Third Essay

                             A Chinese restaurant  in America

          Few hundred years ago, we tried to demonstrate that the earth is a sphere, but today, we make it “flat”. Internationalism doesn’t appear in political and business fields, but also in every corner.  Following with the global economic integration, more and more people come to other counties to study, work and live. They cause the cultural integration phenomena today. When the culture travels from one country to another, it changes, but no matter how the culture changes, the core part would never change.

          Food as one of the good presenter for the culture integration today, which also includes many native characters, is great tool for us to detect the differentials between different cultures. So I choose the special community those who eating at a foreign style restaurant, exactly, people eat in a Chinese restaurant which located in a common city in America. This restaurant is the one near DU campus, called Jason Thai.  

There, people can be simply separated into two categories, native Americans and Chinese. We can separate them easily at daily time, because they have different appearances, speak different languages. But this time, the most interesting thing is that, even they eat in a same restaurant, we can still figure out whether a person is a Chinese just by looking at what he or she orders.

          According to my observation the difference begins with the drinking. Not like American restaurants, Chinese restaurants in China always offer free tea for their customers.  But this restaurant doesn’t. Most people just choose free water. The different is that most of Chinese people, especial girls would like to choose warm or hot water, or at least water without ice, but American, no matter women or men, they all choose water with ice. We can see the a little Chinese food culture here. In China, we stress the medical function of eating food. Just for water, we believe it is better to drink red tea in winter and green tea in summer. Even in hot summer, drinking ice water is not good for a person’s heath, especially for girls who are in their “special time”. It is because that when your body is very hot, ice water can easily make you get diarrhea problem, and for the girls it can cause dysmenorrhea. There are too many similar theories in Chinese food, nearly each kind of material has their own characters and function, and if the chef is profession, the collocation of the materials must be paid a lot of attention to. Sometimes, even a native Chinese still can’t explain the reasons for those clearly, but we still try to following the rules, we believe those are effective, because they are what our ancient left to us. At least, they won’t do any harm to our body.  Unlike other country, Chinese pay more attention to the nutritional balance and regimen.

          Another difference is reflected by the menu directly, that is the price. Just like other restaurants in America, the price of each food is similar, around ten dollar, which is the average price for most restaurant in America.  But the price differential between different restaurants or even between different foods in one restaurant is very big. China has a long history, in ancient, different social hierarchy ate totally different thing. Even today, the gap between rich and poor people is still very great, so a lunch for one person can be as little five yuan(about one dollar) , and also can be as much as one hundred  yuan.(about twenty dollar). And the prices are just for two restaurants near one campus.   

We can figure out a person’s socioeconomic start by looking at what they eat easily in China, but in America, we can hardly do that. What rich people and poor people eat in the daily life is not very different in America.  

          My last finding is that what people eat is really different. Chinese would like to eat those more traditional dishes. Americans like to eat spring rolls, fired noodles, and sushi. I suddenly find the reason why the food always changes when they moved from one place to another, not only because of the taste, but also the materials. To be honest, Chinese food can’t be defined by the whole country; it must be separated by the region. Different region have different characters. “The driving force behind Chinese cooking is the desire to adapt and incorporate indigenous ingredients and utilize Chinese cooking technique. Chinese cooking is not a set of dishes. It is a philosophy that serves local tastes and ingredients.” Ingredients can explain the main part of the native culture behind a food.

          In modern time, Culture is not unchanged any more. One can be changed over time by adding and combining with other culture. When one culture comes into another region, it not only affects the local culture, but also be affected by the local one. But because culture is based on people, the most core part can hardly be change.