Introduction and Orientation (July 22)

[cgao]

Food and foodways follow people as they move to new places. Diets change with changing work schedules and living standards. Changes in transportation and demand have changed how food is produced and distributed. In this online seminar, you’ll learn about the globalization and consumption of East Asian food. What do people eat and why? What is the place of food in family habits and rituals? Why do some dishes become spectacularly popular outside their homeland and others don’t?   

Session	Date	Time (PT)	Speaker	Topic
Intro	Thursday, 7/22	1-2pm	Clay Dube, USC U.S.-China Institute	Introduction & Orientation
1	Monday, 7/26	1-2:30pm	Jennifer 8. Lee, Plympton (former NY Times)	The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Chinese Food in America
2	Thursday, 7/29	1-2:30pm	Fred Gale, U.S. Department of Agriculture	Changing Chinese Diets and World Markets
3	Monday, 8/2	1-2:30pm	Eric Rath, The University of Kansas	Japan’s Cuisines: Food, Place and Identity
4	Thursday, 8/5	1-2:30pm	Jennifer Jung-Kim, UCLA	Korean Foodways

 

[clay dube]

We don't have recorded lectures for our opening session. We do have three topics, however, to look at ahead of the discussion on Thursday, July 22. We can talk about them and a few other issues during our session.

1. McDonald's -- the corporate behemoth is not as popular as KFC in China, but represented an early culture/business entry. You might contrast the reception of McDonald's in China with the demonstrations that greeted it in France.
As you read the compilation of articles about McDonald's in China (see below), please consider:
- what is the mix of the global and the local that McDonald's seems to have gotten right?
- what caused McDonald's business fortunes have fluctuated in China over recent decades?
- what is the Big Mac Index? What does it purport to measure? (click here to learn more)

For McDonald's elsewhere in East Asia, start with Golden Arches East (2nd edition) (click here for an Education about Asia interview, the 2nd edition came out in 2006). For an interesting look at KFC's early years in Japan, check out this documentary by John Nathan in 1981. It is quite dated, but a good introduction to many issues. We can discuss it if you have questions.

2. Food Safety -- during our discussion, we'll look at food safety, food security and food sustainability, but here we start with a reading from anthropologist Yunxiang Yan. He wrote after a spate of scandals in China, including the milk powder scandal that harmed thousands of infants and still causes Chinese to buy foreign milk powder when they can. As you read, please consider
- how do food safety risks stem from premodern dangers?
- how do those risks stem from modern hazards?
- how do worries over food safety fit into the issues of social cohesion and social trust?

3. Selling Salmon -- this 16 minute podcast from NPR examines the campaign to get Japanese to eat raw salmon. Wait, you mean they haven't always done that? Click here to listen. And also please read this story about how giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo complicated salmon sales.
- how did very different political decisions affect salmon sales in East Asia?
- what cultural and business factors were also at play?

Please offer your comments or raise questions about ideas in these materials. Any ideas on how you might incorporate the issues discussed or utilize the examples given in your classes? What might you do with your students?

Attachments:

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[David Millians]

Modern foodways in Asia and the USA both are changing so quickly in so many ways. I am impressed by how eager companies and comsumers are to try new things, but the communication of new idea is mediated by powerful cultural expectations. As McDonald's in China and Norwegian salmon sushi in Japan demonstrates, it may only require a narrow window of acceptibility to alter, but so many possibilities never gain acceptance. A friend of mine runs a Chinese restaurant, and he claims the largest agent of change in US restaurants is the fact that so many of them have Latin employees in their kitchens, and these men and women are introducing new ideas all over the country.

Food safety in shifting foodways can be a problem anywhere, but the size of China and the scale and rapidity of change exacerbate the issue there. Regulations, inspections, and consumer awareness move more slowly than forces in the food market, good and bad. I've seen tremendous shifts in all these areas since I first visited the PRC in 2007. Clearly, suppliers and the government take food safety so much more seriously, and access to safe, fresh, even organic, ingredients has grown so much, though not as quickly as demand. Many conversations with Chinese students and their parents make it clear to me that continued improvements are a must in most parts of society.

