Editor's Note:

For any top Chinese chef, masterful knife skills are essential. Add speed, precision and a bit of flair, and you've got the perfect recipe for spectacle. That's why the showy art of slicing and dicing is being showcased in contests and on TV shows - with great success. To keep viewers on the edge of their seats, chefs heighten the drama by cutting on sensitive surfaces such as balloons, thighs of TV hosts, or even their own stomachs. A more daring feat, however, would be eating anything prepared this way.

A chef in Nanjing demonstrates his cleaver skills by using his stomach as a cutting board to mince meat. Photo: CFP

 

Culinary students at a vocational school in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, cut cucumbers on balloons during a knife handling contest on May 8, 2015. Photo: CFP

 

A chef cuts vegetables while blindfolded during a chef contest in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, on Monday. Photo: CFP

 

Chef Lin Bin cuts meat on the thigh of TV personality Aventurina King during a Guangdong Satellite TV program on September 2013. Photo: Weibo