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.