So interesting!

[David Millians]

I had a teenager on a student trip to China who brought his own fork for the whole journey, kept in a small belt sheath. The other kids harassed him (nicely) until he stopped using it after about a week and learned to use chopsticks.

[Jorge Maldonado]

It was impressive to me to see and understand the business side of it. I knew money runs and drives businesses but how a willingness to "adapt" makes a big difference. Adaptation and bringing old, traditional ideas together with modern and new ideas seems to be the key. Food safety is, in my opinion, sometimes overlooked. Today, we go to the super markets and all the productos look fresh, perfect colors and sizes and even "shiny". Presentation of products is perfect in the shelves! But the main reason we see all of these is because of all of the chemicals and pesticides bieng used.

[clay dube]

Hi Folks,
Sorry for the problems with the sound on the videos I played. New computer and for some reason it wanted to play the sound through my microphone. All good now. The presentation (in pdf form) with the videos (and sound) can be downloaded at:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/onm6lnjtwr25bw7/dube-2021-food-matters-introduction.pdf?dl=0

It's a big file (121 mb) because of the embedded videos. Please feel free to use it with students, but please DO NOT post it to the net or otherwise share it. Please do comment further on the videos (including the full length version of the Chopsticks video.

[Rachel Wang]

I watched the full length version of the Chopsticks video because I was curious about the spoken language used in each clip. As expected, the first one uses Cantonese and features “baby talk.” In the second one, the mother speaks in Shanghainese while the child responds in Mandarin, demonstrating the mixed usage of vernacular and “standard speech” or Putonghua/Mandarin that is common nowadays. This practice extends to the Chinese diaspora, of course, as seen in the segment featuring San Francisco’s Chinatown.

A related point is the importance of subtitles, whether one is reading the Chinese or English version, because some of the local languages may be difficult to understand for Chinese people who hail from a different region. 

One can extract plenty of subtext, too, such as socio-economic snapshots or urban dwelling vs. rural life in today’s China.

 

[Rachel Wang]

What a great story, David—your student is a well-prepared traveler because he was not about to go hungry! Good to know he learned to use chopsticks, though. Do you suppose he now totes something similar (see photo) when out and about?

 

 

 

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[Rachel Wang]

Our in-class discussion got me thinking about chopsticks as more than prosaic tools for cooking, eating, and certain precision tasks (e.g. fetching difficult-to-reach items). How might they be used to introduce a variety of discussion topics? For example, cultural etiquette: it is rude to point with chopsticks at other people, and impolite to play with chopsticks while dining with others at the table. Furthermore, do chopsticks have a potential role in structured activities or fun experiments that will serve educational objectives? I happened across these research topics which may offer relevant food for thought: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15676839/

https://towardsdatascience.com/chopstick-length-analysis-2c4c7e9b6136

Before seeing this abstract, I had assumed that everyone in my family has different go-to chopsticks due to individual aesthetic preferences, but now I realize there are functional ergonomics involved…. I took these photos (while cooking on a rainy Sunday) for comparative purposes, and welcome your comments and questions.

 

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[Cervantes Lee]

Hello David,

I enjoyed your discussion about Chinese restaurant having Latino employee workers. I am at Los Angeles, and we see actually Latino colleagues are one most reliable kitchen team members. Latinos have access to literally all types of East Asia ethnic food setting in Southern California (don’t know much about other States though), including Chinese, Japanese, Korea, Vietnamese, Thai food etc. I find there is some connecting with Latino on East Asia ethnic food operation: i). they like to eat hot food hot, ii). rice.  For example, if you observe the patronage at Panda Express, Latino is good major clientele as well.

