Discovering Chinese Culture through Food

Miranda Mason ('19)

The way that people eat says a lot about their lives.  When my class sat down for our very first meal in Shanghai, China, this fact was obvious.  The table was round (as it seemed most of them were) and equipped with a lazy susan, so that every dish could be spun around the table within reach of everyone.  Each person takes from the central dishes with their personal chopsticks, and everyone must rely upon each other not to be selfish to make sure they receive their share.  This style of eating seems to express the culture of sharing in China.  Everyone must take their share from the same pot.  However, the idea of splitting a bill is unheard of.

In China, it is a sort of honor to be the one who pays, taking the burden of others upon you.  “Going Dutch” is considered rude, as it shows insincerity in your relations with others.  The ideal method for the bill to be paid is for one person to pay the bill and someone else will make it up to them in the future by reciprocating.  It was often a strange sight for our group to try to calculate the cost per person and find correct change for everyone to contribute.  Our guides waited patiently, but they sometimes thought us strange for how precisely we calculated the bill, as we wanted each person to pay down to the dime. 

In America, there is a prevalent attitude that one pays what is due, nothing more and nothing less.  This is tied to our individualistic attitude.  In comparison, the Chinese are more accustomed to taking a backseat to the needs of others.  This stems from the communal elements of their culture, and the supreme ideal, harmony.  In Chinese culture, it is better to favor what serves everyone, rather than what causes conflict in anyway.

The food also illustrates other features of Chinese culture.  While there are some western restaurants in China, there is not a large variety of options from around the world in the way that there are in America.  Most food is Chinese or adopted from countries near China.  The food is often quite spicy, thick with flavors that have been perfected over thousands of years.  The Chinese cuisine is incredibly good, but it is the primary cuisine that one must eat all of the time.  We missed American restaurants, because in America there is a lot of diversity of food.  While one may not get the same quality of food in America (Chinese food in America is quite inferior to Chinese food in China), one can have a different cuisine everyday without repeating for weeks in America.  You would be hard-pressed to do so in China.

The healthy quality of much of the food in China was quite refreshing.  Dishes use less salt and sugar in China, with spices and herbs serving for flavor instead.  There are a lot more vegetables in the average meal in China than I am used to finding in the United States.  This reflects the focus on health and sustainability in China.  I noticed that Chinese people are almost always fit.  There were also signs of a push for Chinese citizens to “Protect the Future” by making sustainable choices and wasting less resources.  Incorporating a more vegetable-rich diet is an important step for a country with such a large population to ensure they are able to feed everyone.  Eating as much meat as most Americans would not be economically feasible in China because of the excessive resources that livestock require.

In short, Chinese cuisine and meal style are indicative of many patterns in Chinese culture.  Comparing American and Chinese foods and customs can reveal some interesting differences between the two.

Miranda Mason, of Corinth, Ky., is a member of the McConnell Scholars of 2019. She studies Medicine and Society at the University of Louisville.