yeah, man, that's what you've been waiting for. but all this time, in a little evil part of my brain, i've been secretly looking forward to this moment. a tasty sichuan snack. famous and much loved around these parts. i'm talking bunny heads, yo. tasty, tasty

bunny heads. i think he used a glove. yeah, i could do with a little prostate exam. look at that. look at those teeth. he hates. whoa! >> oh, you have the tongue to yank the jaw right out. >> oh. that's good. that is delicious. seriously. spicy. delicious flesh still clinging to little thumper's skull. look at those little teeth. and the best part? after you rip off the jaw and split the skull, the tasty, chicklet sized brain. >> it's a lot of meat. >> you suck that brain right out. >> i'm not a fan of brains, but i'm going to try. >> oh, you haven't had these brains. rabbit brains are different. they're not like custardy creamy. they're kind of like little, like uni. oh, here comes peter cottontail hopping down the bunny trail right into my mouth. >> i think the fact that you just get that soft spot, you crack that thumb in and pry it apart. >> yeah. oh, geez. oh, you just pound it on the curb. so you basically

crack it. oh, you're winnowing out the brain with its own jawbone. there's a certain country justice to that. i wish i'd known about these things. you know, i'm going to make these next easter. i mean, the whole easter egg hunt. what does that have to do with bunnies? you know what i'm saying? bunnies don't lay eggs, but they do have heads look deep, deep into the murky depths of that most glorious and iconic of sichuan dishes. it burns. it burns you down to your soul. >> cheers, cheers, cheers, cheers. >> local friend xiao bin and musician friend seven wu jialing and gao xin all enjoy a good hotpot. almost everybody around here does. eric, however, seems apprehensive. so

this is eric's first time for sichuan hotpot. i think you're really going to enjoy this. and this is particularly good, right? >> which is known for being spicy. >> so hahaha. >> not a good news. >> i feel it in my eyes already. yeah, the way it works is you order a whole bunch of ingredients meat, vegetables, noodles, fish, whatever you like. >> a lot of different ingredients and you feed them into the pot. >> the dog town. we should just throw them first. >> yeah, because that's going to take a long time. it's for that tripe in. >> it's called like 1000 layer stomach. >> it's all going in there, man. yeah. the inner ring is a more neutral broth. the outer ring though is the good stuff. the hard stuff. oh that's good man. that's good. >> that was first bite. bite hotpot. >> awesome. right? yes. it only

gets better my friend. >> oh, this is nice. >> oh yeah. tofu. >> oh, this is tofu. yeah. oh it's the skin on top. >> yeah. common ingredients like tofu and seaweed. various meats and fishes are stirred in along with ingredients that are, shall we say, less familiar to the western palate. they get the duck. yeah. then they reach inside. they grab the grab the intestines and yank them out of the live duck. >> oh, yeah. >> that's supposedly that's the they give you like, the most fresh, but it's a bit cruel, right. >> you want them fresh, eric? >> i mean, yeah, i think we should drink some beer. >> yes, i think so. >> cheers. cheers. >> cheers. cheers oh how are you doing there, eric? >> i'm doing amazingly well. can you hang in there? my sinuses are open, so open. you have no idea. best part of hotpot is the sheer mr.

share to share. yes, i like that too. it's very convivial. yeah, sometimes we had, like, hotpot for four hours, four hours, four hours, four hours, four hours. >> as it cooks down, it gets stronger and stronger and the heat more intense. a delicious yet unpredictable silt of spice gathering at the bottom of this river of hot lava. wow. if you dig deep, like down in the sediment down there, the riverbed. man, it's spicy. you feel enlightened, yet look how how the colors change in the broth. there. >> what you kind of expect it pop. >> yes, it is exactly what i expected. it. >> more beers, guys? >> yeah, definitely. >> i cannot think anymore. >> so i'm going to eat and drink. >> but the baijiu comes out and everything is fine again for

me. i'm not so sure about eric. you're out of it, man. it's all good, though. it's all good. >> okay. >> don't say okay. the evening's just beginning. >> everything you just had was appetizer, appetizer, appetizer. >> it's all good. all good. >> this is the devil. look at it guys, drink baijiu bill maher. >> all right. eric. yeah? you're getting in the spirit of things. >> you know, it just took me on this trip to make me suffer. yeah, to kill me slowly or fast. that's what fran does to another friend. you know, that's what good friends do in drinking culture of china. we enjoy torturing your friends. yeah. >> well, let's drink to friendship. >> yeah, friendship. friendship. >> thank you. >> i like that, yeah. to friendship. friendship.