Separately, when I first came to the U.S. in 2007 as an international student in Boston, not so many Chinese restaurants nearby, so my favorite food for the everyday breakfast and lunch was burrito – because there is rice, vegetable, flour and meat inside and also served hot.

There is also inter-region cultural food acceptance as well, I grew up in Taipei eating Japanese and Cantonese food every other day. At Los Angeles in the last 12 years, I like Pho noodle and Korea Tofu soup.

[Cervantes Lee]

Enjoyed the KFC documentation entering the Tokyo market in 1981. Their staff training, local taste adjustment, site selection parameters, store opening neighborhood visit, annual franchise meeting, JV partner with discussion with Mitsubishi Corporation all fascinated me even today in 2021. A huge cultural adaptation of the U.S. products to Japanese market were quite well addressed in the video.

My question: KFC/McDonald’s entering into two major East Asia economic power houses (Japan and China) has all been described a legendary business case studies in 1975-1995. For the next American quick service/fast casual brands, such as In-N-Our Burger and Chipotle, entering into Japan and China (perhaps including India), would be something exciting to see in next few years.

[Megan Hsiao]

The topic about food and the cultural meaning behind it is always fascinating. In my Chinese language class, I did several food units, including a MacDonald project in which students compare and contrast the MacDonald menu in China and in the U.S. I think the MacDonald videos in the presentation is a very good material that we could use in different subject areas such as Social Studies. Although it might be complicated to discuss political issues, the video will work very well for a cultural discussion regarding the meaning of the Chinese name for Manfu/good fortune, the college entrance exam, etc. In Taiwan, it’s also very common for students to use MacDonald as a place for study and hanging out with friends. It’s interesting to see the cultural differences and how this American fast food chain adapts to the local culture. In regards to the Chopstick video, it is filmed so well that it not only portrays the chopsticks as the Chinese cultural heritage but also reflects all the virtues and kindness in Chinese society. It is certainly a great teaching resource in the Chinese language class.

[David Millians]

During each of my trips to China with high school student, invariably, at some point, they ask to go to McDonald's, though one time it was a Pizza Hut. They're almost embarassed to ask, since the food we get in restaurants and homes is SO GOOD, but they're a combination of homesick and curious about what it's like, variations in presentation, sauces, and options. They enjoy experiencing something familiar and novel at the same time. We also come away with copies of the menu, photos, and lots of observations about how people inhabit the space, again a mix of known and discovery.

[Xiaohong Lin]

Speaking of McDonald’s, the main function is for eating. But in China, it is not just for eating. In the article Compilation of materials about McDonald’s in China Mr. Dube attached, it says that when McDonald’s in China at the beginning, Chinese also held weddings and had wedding proposals there, which is novel and interesting for me, though it is rarely seen nowadays. And as Megan mentioned, in Taiwan, students also study there and hang out with friends. In mainland China, there are always Mc Donald's around the train station, so people can eat there 24/7 while waiting for their train. For me, if my train arrives during midnight, I will also go to McDonald’s rest until dawn. So I guess this is quite different from the US. What I want to say here is that, a restaurant would bond to people's life closer if they do something more than eating. But I also wonder why and how the extra function in McDonal’s happen in China?

[clay dube]

Some may have had trouble with the presentation pdf. The glitch may be in the protections that Adobe has to block malicious programs.

You can download the file directly without a Dropbox account or without logging into to Dropbox.

I opened it with Adobe Acrobat, some may choose to open it with Firefox or another program.  When I went to play the first video, it was blocked until I chose “trust this document.” (A message popped up in the Adobe Acrobat window indicating that multimedia content was blocked by default. Clicking the options button in that notice led to two choices “trust this document” or “trust all documents.” Once I chose Trust this document, I could click on the play button at the lower left of the slide and the video popped up.

The file is big, so it may take some time to download.

More on this is available at: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/playing-video-audio-multimedia-formats.html

If you've played the three videos, please do comment on them below.
 

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