I just stumbled across an odd little op-ed about a dinner that Bill Gates held for the president of China.  The event itself wasn’t nearly as interesting as the author’s interpretation of it from a Chinese culinary (and gusto-political) standpoint:

…To us Chinese, eating is not just about filling up the stomach. It is an art that we love to overindulge ourselves with. It may be the only art form that remains legal and yet savoured by people across every social stratum.

The main reason we would overdo all these things is because we live in scarcity or constant fear of it. When one barely has enough to eat, he makes sure that once a year he can eat like there’s no tomorrow.

There’s a reverse correlation between abundance of food and conspicuous consumption of food…