P6 Response to The Discorded Food

In this paper, Pollan firstly discussed the food issue in the America nowadays, how people think about the Carbophobia as well as the food fad in people’s minds. As the disorder of food appears in Americans’ lives, people began to judge the food in different ways and aspects, do a lot of research to discuses the characters of the food that Americans take almost every day, such as bread. The fascinating social history of American food ways contributes to the specific food culture in the United States. As he writes in the paper, Americans have learned to choose their foods by the numbers (calories, carbs, fats, R.D.A.'s, price, whatever), relying more heavily on our reading and computational skills than upon our senses. Since the obesity issue has become one of the biggest concerning in Americans society nowadays, American would be more likely to choose foods for reasons of health. However, yet the French, more apt to choose on the basis of pleasure, are the healthier (and thinner) people, as they have a different focus and based on their own situation, the French may be more likely to pay attention to the pleasure they can get from the foods.

As I posted in last time, I think I would prefer the traditional Chinese food. The sitation is China is actually entirely different with the situation in the United States. American soeak highly of the culture freedom; however, China has been demonstrated by the Confucianism principle for about 5000 years. Although There are mainly eight famous Chinese cuisines in different parts of China, however, the core value of these cuisines are the small, and people judge these 8 cuisines in the same ways. And the education in the China about the culture is pretty similar. So actually, the food in china is not as disordered as it in the United States. However, there is one thing that Chinese pay attention to when they are eating is similar to the Americans-Healthy. So the traditional, rural Chinese diet is based on a high intake of plant-based protein, low in dietary cholesterol, and low in dietary fat, and it contains a large amount of nutrients from plant-based foods rather than animal-based foods. 

 

What to eat...

How do you decide what to eat? What values, concerns, conditions of other factors inform those decision? In what ways might you aspire to change your eating habits?

Usually, I prefer to have Chinese food. Actually, I do not know why, maybe just because I have gotten adapted to that. Unlike United States of America, the country that embody every kinds of culture all over the world, China was demonstrated by the Confucianism principle for more than 5 thousand years.  The Chinese people's thought is kinds of stereotype, as they appreciate their own kinds of cuisine as well as the food value that has been passed down by out ancestors. The society is becoming faster paced now, and the China's eating habits have changed a little bit; however, the result of globalization of these several decades are not able to change the essence of the China's food culture. Now, I have been living in Dever for almost two years, and during this period, I try different kinds of food to make myself better involved into this entire new community. I am willing to learn the American culture.

EE1

Linxiao Fu

Writ-1133

Instructor: Eric Leake

4/22/1023

Food Culture in China

 Food acts as a crucial and vital role in all human beings’ lives. People are driven to take food every day to satisfy the body basic requirement of living. As an agricultural country, food has been occupying a significant position in Chinese history for several thousand years, and has been existed since the Chinese nation appeared. Therefore, the food can be regard as a representative of the Chinese culture. However, the Chinese food value and its eating habits would not stay constant because the society was progressing as time went on. In order to understand the Chinese food value and its eating habits, people need to pay attention to the culture behind them. Guided by the principle of Confucianism for about five thousand years, Chinese people are more likely to remain persistent with their own traditional food. However, under the rapidly modernizing and globally integrating society environment, social relationships influence eating habits and people’s attitude of eating. Since the American fast food blended into the Chinese traditional culture successfully, a fast food cross-culture appeared in the Chinese society, and has an important influence on the traditional food value. This essay is aim to discuss the change of Chinese food value and eat habit as well as explore the culture behind this social phenomenon.

Cultural norms, including Confucian principles, have guided behavioral norms in China for more than five thousand years (So & Walker, 2006). Influenced by the norm of Confucian principles, traditional Chinese think highly of the group, sharing and healthy.

