(Ed Note: With several major projects in the works and with a gig next week guest blogging for James Fallows, I asked my lovely wife and co-conspirator Yajun if she’d like to help out for the next few weeks.)
I was born in a country where 90% of the people share a single ethnicity, where we have no national religion, but where we do have the stomachs to eat any living creature on earth. So it came as a shock to me, later than it probably should have, that some people may not eat certain things out of choice or because of their religion. Sure, China has Hui people who are Muslim and who eat Qingzhen (Halal) food, but prior to university I’d only met a handful of Chinese Muslims in my life. And even in school, it wasn’t that I didn’t respect my friends’ aversion to pork, but it was just completely outside my own upbringing. I don’t think I lacked sensitivity, just a sense of perspective about what diversity means.
This problem is even harder for my mom. During Spring Festival, some of my husband’s students came to our place for a dinner party. One of the students was Jewish. Since he has trouble finding kosher food in Haidian, he chose to become a vegetarian. This just amazed my mom and all of the Chinese guests. As we were cooking, even though my husband explained why the student couldn’t eat any meat, from my mom’s confused and curious facial expression I could tell that the idea was just beyond her understanding.
It didn’t stop my mom making delicious vegetable dumplings for him, but the poor student had to explain why he couldn’t eat meat to the Chinese guests over and over again.
China is not a country that celebrates true ethnic and culture diversity. Officially, we are 55 ethnic groups making up one China, but the Han are definitely the dominant and normative culture. Other than the fact that minorities are happy while dancing on stage during gala shows, very little information about them is presented in the mainstream media. Since the media is under the government’s control, minority voices and their cultural and historical perspectives are nowhere to be heard. China lacks social awareness of what diversity truly means.
Furthermore, a sense of individualism is also often suppressed in China. Many Chinese, like me, are taught since they were children that it is not okay to be different. We are not individuals, but a member of a group, a group which defines our identity. Everyone has to use the right hand to write or to eat. We have to find the one correct answer to the questions in exam. If a child’s creativity and imagination fails to match the content of text books, he or she is labeled as a bad student. Same thing with food. If somebody doesn’t eat a certain kind of food, that’s being picky and is sure to draw the parent’s ire.
However my experience in the US a couple of years ago showed me another perspective. Some people I met were vegan who even couldn’t eat eggs. Others were Muslims who could not serve themselves from anywhere near a dish containing pork. Practicing Jews could only eat meat prepared in a certain way and had to avoid other foods or combinations of foods. Plus, there were also people who were lactose intolerance or had food allergies. I also knew people who couldn’t eat wheat or other grains.
So I saw vegetarian burgers, kosher butchers, and lactose-free milk. In the supermarket, there were specially-prepared foods to meet the need of various consumers. It was totally fine to be different and picky about food. You didn’t have to change, because other people understood and prepared something special for you.
I am amazed by the social awareness and understanding in the US. Part of it, I’m sure, is that the US is a nation founded in large part by immigrants. The other important reason, I believe, is that different — sometimes even completely contradictory — voices can be heard in the US. Dr. Martin Luther King called for the rights for African-Americans 50 years ago. Today Amy Chua teaches Americans how to be a successful Chinese mother. Public information and communication turns ignorance to acceptance and, finally, to a point where difference is no longer seen as different, just part of the greater whole.
Certainly, some people choose fear rather than acceptance. After September 11th strong anti-Muslim sentiment spread in the US, and throughout US history people have been harassed or even killed because of their race or religion. But these are problems which are openly discussed and debated in the US media and society, sometimes painfully and divisively. Martin Luther King was persecuted for his beliefs, but without him and his story Barack Obama would not be the US President today.
With more and more foreigners coming to China, many Chinese will have to grapple with this kind of cosmopolitanism. Different concepts and values may clash with one another at the beginning, but it is an inevitable phase. I am sure the next time when the next guest from a different religious or cultural background comes to my parents’ home, it will be my Mom explaining to the other guests about what she’s learned about the diversity of the world’s cultures.
Dumpling (jiaozi) was likely invented in Song. There was no mentioning of it by the pre-Song culinary books. From the day China was considered united by Qin, more than half of the time, Chinese didn’t eat dumplings. Geez, if they didn’t eat dumplings, were they Chinese? Ever wonder what did they eat? What styles of food we have kept, and what styles we sort of forgot? It’s quite fascinating if you start striping out layers upon layers built up over time and which specific cultural aspects became prevalent… The hard part is, as of today you for sure can’t learn that angle of the Chinese history by reading only texts in English — that’s for Jeremiah BTW. [Ed note: To understand how amusing this line was to Jeremiah, you'd have to see him typing his response on his tiny desk crammed with sections from various 日记, 笔记, and about 4 volumes of pre-20th century photostats from the Number One Historical Archives...)