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>> morning in chengdu and my restless pilgrim friend is up early. always a seeker, checking out the sights, sucking up knowledge, nibbling at the edges of celebrity. do no doubt to the fact that most of these people think he's richard gere. me, i don't need the glitter or the recognition and screw wisdom. give me some noodles now you know that's good. come on. i don't even have to taste that. just look at it. now get in my mouth. mm. excuse me. >> can you help my family? i phone. >> nothing from eric. >> the thing i am anthony

bourdain. i'm going to play a son of a belly turn his phone off. sorry, tony. >> thank you. you're welcome. thank you. >> i think he was up last night doing a sichuanese karaoke. okay, good. >> thank you, thank you. >> it could be, uh, i don't know, riding the porcelain bus, as they say. >> this is very sweet and sticky, but i like it a lot. >> i don't even know what i'm eating. but why not? mm spicy. oof! >> thank you. i just know this soup is awesome. i could rule the world after this still no word from eric.

>> the chinese invented being obsessed with food. they invented, you know, being obsessed with the provenance of ingredients, with going to a particular place for a particular dish. so they've had that tradition for at least 800 years. >> fuchsia dunlop has had an extraordinary relationship with china and sichuan in particular, since she first arrived here as a student in

1994. she was the first foreigner to study at the sichuan higher institute of cuisine, and has written numerous books about her experiences and about sichuanese food, which are rightly considered groundbreaking and definitive. to say she was way ahead of her time is an understatement. she's brought us to chef lan goujian's restaurant, usually what he's trying to do is sort of raise the level of sichuanese food to sort of very refined banquet cookery. is what he's doing unusual for chengdu, for china? >> it's really unusual because i think in the west we're sort of very used to the idea of the celebrity chef and the individual chef as artist. but in china, people traditionally look down on chefs. so this is quite a new thing. there are very few chefs who are really like the creative vision behind the food and doing the work in the kitchen.

>> and the meal begins. a large array of cold dishes are laid out, delicate flavors, like lily buds scented with rose petals are presented alongside more assertive tastes like thinly sliced braised beef shank with chili oil, tea tree mushrooms blanched and lightly stir fried with chinese stem lettuce. and you suggest starting with the lily. >> yeah, i would start with the lily bulbs because they're nice and mild. yeah it's a nice texture. >> yeah. >> that's. those mushrooms are amazing. >> yeah. i love these cashew nuts. >> also, prawns served cold with handmade noodles dressed with natural vegetable extracts. >> so you've probably been having all kinds of amazing sichuanese flavors because sichuan is not just about chili and sichuan pepper, it's about food. way complex, layered flavors like french sauces. yes. and there's one of them called gua wei. strange flavor. >> strange flavor. >> yeah, because it's a mixture of sweet, sour, salty,

spicy, numbing and nutty altogether. and this is strange flavor noodles. so it's just like a real traditional sichuan dish, but done in a very refined way. >> then some soup, a rich slow simmered chicken and pork stock, a raft of chopped meat floats on top to clarify the broth. a small bundle of impossibly thin, hand-cut noodles made with duck egg yolks. a western sichuan specialty, mark schamel tang okay. >> okay, so you're saying first have a smell of this, and then, um, and then a taste of the broth. >> oh, that's beautiful. >> and just, just gently press the noodles. cyclone chido and then lift them up and eat them with a very fine. you know,

some of these dishes, the character is very similar to what you get on the street, but it's just done so beautifully. >> well, we were talking the other day that so many of the dishes we were eating in the restaurant started out. these were not invented by chefs or even cooks. they were invented by farmers and hungry people. i mean, that's certainly the story of of much of french cooking. i mean, correct me if i'm wrong for sure, but when you can achieve refinement and you keep the soul food in the process, you don't have only pretty food. >> you have amazing food. >> wow. beautiful. >> this is a really amazing dish. i especially requested this dish, which is one of his specialties. so it's sea cucumber from dali in off the northeastern coast. so that's a very expensive, rarified banquet ingredient. but it's done with a typical sichuanese sour and hot dressing, or sour and hot

seasonings like on the street. you'd get just these seasonings with slippery, sweet potato noodles and a load of offal. right. this is a banquet version. ah, yeah. mhm mhm. >> that's going to be a challenge for me. i'm still battling with my skills. >> i would hold your bowl a little closer like this and then it's easier. thank you. less room for disaster. >> you could have told me that before tony oh i was having so much fun. >> so that resistance, that boying, that rubberiness actually elasticity. it's kind of the last frontier for western palates. >> the gelatinous, the and and cartilaginous. >> you know, where there's actual like crunch, this dish, this delicacy makes no sense in terms of western gastronomy at all, because in the west there's just no concept of eating something for the pleasure of its texture. mm. delicious. really good.