Dominated by the Confucian principle of “filial piety and family” for several millennia, Chinese are more willing to eat with family since the childhood. Elders in the family often asked their children come back home to have dinners with them. In China, it is common to see dozen of people eating around a circular table, because it contains all the people in three generations. Additionally, concerned more about the whole group’s interests instead of focusing on the individual favorites, Chinese people usually asked their friends’ idea when they were ordering food in the restaurant. Some people even do not mind eat something that they do not like at all as long as the harmony of group is maintained. A famous Chinese word “Guanxi” is used to describe the relationships between Chinese people. However, it is much more complex than “relationship”, as Guanxi focus more on the Confucian principles of personal association and reciprocity rather than formal rules and law (Hackley & Dong).

Chinese are willing to share their in China, people usually sit together and order communal dishes for everyone. Unlike Americans who order food privately, Chinese people are more likely to order dishes together take the food from the communal plates by chopsticks. So the American fast food dining style serves individually portion meals while Chinese dining style traditionally use communal dishes that can be shared by while they eat at a round table (Tsan). As I first arrived at Denver, I got pretty uncomfortable about the way that people order food. Even in some Chinese restaurants, people usually order a dish and ate it up along with some rice. I think it is better to order different dishes together and share, so that people could have several dishes at one time. Then I realized that the situation represents the distinction between cultures from the two different countries.

What’s more, eating healthily is also a fundamental character in Chinese traditional food value. The traditional, rural Chinese diet is based on high intake of plant-based protein, low in dietary cholesterol, and low in dietary fat as well as large nutrient from plant-based foods rather than animal-based foods (Tsao). In Confucianism, the balance and harmony of food was the first principle should be concerned when making the Chinese cuisine. Like the Daoist ideas of yin-yang, Chinese cuisine always contains both vegetables and meat. The ancient Chinese also divided food separately due the different properties. For instance, the elderly people often asked people not to eat crab when they got cold because the Chinese ancestor believed that crab is a kind of “cold food”, which do harm to people’s stomach.

By exploring the Chinese eating habits in the history, especially in the recent several decades, we food out that the contemporary Chinese food culture and value has changed a lot because China suffered a lot in the recent two centuries.

Initially, almost all dynasties in China’s history paid attention to the development of agriculture, because the emperors believed that as long as people have enough food to eat, their empire would become the most power one in the world. However, the Chinese modern history of humiliation leaded to a tremendous change in Chinese mind because the western countries had a spark development after the industrial revolution and invaded China in 18th century easily. After China was established by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, the government began to focus on the industrialization and modernization in this country, and came up with several policies which intended to alter China into a communist country. From that time, people generally turned more eyes onto industry and economy development instead of the food and Chinese cuisine. What’s more, As Elliot Carlisle and Dave Flynn writes in the essay "Small Business Survival in China: Guanxi”, the famous “Reform and Opening Policy”, which was leased by the Chinese politician Deng Xiaoping, moved the restrictions of business trade among China and other western country including protectionist policies and regulations, and encouraged people to start their private business to make contributions to the socialist constructions (Carslisle & Flynn).

Due to the opening policy released by the authority in 1978, American fast food brands came into the Chinese market, and gave Chinese people an idea about “How to eat” in this modern age. People generally recognized that they did not have enough time to cook at home as well as having dinner with the whole family an accelerating pace of the modern society. Instead of following the traditional eating habits, Chinese people found out a new form of eating, which could save time and helped them get back to work as soon as possible-the American fast food. Since the KFC first entered in Beijing in 1987, many Chinese bought it because it is so continent for people to finish their meals, and people also think it is fantastic to take some new kinds of food from the United States of America.

However, the business went down a little in the following years, as people began to realize that the American fast food is in poor nutrition value and contains high calories. The primary problem that Chinese people perceive the American food is the lack of some necessary nutrition as well as the use of deeps fryer. As discussed above, the Confucianism thinks highly of the principle of balance and harmony, which is similar as the Aristotle’s “golden mean”. Chinese are more adapted to add different kinds of food together in cuisine to make their dishes nutritious. Additionally, since the Chinese reform and opening policy and globalization, the American food value of individualization appeal to the Chinese society. All of these situations pointed out the fact that tradition Chinese food value and Chinese’s own cuisine have still deeply rooted in most the Chinese people’s minds. Confucianism philosophy about social order built on group harmony is central throughout Chinese society (Fei, 1992). It would not easy for KFC to succeed globally, if it only supplied the American teases without giving any consideration to the diversified culture and customers of local customer in other countries stated by Ting Zhang and Cui Yu, in the essay "American Fast Food in Chinese Market.” This entire situation forced the American fast food to simply plug the American fast food culture into the Chinese society, but come up with some cross-culture products to help American food blend into this entire new environment much better.

