the-differences-between-chinese-and-western-catering-culture--英语专业.doc

专业学位英语论文

题目名称： The Differences Between Chinese and Western Catering Culture
院 （系）： 地 球 科 学 学 院
专业班级：
学 号： 201472026
指导老师：
姓 名：
时 间： 2014 年 12 月16日

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The Differences Between Chinese and Western Catering Culture
Abstract: Each country has its own culture, catering culture is no exception. In countries today, with more and more close contact, in order to strengthen the communication between Chinese and western countries, we must understanding and learning other countries dietetic culture, only in this way can reveal the respect between each other, strengthen the harmonious communication between countries. Chinese and western food culture have different length, we hope that through the comparison, to promote Chinese and western food culture complement each other, so as to provide more high quality food for mankind.
Key words: Dietary; Structure; Tableware; Table manners;
Introduction
Food is so important in Chinese culture. In China, almost everyone knows the old saying "Food is the first necessity of the people". Both of China and the west have established systems of food cultures although in fact the Western food culture is no so developed and mature that may not reflect the characteristics of their cultures. In china, food represents much more than food itself while in western countries it means less. Although the basic function of food is to feed people, the Chinese food and the western food only have a few things in common and more in different. So it is meaningful to make a comparison of the two kinds of food cultures.
1 Chinese and Western catering culture connotation and characteristics
1.1 The definition and features of Chinese catering culture
Chinese catering culture, refers to the production and consumption of the Chinese nation in the long-term diet of practice, created and accumulated by the sum total of material wealth and spiritual wealth. Chinese food culture development is a microcosm of five thousand years of Chinese civilization, from eat birds and animals raw and cooked with fire, and then to thriving period of tang and song dynasty, and finally entering a new stage, the prosperity of modern is the crystallization of our national wisdom and creativity.

China has 8 major cuisines, including Sichuan cuisines famous for pungency and Canton cuisines for lightness. Chinese restaurants enjoy a great popularity all over the word. With the ever-changing of the Chinese lifestyle, however, people are experiencing a new diet style either when cooking at home or eating at restaurants. For instance, the cheese and tomato sauce are added to the traditional Chinese food; and urban consumers now frequently go to fast food chains, such as McDonald's and KFC. The steady growth of people's income, more knowledge about international food and the convenience of supermarket shopping bring to the emergence of a new generation of consumers who are more likely to buy packaged and canned food.
1.2 The meaning and characteristics of the western catering culture
Western diet culture, refers to the westerners in the long-term practice of the production and consumption of food, created and accumulated by the sum total of material wealth and spiritual wealth. Western food culture has a long history, we can say Italian food is the originator , French food is king, American food is western upstarts.
There has an important characteristic In western countries' diet is that the people are carnivorous, but vegetarian diet is complementary. China has the famous eight big cuisines, western countries also have many types, the famous Italian food, French food, the United States, Germany, Russia and so on.

