英语毕业论文-论中西饮食文化差异.doc

On Differences between Chinese and Western Dietary CulturesAbstract:Diet is absolutely necessary in the life of mankind, and even in the existence and development. Because of the differences between Chinese and Western cultural traditions, the Chinese and Western dietary cultures are different in many aspects. Such as concept, target, pattern. We study these differences and then find out the points that can be digested, in order to facilitate the communication about cultures between China and the West. Taiwan Professor Zhang Qi Jun said, “The old saying, Eat, drink, man, woman who wishes greatly. For such a standard fair, Western culture (in particular, modern American culture) can be said to be male and female culture. But the Chinese culture can be said to be a dietary culture. As the reason of the cultural traditions, the western lives tend to men and women, but because of the narrow gender relations, Chinese people are dumping guidance on life in the restaurants. Thus the diet is rich in culture. Food culture in the west is not developed enough, but this underdevelopment itself is the result of the development of a culture, so it is still significant to study the dietary cultures of Chinese and Western diet.Key Words: dietary culture; cultural tradition; differencesIntroduction: Once there is a saying that Food is eating well-deserved for human life”, so food is an indispensable condition for the survival and development of human beings. There are two desires in life: one is feasting them to survive; and another is the lust of men and women, which can help the mankind to carry on the family line. Facing the two desires, China pays more attention to the former, while the west tends to the latter. Such phenomenon affects the cultural trend. Diet is actually the contents of our daily lives, but why we call it culture? That is because the diet has special status in the Chinese culture, and it also has a great distinction between China and the West. As one of the world ancient nations, Chinas diet has a history almost as long as that of Chinese civilization. But in western countries, ancient thinkers devoted less attention to the food problem than the Chinese philosophers did, and there is even not aware of it to the heaven degree. With the opposite, they recognized and interpreted the world in the perspective of the lust or love of men and women more. Receiving the influence of respective cultural tradition, the Chinese and Western dietary culture has had different characteristic. The differences in concepts, targets, patterns had reflected the different dietary culture in the different state characteristic; such characteristic has enriched the research value of dietary culture. Studying these cultural differences, we can find out a joint enhancing the communication between China and the west through a comprehensive study of the subject. It may be a great help to the communication of the Chinese and western cultures. I. Differences in ConceptsFirst, the Chinese and western diet have the differences that cannot be ignored in concepts. It cares about the intake of calories, vitamins, protein and so on during a day. Comparing with the Chinese diet, western diet tastes stereotyped, as simple as chewing the candle, but the sense tells them: We must eat them all because of the nutrition. And then they put it bluntly, just like refueling machine. The concept of western diet is compatible with the whole western philosophy. Metaphysics is the main feature of western philosophy. Such kind of philosophy brings vitality to western culture, so the natural sciences, psychology and methodology achieve a rapid development. In some other aspects, such philosophy proposition is a significantly obstacle, such as the dietary culture, which is the inevitable thing to drop behind, and just the metaphysics of methodology marks everywhere. Chinese diet is a sense of beauty diet. When people sample dishes, they often say this dish is delicious, and that dish is not delicious. But if you ask what is meant by delicious, why tasty and what are the aspects of delicious, I am afraid that it will be difficult to answer. This shows that which Chinese people hanker on a diet is just the “mood” that is difficult for one to say anything. The beauty pursuit of Chinese cuisine is clearly overriding the rational pursuit. This concept of diet is also coinciding with the traditional Chinese philosophy. Chinese philosophy as a representative of oriental philosophy, its distinguishing features is the macro, visual, vague and evasive. Chinese cooking method is to reconcile, and the ultimate goal is to reconcile out of a beautiful taste. The main stress is measure and the overall co-ordination. It contains a wealth of dialectics of Chinese philosophy, and all these depend on the degree of the wonderful flavor and harmony of dish. II. Differences in targetsAll diet cannot be done without vegetables. The word dish is for the sound in China, and it always has something to do with the plants. According to a survey of western plants scholar, there are 600 varieties of vegetables, six times more than in the west. In fact, the Chinese dishes, vegetable dish is usual food. Meat dish entered the normal diet only on holidays or higher living standards, so since ancient times, and there was a saying of fresh vegetables. Chu ? Mandarin language: Common people eat fresh vegetables, fish only offered in the worship. It is said that fresh vegetables are mainly to the civilian in general, only being able to eat meat only in worship. Vegetarian diet takes the dominant position in the normal structure. Westerners do not seem to have such a good habit. They uphold a cultural origin of nomadic, seafaring