After two decades fighting in the Chinese food market, KFC striving their business in China now. They created a new fast food culture which perfectly combined the characteristics in both Chinese traditional food and American fast food, and came up with many new kinds of products that containing Chinese food value as well as the Chinese cuisine. As Cho Karen reveals in his essay, “KFC China's Recipe for Success” that KFC highly localized menus includes congee or Chinese-style porridge for breakfast; Beijing Chicken Roll (à la Beijing Duck) served with scallion and seafood sauce; Spicy Diced Chicken resembling a popular Sichuan-style dish. Their latest creation is “you tiao” or Chinese dough fritters (Karen). So the KFC, which is a representative of the American fast food culture, was deeply influenced by the Chinese culture and its traditional cuisine, and then come up with a new kind of food value and culture to adapt the new circumstance of Chinese society.

  Exploring the food value and Chinese eating habits from the origin to recent years, we find out an obvious distinction between these two periods. To fulfill physical needs and even mental needs, food plays a significant role in everyone’s daily life. A kind of fast food cross-culture has becoming more and more popular. Combined with the traditional Chinese food culture and the American fast food style, the cross-culture provides for Chinese people an idea of living in this modern environment. As the globalization inputted the American fast food into China’s modern environment, the traditional Chinese food value confronted a big challenge. Chinese prefer traditional Chinese food, though, also seeking a more convenient way to have dinner to blend in this fast-paced social environment. Accustomed to sharing communal dishes among friends and family members as well as eating healthy diet, Chinese people are adapted to the Chinese cuisine rather than the American fast food cuisine, which contain high dietary fat and calorie. However, after twenty’s struggling, finally, KFC, a preventative of the American fast food brand, understand the culture in Chinese people’s blood, and release some new fast food products, which entirely fulfill the requirements of the Chinese food market.

All in all, in the cultural context, American fast food restaurants have blended into the Chinese food culture. And as the Chinese society develops for the next several decades, the cross-culture fast food will definitely influence further parts of China.

Works Cited

Bell, DE, and ML Shelman. "KFC's Radical Approach to China."HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW 89.11 (2011): 137-. Print.

Denis McMahon. Kfc in China: Secret Recipe for Success. 172 Vol. Hong Kong: Review Publishing Company Ltd. (Hong Kong), 2009. Print.

Terrence H. Witkowski, Yulong Ma, and Dan Zheng. "Cross-Cultural Influences on        Brand Identity Impressions: KFC in China and the United States." Asia Pacific        Journal of Marketing and Logistics 15.1/2 (2003): 74-88. Print.

Cho, Karen. KFC China's Recipe for Success. Fountainebleau, France,    Fountainebleau: INSEAD, 2009. ProQuest. Web. 22 Apr. 2013.)

Carlisle, Elliot, and Dave Flynn. "Small Business Survival in China: Guanxi,        Legitimacy, and Social Capital." Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship 10.1       (2005): 79-96. ProQuest. Web. 23 Apr. 2013.

Zhang, Ting, and Cui Yu. "American Fast Food in Chinese Market: A Cross-Culture        Perspective : The Case of KFC and McDonald's." Halmstad University, School of        Business and Engineering (SET), Print.

Hackley, C., & Dong, Q. (2001). American public relations networking encounters        China’s Guanxi. Public Relations Quarterly , 46(2), 16-19.

P5 Hortwiz “Eating at the Edge”

Citing a real case of a hungry student that eating a sandwich in his seminar, Horwitz point out the nowadays shift of eating habits, which from traditional face-to-face eating to a more private manner. In his article, “eating at the edge” presents an occasion that food is not severed at a situation which they are definitive, but which they were additive. In other word, it means that people no longer eat at where and when they were supposed to, from a conventional perspective, and several cases and examples were used to justify his assertion.

