中西方饮食文化差异论文DifferenceonDietbetweenChinaandWesternCountries.doc

Difference on Diet between China and Western CountriesIn intercultural communication, diet can reflect a nations tradition and culture. It is of great significance to understand the cultural difference in these aspects between China and western countries .As a result of the different geographic environment, climate and traditional habits, there exists great difference on diet of China and Western countries, which can be found in many aspectFirstly,in western countries, people eat in pursuit of health so they put nutrition in the first place to consider. Every day they have specific nutritional goals: to take in what kind of nutrient, how much of it and so on. It is a rational diet idea, which attaches a little importance to the flavor, the taste and the color of the food. To westerners, it is health that they value most. However dull the taste of the food may be, they will eat it so long as it is healthy.Due to some tradition in history In China, diet has developed to a very important part in peoples life. It is almost beyond any other material and spiritual forms, and this has been apparently reflected in peoples daily life. Chinese cuisine attaches great importance to the three essential factors-“color, aroma and taste”.The seven so-called basic daily needs: firewood , rice, oil, salt, sauces, vinegar, tea, all have deep relations to diet. Besides, Chinese angelica and the fruit of Chinese wolfberry are often used as in certain Chinese dishes .There is a belief in a balance that governs all of life and nature-the yin and yang . Originally, yang meant the sunny side of a hill and the shady side. Yang is the bright, dry warm aspect of the cosmos. Males have more yang quality. Yin is the dark, moist, cool aspect. Female have more yin quality. And the heating of food methods are various, from chu or the art of boiling to such others as tsang ,a kind of stir-frying and braising, ta ,deep frying in batter, and wei , burying food in hot solids such as charcoal , heated stones, sand, salt and lime.,to Chinese people eating is the only pleasure they could easily obtain ,so they pay great attention to what they eat, not only how the food tastes, but also how it looks and how it smells. Just as an ancient Chinese saying goes “Food is the paramount necessity of people.” Chinese people compare eating to the sky, so they try their best to make their food as perfect as they expect. However, sometimes it is exactly this mistaken diet idea that makes people neglect the basic function of foodnutrition. Thats to say, although Chinese food is delicious, they may lose the natural nutrition and becomes unhealthy, for example, fried food and barbecued food, which reduce the utilization rate of the protein, so amino acids is destroyed and protein produces denaturizing, severely affect the nutrient intake. What's more, with most of the amino acids in the heat decomposition material, this produced gene mutation material which may cause cancer. Secondly,it is apparent that meat is the most important ingredient in westerners meals, this kind of food preference is called animal disposition, while China is plant disposition. In western countries, they think food is used to lessen hunger, so they eat large pieces of meat, which could keep them full for a long period of time. Chinese people think flavor is the most important thing, so they don't care much about the amount of the food; they usually attempt to discover as much ingredient as possible to enrich the kinds of food. Most material which westerners regard as useless is good ingredient to cook delicious Chinese dishes. That is why Chinese food is the most abundant in types. According to some research done by western botanist, the kind of vegetables eaten by Chinese people in daily life is more than 600.In fact, Chinese people only eat meat in some festivals or when the living condition is good. In some degree, it has something to do with the widespread of Buddhism in China, they treat all animals as living while vegetables not as living, so they do not advocate people to eat much meat. While westerners prefer a balanced diet, they think people need to take in certain amount of different nutrient, which is contained in both meat and vegetables.Thidly,the diet style varies greatly between China and western countries. In China, no matter what kind of banquets, there is only one fixed form: all the people get together around a big round table on which there are varies of delicious food and have their meals together, which is a symbol of reunion. It is a tradition of collectivism that has been followed for a long time in Chinese history. All the people enjoy the same food ,they talk, toast to each other happily, which reflects their great belief in “happy union”.In western banquets, however, food and drink are not as important as in Chinese banquets. The core of the banquets are in strengthening friendship between different people, they make acquaintance with each other through small talks and establish new friendship. Most of the time, the western banquets use the buffet form, people do not have their meals together in a table, they choose what they would like to eat and do not disturb each other while enjoying their food, which is a contrary value called individualism. In contrast, the western buffet may be cleaner and safer than the Chinese way. name artsFourthly,Chinese pay more attention to the arts. So there is a lot of cultural background involved in the naming of Chinese dishes. Often, it is hard ,even for the Chinese people themselves , to tell what is actually in a certain dish until it is served on the table .For example, the Fujian cuisine has a dish called” happiness and longevity” . It has another well-known name“Buddha jumping over the wall”. It is said that during the Qing Dynasty, a restaurant in Fuzhou was very famous for its dishes. One day, the restaurant made the dish “happiness and longevity”, the aroma of the dish was so appetizing and spread so far that a monk in a nearby temple just couldnt resist the temptation. In the end, he put aside the Buddhist discipline, jumped over the wall into the restaurant, and ate to his hearts content. What happened to the monk afterward, we dont know, but the reputation of the dish Buddha jumping over the wall spread afar. While the western people pursue the existing thing, they called the cuisine from the origin material of the food.In a word, it is the difference between the value orientation that counts most. However, this difference is fading away with the development of science and technology, more and more Chinese people do not only care about the flavor, taste and smell of the food as they used to, but also its nutrient and hygiene .Besides, people have more and more work to do so that they do not have much time to cook meals in the traditional way .As a result, fast food like those in western countries prosper in recent years, such as McDonald's and KFC. It shows that with the globalization, the Chinese and western diet is changing gradually in the effect of each other, learning from the other's strong points and offset its own weakness.