>> mm. >> so you're sort of single handedly making the beautiful argument that that people should go against their natural instincts in the west and open up to what is really an entirely new spectrum of initially difficult and extremely nuanced flavors. mm. >> i just i think chinese is the world's most underrated cuisine because everyone loves chinese food. but until recently, people, you know, mainly in the west thought of chinese food as being something very familiar and good to eat, but cheap and like, you know, a bit junky. honestly. and i think that now people can see that it has so much more to offer. it's got everything from the most elevated banquet food, imperial cooking, hearty peasant food, street food, buddhist vegetarian cooking, muslim cooking, ethnic minorities with their own styles. so it's really what

you can call a gastronomic culture, right? >> and it has been one wild year. i know that whole mu dang live stream was crazy. what? oh wait, you mean the rumors about me and the french pole vaulter? who's saying that? is it everybody? i have zero idea what you're talking about. and you think i'm the one that doesn't follow the news? i did like that one new song about coffee. espresso. oh, i'd love one, actually. oh, sweetie, you have been following actual news, right oh, boy. new year's eve live with anderson and andy. live coverage starts at eight on cnn and streaming live on max. >> emergency crystals pop and fizz when you throw them back. and who doesn't love a good throwback? now with vitamin d for the dark days of winter? >> this is not a drill. subway dropped the price on all their

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veterans support more victories for veterans. >> go to dav. org. >> i'm bill weir on the california coast and this is cnn. >> in the high stress world of the professional kitchen, the job of the executive chef is much like an air traffic

controller. one misheard order, one garbled communication could lead to, well, disaster. it is with this in mind that i arrange for eric to receive the attentions of a specialist in the maintaining of perfect hearing and ear related health, but the guy is a doctor, or he's like an amateur, like in the street. he's kind of like a doctor, more of a technician, a caregiver. and you can do it right here in the park while enjoying your tea. who needs a doctor, bro? oh, here we go. my man needs a cleaning. yes, yes, yes. >> yeah, look at him laughing. >> oh, enjoy your therapy. you might want to put that down. he hits the sweet spot. just relax dude, just keep your head forward. >> what? he's doing it scrapping. >> well, he has a number of devices. it's a very. >> he's using those devices on everybody else here because. >> no, no, no, they're thoroughly sanitized after every customer

stay in place. if you move, you know, don't try this at home, folks. one wrong move to the right or the left. and the patient could lose all memory of life before 1985, which, if it includes kenny loggins, might be a good deal. but i digress. oh yeah, here comes the good part. oh yeah, that's a rush, right? >> it's like a slow road to enlightenment right there. >> now the massage. >> oh, and you might as well straighten out eric's neck while you're at it. >> oh, don't do that. oh. >> oops. >> that didn't sound good. that's funny. so, are you ready for the cleaner? he's got me. he'll be right over. same tools as the ear cleaner, by the way. as i explained to eric, a true

artist must never stop learning. the japanese have a name for this principle. and the attendant pursuit of knowledge and enlightenment. kaizen. >> li qiang. >> today we will learn fish flavored shredded pork. >> so it was with this in mind, as well as the classic work of mr. rodney dangerfield, that i decided to go back to school to make the ultimate sacrifice for my friend to return to that place of childhood torment. stop trying to soak up the teacher. i saw that. apple polisher so that my friend might learn, might just maybe better himself, and hopefully bring some of that knowledge to the hungry and the needy people at le bernadin. you got that right. look, a machine, no problem. yeah. okay. >> whoa. doing good. i'm so. >> a little thick, man. okay.

in order to get to the top in the harsh, competitive world of professional cooking, sometimes you got to use sharp elbows more. get your own, man. it's a cold world out there. better he learns it here than on the street. >> ends up. >> with the pep. for eight year. >> the wok is intensely hot. things cook quickly in there, a few seconds too slow, and things swiftly turn from the sublime to the ridiculous. okay. finish it. voila! cheese eater. >> we don't. you either. you boy. >> overcook

it. only a little. >> and what about this guy? huh? >> are you? the. same problem. >> the to overcook it. >> can you hear that, eric? >> you catch them. they meet a little feet. >> this is flintstone. >> knife work. you're so competitive. >> i can't believe it. >> look at that knife work. >> those mushrooms are too big. look at that. you throw off the balance of the dish. >> you see here. >> you feel the the consistency of the meat feeling. >> the consistency of the meat is something you're well used to, my friend. >> you only come across an artist like luther vandross. once in a lifetime. >> he was a boss from the beginning. luther said. i have a sound in my head. i got to get it out. you are my shining star.