In the first place, he compared the calorie people get from snacks and formal meals. The decreasing calorie consumed from real meal and increasing calorie from snack prove us with the fact that contemporary eating habits are simply an easy-breezy form of multitasking; rather than have formal dinner at a regular time line, people prefer to eat anywhere and anytime they want. Then Horwitz mentioned how “soup at hand” and “TV dinner” free people from traditional meal table to have dinner when driving or watching TV. Such situation which Horwitz referred as “Eating in Timeless Time”, for modern America’s mind, “create an oasis of privacy, an escape and retreat from the pace and crowd of city life.”

The NASA cases help to explain how background and culture differs people’s eating tendency. Unlike American crew, who are content to eat ‘on the run’ and by themselves, many European crew members, noted by Horwitz, prefer eating a complete meal as a group. They enjoy spending their meal time and sharing food with each other, and regarding it a an way to encourage efficient co-working.

Based on my own experience, I really enjoy the freedom and privacy such modern eating habits grant for me. It’s fine and exciting for me to enjoy a formal meal and have fun with several friends or family during the holiday, but it could be really time consuming by having such kind of meal every day. Also, different dinning preference could also bring lots of conflict when having meals socially.   In such a rush world, people has his own schedule and focusing, and more burden then years ago. When facing heavy studying burdens, sitting in the library for whole day and supplying energy by snacks is the most common situation for me.

SE3

Observation in Star Kitch

Food is a representative of culture, so we can understand a person by looking at what he/she eats every day. I am a Chinese, and I think the Chinese culture has been deeply rooted in my mind, so I like to eat Chinese food and will not be fed up with it. After I arrived at Denver, I felt that it was hard for me to have the American food in every meal. I think maybe culture effects people to have different taste. I have been seeking good Chinese restaurant in around this area since I found the food in Sodexho cannot satisfy me lung, and now I think I have been to almost all the Chinese restaurant in Denver. There is a Cantonese restaurant called Star Kitchen is really popular in this area.

This weekend I went to the Star Kitchen, which is located in 2917 W Mississippi Ave, to have morning tea and also do the observation. That restaurant is always a crowd of people at weekends, so I have to wait for about 20 minutes before I got a space to take note and had lunch with my friends. When I was waiting, I asked an American that why did they like to come over to have the Guangdong Morning Tea. He told me that the food in Star Kitchen is really cheap. You'll see college kids because it's inexpensive. Then there are those who want to eat faster, and those who just want to watch what they eat. Some groups of guys came in just because they like to eat so many of the different flavors (Jeannie Pierola). There are dozens of different kinds of Dim Sums for them to pick. The most important thing was that they were all very delicious and looked so nice. Actually, Americans have never seen most of these kinds of food before. Good dim sum chefs can turn one item into 30 different ones. They can be baked, deep-fried or steamed. The best dim sum chefs are the old masters of China. They do them so fast (Elissa Elan).

After we found our table, I noticed that there was an old couple sat next to us. It seems that the couple came here for the first time, because they were curious that why they did not get menus from the waiters. Actually, people didn’t have menu when they are having morning tea. The waiters put all the Dim Sums and food in carts and walked around. They stopped by at the couple’s table and show them the Dim Sums as well as explain the materials in those dishes. The couple was excited about these new kinds of food, and ordered many. However, in the observation, I found out that they are not willing to take the chicken feet, even though the waiter recommended it to them. Another table next to me is a Cantonese family. There are 10 people sitting together next to a round table. They ordered teamed BBQ Pork Bun, Egg tart, Egg custard volk bun, Steamed dumpling, Shrimp Dumpling, Sticky rice in lotus leaf, different rice rolls, chicken feet, spring roll and so on. The elders enjoyed staying with their family to have morning tea together. They just talked about the things happened around them recently, and enjoy the food and time. We thought they are loyal customers of the Star Kitchen, because they knew the manager there very well. I do understand that because the morning tea is a good medium to bring Cantonese in this area together. They are all from the same place, so it is easy for them to start a topic and make friends. In addition, a table not far away from us raised my attention, because a Chinese guy was tell his two American friends the culture of morning tea in Guangdong. He explained why Cantonese like to have morning tea, since it is so busy in the morning as well as some funny stories he had before. One of these two was very excited after she ate the shrimp dumpling, and like my friends, she asked the boy how to make it.

