WTF? Do they eat them in China as some kind of delicacy or something? They eat rats, why not ants?
He should have smuggled them in his pants. Nobody ever looks there, and he can truthfully say when asked by customs why he is squirming in his chair...
"I have ants in my pants!"
You can’t take the chance of ants in your pants because the ants in the pants dance lacks elegance.
More likely just considered to be some kind of "medicine".