2 The differences between Chinese and Western food culture
2.1 Differences between Chinese and western dietary structure
The Chinese staple food is given priority to grains and their products such as pasta, non-staple food is given priority to vegetables and meat. According to the survey of western plants scholar, the Chinese eat vegetables are more than 600, more than six times in the west. Western food is given priority to meat and milk. So some people according to the Western diet significantly difference This feature, called the Chinese plant character, westerners called animal character. One of the biggest differences is that westerners don't eat animal internal organs, don't eat animal head and skin, it is difficult to understand in China.
2.2 The differences between Chinese and Western cooking methods
China has about 14 kinds of cooking methods: sneak, braised, burning, poach, steamed, Fried, crisp, stewed, grilled, stewed, blasting, fry, casseroles, wire drawing, the dish making a person dazzling. Obviously, western cooking method is not so complex and changeable as China, western food on the plate of stereo sense is strong, strong edibility, all most of food into the plate can eat, the ornament is the main course dishes. The change of the Chinese food process is relatively complex, many dishes are time-consuming, too many food into the dish can't eat, not only a waste of raw materials, and the results may not be good. Chinese kitchen line saying: "cook-thirds Arts, materials seventh power." It emphasizes personal chef selection of raw materials, the importance of the use of sub-file, which is the standard for the raw materials produced food plays a decisive role in. Overseas, the chef is no longer simply according to their experience to judge and determine what kind of material used.
2.3 Differences between Chinese and Western dietary patterns
The Chinese and Western dietary patterns are very different. In China, people sit together around a table and share one feast. Main course is in the center of the table. People toast to each other and share the dishes, which reflects the mutual respect between people in face of the good things; and also shows the virtues of comity. In the western banquets, though the food and wine are inevitable, in fact they are not the most important things. The core of banquet is friendship, by the conversation with the guests who sitting next to achieve the purpose of recreation.
The more obvious difference 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 instead of sitting 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. The Chinese people are drinking around the table to show harmony and unity, but the buffet has broken such pattern. It raises the personal
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independence and self-mentioned at the first place. This is the opposite of the great unity of all Chinese traditional culture.
2.4 The difference of tableware
Westerners eating habits with a knife and fork, and eating habits of Chinese people use chopsticks. Knife and fork and chopsticks, not only making a difference of eating habits, but also affected the Eastern and Western concepts in life. Professor Xiuling You think, fork inevitably bring cutlery eating system, but certainly chopsticks coordinate with family members sitting around the table. West outset minutes to eat, which derived from the West pay attention to independence, there is a separate children grow up into the world of ideas and habits. The chopsticks made meal brought together, highlighting the young and old to live with family unit, so that Asians have a relatively strong sense of family values.
2.5 The different of table manners
Among all the differences, the most obvious one is the tableware people use in China and Western countries. For cultural and historical reason, Chinese people have formed a series of tableware including chopsticks, bowl, plate, and spoon, while Western people use knives, forks and plates.
However, it is the different culture and location that leading to different eating habits. When a banquet starts, Chinese people and western people behave totally different at table. Chinese people tend to make the banquet lively so that all the guests can enjoy themselves, while western people behave quietly and gently at table.
In China, the host tends to prepare “a ton of” food for their guest, for they take it as a symbol of a well prepared banquet. Chinese people are very proud of their culture of food and will do their best to give their guests a taste of many different types of cuisine. Wine culture is an important part of Chinese culture, and alcohol is an essential part of traditional Chinese banquet. Alcohol makes people enthusiastic, so people talk, laugh, sing, play games, or even shout at table, loudly and freely, enjoying themselves so much. Well, in the West, people do not act as enthusiastically and courteously as the Chinese when they have a banquet. The Western people pay more attention to personal independence. They just eat by themselves and have no such sentiment like the Chinese. Western dishes are not like Chinese dishes, which are usually varied with different kinds of material and different orders.
3 Reasons for differences between Chinese and Western catering culture
3.1 Different climate and environment
The climate is one of the reasons that impact the cultural differences between Chinese and Western diet. Different gas environment, the formation and development of food culture will produce a relatively large impact. China is located in the southeastern part of the Asian continent, the Northwest is the vast desert, grassland, desert, southeast of the vast expanse of the ocean. Although China's vast territory, but the big difference in the geographical environment, so the Chinese people in general is "backer has mountain, draft on water." The sea is famous for its seafood, mountain is famous for its meat and duck. Our staple food is rice, noodles, mainly because of the many areas of temperate monsoon, temperate continental and subtropical monsoon climate zone, it is suitable for growing crops. This determines the Chinese people mainly vegetarian diet.
Many Western countries have a temperate maritime climate zone. The climate is very suitable for the development of animal husbandry and seafood, the Chinese people, "backer has mountain, draft on water."Westerners also is such, vast pastures and oceans to provide them with cattle, sheep and a variety of seafood, which determines Westerners meat-based diet.
3.2 Different religious beliefs
In terms of culture, religion is also a kind of special cultural phenomenon. Religion has a lot of human creation, they all have their own different diet custom, therefore, different religious beliefs is also one reason for the cultural differences between Chinese and western diet.
In China, Buddhism and Taoism are very popular. Especially Buddhist people very much, people of faith practise abstinence from meat and say prayers room every day, and therefore provides a ban slaughter of animals, they will only be a vegetarian diet. In addition, as China's native religion of Taoism in Chinese traditional culture
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also plays a very important position, it is the pursuit of the realm of immortality, do not advocate drinking and eating animal products, the diet have some similarities with Buddhism ,in addition, they also advocated eating less, so that people will be more thin, looks bright and clear. It is can be seen that Taoism pay more attention on diet. so it can be said that a regimen of religion.
　　　Because of religious for believers diet has many constraints, so different faith lead to different diet culture between Chinese and western countries. In the west people are Christian, Christians are forbidden to eat blood type of food; Without scales of the fish is considered unclean thing, also cannot eat.
3.3 The different way of life
Culture is closely connected with people's life style. way of life is different In the western and in the china, so Chinese and western food culture is also have very big difference. Westerners pursue freedom unfettered life, tempo of life there is fast, the sense of time also is very strong, so in the morning and evening usually eat cold food, noon to eat hot, their habits cultured is a "fast", only "fast" can save valuable time to work, so fast food is popular in the west.
China's traditional culture determines the Chinese way of life, many Chinese lazy life, sense of time is not strong, our three meals a day are usually hot, and the food must delicious , Chinese people generally don't like to eat fast food. To the guest in the home, the food served to look both beautiful and delicious, there will be face. Chinese life is dependent on the face.
In summary, climate environment, religious belief, lifestyles are the important influential factors of Chinese and western food culture.
4 conclusion
By the text from this article, we can easily find that there still exists various differences between Chinese and western dietary cultures. But with the development of cultural communication between China and the west, along with the strengthening of communication, China has imported various kinds of western food, such as the “KFC”“DICOS”, “McDonald”. The impact brought about by economic globalization is stronger and deeper than the internationalization. Economic globalization is a double-edged sword, on one hand, it brings the vitality of economic growth, and on the other hand, the dominant culture is put into other countries through strong economic and infiltrated every corner of the globe. Therefore, the cultural communication focus on how to assimilate advantages of the other countries’ culture, abandon its shortcomings, and learn how to transform and make it localized, all countries need to study the issue. So in the face of the dietary cultural exchange problems between China and the West, we should find each other's advantages, as China can learn from the point that western diet stresses nutrition, and make the Chinese cuisine more outstanding.
Reference
[1] Hu Xiaomei A Comparison Between Chinese and Western Cultures Ovrerseas English 2013
[2]Yan Haipeng The Differences Between Chinese and Western Dietetic Culture 青春岁月 2013 376-377
[3] Niu Guifang A Comparison of food in the Chinese and Western Cultures Changzhou engineering vocational college journal 2005(1)
[4] Wang Yipei Different Cultures through Table Manners 青春岁月 2011（02）38-39
[5]