The morning tea plays a significant role in the food culture in Guangdong. Old Cantonese often mention that when people grew up early in the morning, their months feel astringent, so it is enjoyable to drink a cup of fragrant tea, lift their spirit, arouse the appetite and have different kinds of delicious Dim Sums. Morning tea is indeed an indelible mark of traditional culture in Guangdong. Guangdong morning tea has a close relationship between the Guangdong flourishing trade and it rapid economic development since ancient times. I heard an American questioned his Cantonese friend that, since Cantonese are very busy, why are they still willing to spend so long time in the morning eating in the restaurant? Actually, from the Cantonese’s perspective, the morning tea is regard as a social activity in their community. They believe the restaurant is a perfect place for them to chat with friends as well as stay together with families, because everyone feels extremely calm and comfortable in that kind of atmosphere. They are talking whatever they want to while drinking teas and eating delicious Dim Sums. What’s more, morning tea is also a time for businessmen to do business and exchange information. Others also want to get rid of the pressure on holiday by having morning teas alone.

Works Cited

Kriegler, Yun. "Dim Sum Finance: Tasty Morsels for Law Firms." The Lawyer (2011):                      10-. ProQuest. Web. 18 Apr. 2013.

1-P4 Food Culture in Different Community

By stating how the meal or food was produced and served, O'Donnell related the moral and spirit inclination dominated in a certain community with which kind of food they were served. Compared with the equal allocation and stability of beef production, fish production was changeable and profit could be made though some bribery ways. Thus, O'Donnell linked the cattle eater to the socialism who cares about the wealth of whole society, and seafood eater to capitalism, who only focusing on own benefit. Analogously, O'Donnell claim the older shenzheners are characterized by socialism due to their dining habit. In the good old days, people got together in a dining stall and were severed with same dishes, no matter what class they belonged to. However, such tradition was total changed. Nowadays, the new generation desired to eat in a decent way, accompanying with those who comes from similar classes. People only care about their own wealth and the distinct between the wealth and poor are getting bigger and bigger these days. As a result, O'Donnell connected the new generation in Shenzhen with capitalism. All in all, as C claim, the moral and political imperative to feed people provides a resonant rhetoric for discussing inequality and corruption, from a cultural way.

Cate and O'Donnell's concerns vary quite differently in how food relates to each community they talk about. O'Donnell believes that the food could reflect a community’s moral and sprit while Cate focuses on the culture of food in the prison. Food is a different symbol for the prisoners. Both of the sucks food provided by the institution and the different schedule make people got hungry at night. What’s more, because of the strict institutional regulation, people got no change to do other things except making themselves some food. They make spread not only to seek a better taste of food, but also to pursue a new status without any supervision by the institutions in their inner mind.

For me, the most fascinating part of their study comes from O'Donnell’s article, in which he connected the transformation of food serving with transformation the moral intention from different generations. As one of the new generation in China, I deem the country as a fast-running train, which marked by increasing wealth and proliferation of commodity. The market could satisfy our desires and honestly speaking, I see food just as food, short of any nostalgia related to it, none to say relate to the moral and political imperative. But O'Donnell’s point of view gave me a brand new insight towards food. Indeed, from the empirical examples and his explanation, it quite reasonable to judge a community’s sprite by the way the food was serving. Say, if you care about others, then your will share the good with them, but not just enjoying the tasty dishes on you own. Similarly, if a country is perfectly denominated by socialism, every stakeholder will care about other people and share the wealth with the public, the distinct between the wealth and the poor will be eliminated. For those selfish capitalists, they won’t share their food with lower classes, not to speaking of sharing money wealth with them.