The curious part you probably didn’t think it through is, had the US been as the real melting pot since day one, today you would see a far less diverse US. Han is the largest “single” ethnicity in the world today, is only because Han as a group has accepted just about everybody to become Hans, from Xiongnu settlements in the Han Dynasty, various tribal infusions from Jin to Tang, immigrants in Tang/Song, Central Asians & Arabs whom Mongols brought in during Yuan and mostly got assimilated in Ming, etc. All of them, today are almost all called Han (save those who have kept the Islamic faith — they are Hui though mostly look “Han”). Heck, what do you call the progenies of those Jewish immigrants’ in Kaifeng during Song? Han.
Oh, don’t get me started on that BS of 56 ethnicities, defined in the Soviet prism. That goes just fundamentally against the core of Chinese value.
To borrow a line from Bill Simmons, “Yep, these are my readers.”
Not at all sure how to respond or even think about the above reply, so… I just won’t.
Thoughtful post on diversity in China and the US. I wonder what, given the extremely limited scale on which Chinese are being exposed to such cosmopolitanism, the prospects for common acceptance or even just understanding are for many Chinese. Any idea how many years until I can pick up an organic soy chai latte to wash down my gluten-free noodles in Ningxia?
Great post. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
I am a Han Chinese. I was raised in Urumqi, Xinjiang.
Han Chinese there seem to accept the presence of visually visible ethnic groups and embrace their halal food, yet, sadly the understanding of diversity stays in such superficial layer only. The discrimination against ethnic minority groups either economically or culturally is fueled by the superority of the homogenous Han value. People of ethnic minority groups are often described by Han as dumb, lazy, etc.
There’s one awful personal story I still have in mind. It was during my primary school years in the 90s. I had an English class for Han students on weekend in the classroom usually reserved for Uyghur class. In the drawers of the desks in the classroom, there were Uyghur textbooks that belong to Uyghur students. After class, one Han boy suggested that we torn the textbooks because “Uyghurs deserve this”. Everybody in the class started tearing pages apart. Shamefully, I participated in doing this. Then we put the torn textbooks back into the drawers, feeling accomplished. Thinking back now, I just can’t imagine the expressions on Uyghur students’ faces when they got back school on Monday.
as far as i know few chinese in europe sometimes they do not like some local food – until they do not eat the same in china local kitchen what already could be labeled delicious
also it recalls me interview with beijing girl studying here: it’s not true we eat rats or dogs in china, it’s terrible, i will never eat them, just people from guangdong do that
This is an interesting contrast to Taiwan, where Buddhist and particularly Yi Guan Dao-inspired vegetarianism is quite common.
RX,
Thanks for sharing your story. Sadly, acts of discrimination occur all over the world, but it’s only through the open discussion of the issues that real understanding can happen.
realname,
It is funny how in Beijing one of the first things people always ask me is, “Are you accustomed to the food yet?” but when I ask them if they have ever tried Italian or French or American or whatever cuisine, many people react with horror about how they can’t handle “Western food.”
I think to some extent, “Western” food in China has a similar problem to “Chinese” food in America…up until recently the restaurants here who advertised “Western Food” (Read: The chef has no idea what he’s cooking or how it’s supposed to taste) were horrible, so most people have never had a home-cooked American meal or dined in local Italian restaurant or a French bistro.
J B,
It’s quite common here too, though I suspect not as common as in Taiwan. Frankly, I was a little surprised that YJ’s mom hadn’t encountered any Buddhist vegetarians.
Yajun, when you write that there are officially 55 ethnic groups in China, but 90% of Chinese share a single ethnicity, I take it to mean that 1 ethnic group contains 90% of the Chinese population, and the remaining 54 ethnic groups contain the remaining 10%.
Am I right in my understanding?
Today Amy Chua teaches Americans how to be a successful Chinese mother.
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And she became America’s public enemy No.1. She even received death threats for that.
Really, Amy Chua’s 15 minutes of fame is not a good example of American diversity. It instead shows how visceral a backlash you’ll create if you dare challenge mainstream values.