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it's some sinister moonshine and a 55 gallon drum in africa, or a distilled spirit in the jungles of borneo, the mountains of the caucasus, or a more refined concoction is here. you must drink it. oh, ladies and gentlemen, i give you byejoe. byejoe has been around for a very long time, and the xu jing fang distillery has been making this stuff for over 500 years. >> normally, chinese people drink premium baijiu in the occasion of entertainment. >> important guests. so in china. premium baijiu means a lot at a business dinner, a banquet one can reasonably expect to drink quite a lot of the stuff, especially when your hosts are in the business of making it. >> and my french friend has

concerns. >> do you want to know how we drink? >> yes, of course. yes, that's very important. >> tradition. and we start three cups, so we drink together after three cups. everyone will with each other. one by one. welcome to china. welcome to sichuan. drink. >> i have told him what might be expected of him and the futility of resisting. >> the aroma is very distinctive, very, very special. >> there will be food. i told him a lot of food and baijiu, and one must not under any circumstances, bring shame on our house. now the next round is one by one. yeah. so how does that work? oh, i mean, we may as well get started.

>> thank you very much. hope you enjoy it. >> thank you very much. >> welcome. >> thank you so much. in business, how often do you entertain like this? >> 2 to 3 days a week. yeah. >> two, three days. >> and sometimes in one day. >> all right. >> three times or three times three. >> yeah. >> oh, wait. uh, excuse me. eric. >> yes, tony. >> wow. >> my dear friend, thank you so much for taking me here. i will remember forever. >> okay, good. well.

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at 69, suits 3.99. download the m taylor app or visit m taylor. >> com today. new year's eve live with anderson and andy. live coverage starts at eight on cnn. >> like many residents of the city of chengdu, we decide to head out to the country for the weekend. get in touch with like

nature man. i made a potentially lethal mistake this morning. i did something i never do, which is i ate a western breakfast at a hotel. it's bad. always, always bad news. why? just something you shouldn't do when you're outside of the states. you've never eaten a western breakfast in a hotel. >> i agree. >> i'm feeling it already. it's not good. >> well, the good news. we are seated by the bathrooms. >> good on you. on a train is never a good thing. >> you have luxury. taste. i noticed. kind of the elitist. taste. >> i don't like to roll around on my own in a moving bathroom. that's elitist. >> embrace the experience. >> about maybe one 50km away from the center of city of

chengdu. >> xinjiang is a filmmaker from beijing who often returns to chengdu, the place of his birth, to enjoy the more laid back pace. so on the weekends, everybody comes out to. what's it called? >> it's a it's a term to describe a place like this, right? it means, you know, the the agricultural family happiness. something agricultural family happiness. >> the rural family. >> rural. yeah. rural family happiness. it's like a rural family. they are holding the business like that is a restaurant and also entertainment place for people to come over, to eat, to enjoy the view, to fish and to play mahjong. >> do you ever do that when you go back to go back to france? go back in the weekend. help somebody pick grapes. do agricultural work? >> not really. >> you worked. you lived on a farm for a while? yes. yeah. can you milk a cow? if you had to? yeah. do you know how to? yeah. >> yeah. mhm. do you know how to do it. >> uh how hard could it be.

>> it's not easy. >> i can squeeze. >> no, no, it's not easy. you have to have a touch a special touch. i'm telling you. >> how long does it take to learn? >> well, it depends how good you are with your fingers. >> oh, i'm good. >> at almost every city in sichuan has a kind of representative dishes. and in this area, there's a famous for. is. intestine. pig intestine. >> oh, yeah. >> it's not bad, huh? >> so if you were on a beach. okay. and you're hanging out and you're drinking a nice bottle of chilled rosé, having some foie gras snacks and some saucisson. yeah. as one does. yeah. >> we all do that. >> who would you rather see in a speedo? wolf blitzer. doctor sanjay gupta or anderson cooper?

oh, that's a tough one. no, well, actually, that's an easy. there's an easy answer. none of them. >> really. >> in a speedo, you know what is a speedo? those bathing suits. >> it's a banana hammock. it's a like. >> like a very narrow bathing suit style. >> it's a french style. okay. so if someone's running in slow motion down the beach in a silver lamé speedo of those three, who would you choose? >> i don't know. >> come on. it's anderson cooper. the guy who, like, works out. that's a good looking man. does he? >> he works out. i don't know. >> you disappoint me, eric. you really do. cheers. cheers. >> cheers. cheers. ganbei. >> i'm not going to let you finish. no. >> cheers. >> wow. you