Black Dragon Cafe

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Eating marijuana seeds 1 is common throughout Yunnan, both in the cities and countryside, in the same way that sunflower seeds are eaten in the rest of China: As people chat there is the continual movement of their hand from the pile of seeds to their mouth and back again. The husks are spat onto the floor, which is why you often see plants in populated areas – the occasional spat-out seed takes root. Marijuana is native to Yunnan, and can be found growing wild throughout the province.

Known as mazi 2 in colloquial Chinese, the seeds have no narcotic effect. They are a snack used to kill time, which is how restaurants use them – plates of marijuana seeds are left on the table so that customers don’t feel like they’re waiting around for their food.

With increased awareness of drugs of all varieties, the police have tried to curb the mazi habit. It’s a bit of a half-hearted curb though, as Chinese people don’t smoke marijuana and I suspect many of Yunnan’s police force grew up with bowls of mazi in the house, and grandma always had a huge bowl on the tea table. There is a story about the central government’s Narcotics Control Bureau coming to Kunming to check up on the work of the Yunnan branch – they were greeted by a huge marijuana plant growing outside the local offices.

1. Marijuana seeds   大麻籽   da4 ma2 zi3   
2. Mazi   [Marijuana seeds in colloquial Chinese]   麻子   ma2 zi. 麻 ma2 means broadly any fibrous plant used by people, so: hemp/marijuana is 大麻 da4 ma2 (“big/greater fibrous plant”), flax is 亚麻 ya4 ma2 (“lesser/inferior fibrous plant” – but that meaning is just my guess), jute is 黄麻 huang2 ma2 (“yellow fibrous plant”) and ramie is 苎麻 zhu4 ma2 (“苎” zhu4 just means ramie, it gets its very own character). In 大麻籽, the 籽 zi3 means seed (more commonly seed is rendered as 种子 zhong3 zi)