nation. Living mainly by fishing and hunting, collection and planting are just the complement. There are more meat dishes in their lives. Feeding, clothing, and using are taken from the animals, and even Western medicine is derived from animals. When the westerners introduce the diet characteristics of their countries, they always feel that their diet is more reasonable on the mix of nutrition than China. The food industry is more developed, such as cans, fast food, although the taste is monotonous, but it saves time, and it also has good nutrition. Therefore, in their countries: people are generally healthier and taller than Chinese, and the people have strong shoulders and developed muscles; but Chinese people look short, their shoulders narrow and legs thin, their skin yellow and their body weak. Mr. Sun Yat-sen had profound study of the culture of food and incisive exposition. In his composing The Scheme for National Reconstruction, detailing the differences between Chinese and Western diet phenomenon, he concludes: Chinese ordinary people drink green tea, and eat simple food such as vegetables and tofu for meal. Such kinds of food are the most healthy and beneficial according to the research of hygienist. Therefore, the remote people in china, whose diet are far from meat and wine, always live a long life. Also China has a big population, and Chinese people have enormous power to resist disease, but they never try the non-diet. “He added: The Chinese vegetarians all eat tofu. Tofu is expected as the real meat in plants, as it has the nutrition that meat has. It is the meat without toxic materials. So the Chinese are vegetarian used to be a custom without the promotion of scholars. It is also a custom that the European and American drink thick Wine, eat meat and fish. So there was science promotion before and a severe law later, such as the United States Prohibition. And the transfer will not carry out in a short time. Mr. Suns words tell out the scientific benefits of Chinese diet and disadvantages of Western diet. III. Differences in Dietary PatternsThe Chinese and Western dietary patterns can be very different, and these differences affect the national character. In China, a celebration, no matter what, there will be only one form, as sitting together, sharing one feast. Banquet uses round table, which has created a unity of form, which is courtesy, comity atmosphere. Cate are in the center of the table. It is the objects for people to appreciate and taste, and it is also an intermediate of communication. People toast each other and share the vegetables, which reflect the mutual respect between people in the face of the good things, also show the virtues of comity. Although from the health point of view, this approach has obvious deficiencies, but it is in our national happy mentality, it reflects the classical Chinese philosophy area of and impact for future generations. It is helpful to facilitate the collective emotional exchanges and consequently difficult to reform.The western-style banquets, although the food and wine are very important, but in fact they are just foil. The core of Banquet is friendship, by the conversation with the guests who sitting next to achieve the purpose of recreation. If making an analogous compare between the recreation of the banquets and dancing, it may be said that the Chinese banquet is like group dance, and the western banquet is like men and women dancing. This shows that communication purpose of Chinese banquet and western banquet are very obvious. Only the Chinese banquet is more popular in the communion, but western banquet shows guests reflected in the friendship between neighbors.The more obvious differences between Chinese and western dietary patterns is buffet dinner which is popular in the West. This method is to display all food, and everybody is picking not fixed in his or her places to eat. They walk freely. This approach would provide the emotional interaction between individuals; they never need to put every word on the table. This also shows a western personality and self-respect. However, all the eating without jamming lacks the real affective tone like the Chinese people. Some people want to put the buffet in the Chinese food, but I think it is not feasible. Zhang Qi Jun in the Principles of Cooking tells us the main reason: First, buffet is not like drinking tea. Drinking tea is just the thing to you before you choose, and displayed in the cafeteria there is a large number of food to eat, so when you want to have it, it is cold yet. Chinese cuisine will serve hot, if cold, nothing to eat. Secondly, buffet dishes only can do hard dishes and beneficial dishes. Then you can access for large plots. And those most representative of the Chinese culinary arts, such as the tender and lighter dishes, are not in this show. Third, the buffet can do stewing pot; it means a big pot in terms of food. Any sophisticated cooking of a dish can only be cooked in a pot at two most, and it is not able to cook the dish for dozens of people. So it will not be delicious, never talking of the taste. Under such circumstances, it is clear that the use of buffet dinner will deny Chinese culinary arts. The Chinese people are drinking around the table to show harmony and unity, but the buffet has broken such pattern. It raises the personal independence and self-mentioned at the first place. This is the opposite of the scale of the great unity of all Chinese traditional culture.ConclusionBy the text from this thesis, we can easily find that there still exist various differences between Chinese and western dietary cultures. But with the development of cultural communication between China and the west, along with the streng