Chinese Food

 

Have you ever stopped to think about the evolution of fried rice in America? Well, I think I might have thought of something similar last night when I was using two wooden sticks to eat the last bits of rice I had on my plate. Call me crazy, but I can actually distinguish between Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and other Asian foods because I am such an Asian food lover. Although you might not be able to distinguish the differences, or may not even enjoy the taste of oriental food, perhaps learning about the critically acclaimed food will do you some good. 

 

The evolution of Chinese food along the years in America has been perplexing to say the least. Cheng’s (2011) article discusses the history of the globalization Chinese food in America from a cross-cultural/intercultural perspective. The reason for this particular perspective is because Cheng is actually an immigrant to the United States. He grew up in Taiwan in the early 1970s and moved here in 1996 to study. He describes himself as an “outsider within” the United States because he has been observing our culture while at the same time studying and learning how to communicate with the English language. Simultaneously, he describes himself as an “insider without” because he looks “Chinese,” however he is actually from Taiwan.

Globalization plays a huge role in the assimilation of Chinese food within the American culture. Cheng’s literature review pans over some of the current theories of globalization. To many globalization theorists, “globalization is often viewed as an ominous homogenization of the world–where sameness is ubiquitously imposed, and the difference is steadily suppressed or eliminated.” (2011 198). If you are wondering what globalization means, or simply haven’t read Cheng’s article, Inglis & Gimlin (2010 9) provide a good definition of it. In terms of food communication, globalization is, “the multiple modes of interaction of the economic, political, social and cultural dimensions of globalization as the affect food-related matters, and as the latter in turn come to affect the former, in a series of ongoing dialectical relations characterized by the constant generation forms of complexity.”

 

 

 

In 1848, the discovery of gold in California prompted the first wave of Chinese immigration to the United States. This event was followed by Chinese restaurants being built to feed the growing numbers of people on the West Coast. Twenty years later there would be similar “Chinatowns” to spring up along the East Coast as well. Eventually there hostility grew among Americans and the Chinese were looked down upon; food establishment service was not up to par and Chinatowns were generally unclean. The United States even passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 to decrease the numbers of Chinese immigrants. After those years, Chinese restaurants and Chinatowns were eventually cleaned up their act and faced Americans were faced with a new wave of immigration in the 1960s.

“In addition to the more than 41,000 independent Chinese restaurants that currently exist in the United States, there has also been an increase in number of Chinese chain restaurants, such asP.F. Chang’s and Panda Express” (Cheng 203). Interestingly, the total number of Chinese restaurants in the U.S. has now surpassed the combined number of McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King franchises. Obviously Chinese food has made its way to the sphere of the American eating experience.

 

As Cheng delves into What people eat at American restaurants, he finds that much of the Chinese restaurants in America are not serving authentic “Chinese” food. Due to the anti-Chinese sentiments that the oriental immigrants had to go through over the years, Cheng explains that the Chinese food industry had to assimilate in order to survive. The four dimensions of the acculturation model are key here. They are integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalization. Integration refers to the majority of Chinese immigrants creating a “familiar-yet-exotic” cuisine for the American eaters. The other three aspects are important, but Cheng does not touch on them as fully as he does with integration.

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