I
Some time when I was a senior in high school, a daughter of a friend of my uncle’s came to visit our family because she was just enrolled into the top university nearby. Her family hoped that maybe we could help her when necessary as she was going to live in that university for a long time as a medical student. She came from a small island near Shanghai, which is known as one of those sources of sea food to this city. Her family was not abundant although it used to be. Her father was still working for and with my uncle since his bankruptcy. My family and I thus cultivated in ourselves a sense of appreciation of her before we met. And as she stepped in our home, she appeared to be no more different than the kind of island kids we had imaged: nice, kind, careful, slim, and dark with peach blush on her cheeks as a result of long-term sunburn. After some friendly talking, my father ended the conversation with a line that came out of no where, “Drop by as you like. We look forward to meeting you again. I bet that the next time we see you, you will look a lot whiter.” The girl was apparently surprised with the prediction, and asked for the reason. “Because the water is cleaner, the food is better, aside from all the conveniences you will get in the city. You are what you eat and where you grow.”
About two months later, she dropped by, and her skin did look whiter and smoother, and her blush faded. However, she came to tell us that she decided to give up her residency after the course study for doctors. She wanted to go back to her small town in three years and take care of her mother. My family felt pity that she didn’t “understand” the guarantee that the city could provide her with.
II
When I first came to the United States, Ohio precisely, I confused the food that marked “organic” with genetically modified food. In Chinese, the two terms sound similar. Chinese supermarkets and food markets don’t sale organic food as a large part of them are assumed to be grew “naturally.” However, I was warned not to go for the genetically modified materials since I was little—but not every Chinese know to tell their kids this. Also, not many peple know that milk aside from the regular, full-fat kind has problems more or less. A certain amount of reduced fat or non-fat milk, no matter of what brand, are made of expired full-fat milk. I was glad that I can finally drink reduced-fat milk by living abroad.
III
My family was interested in my consumption ratio in Ohio. They were a bit surprised to learn that 10 to 35 dollars can fulfill my weekly grocery need while as in Shanghai, the expense for food went up high again after several years of “good life.” They have to spend around 80 to 150 RMB per week for merely the food, which takes up about 30% of their total consumption. I reminded them that I didn’t go for the organic food as many people do.
IV
After two years of living in Ohio, I began to accept the fact that not every thing I eat is quality-guaranteed. Several occasional purchases of the reduced fat milk in Walmart made me realize that it went bad faster than milk from other popular supermarkets or pharmacies. When staring at the bad milk in my mug, I was immediately terrified by my imagination of the industrial and supply chain that I didn’t know about.
V
The first time I went back home after living in the States for a year, my family couldn’t wait to give me a good observation of what had or had not changed in me. Among the first several sentences they uttered at the airport, there was the judgment “You are whiter.” I had to hear it for several times whenever I met some relatives or friends for the first time in one year of separation. My skin is whiter and finer, and no one bothered to ask why.
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Chris Joe,
ReplyDeleteWow, what an interesting piece. I'm always curious to hear about how others adapt to the American food system. Before moving to Ohio, I taught ESL, and part of my job there was to pick up students from the airport, take them to their dorms, and then take them to Wal-Mart. Many students weren't impressed with the size of the store or the quantity of products, but were very inquisitive about the make-up of the products. One student in particular was a vegetarian and had head that it was extremely difficult to be a vegetarian in the U.S. Another student was cautious about buying certain fruits because she knew they were out of season in her home country.
I think you could incorporate this into a greater piece of writing, maybe even your place essay. Your perspective is very valuable and so honest and implicit here. Thanks for an interesting read.
Sam,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the kind words.:) At first, I was interested in the point of self-construction Schneider mentions in the Slow Food article. I was reflecting on my own reading of his essay to see why I feel about different ideas in different ways. Say, the domestic eating routine is slow in China, I thus felt funny when he asked people to learn to appreciate the freshness of food; however, industrial chains and sources of food production are not known to many Chinese, sometimes it is caused by the problems of the mass media, sometimes it's just because the public don't care, or some of them can't care when life is hard. Various issues like social structure, locality, cultural differences came into my mind regarding constructing identity and community with Slow Food. That's my justification of writing the post this time in narrative instead of the form of analysis.I hope to stake out some factors involved therein.
SiYang,
ReplyDeleteThe assumption that the food in our countries is good and clean is problematic. In Jordan, for example, few people question the food they consume because they aren't sufficiently informed to make the "right" choices. The majority looks for products that are affordable and taste good, regardless of their nutritional facts. However, the young generation attempt to make healthy choices about what they put in their bodies, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to discern how our food was grown, processed, and treated.
Wow, Lana, this is a different impression than I got from your remarks in class. Sounds somewhat similar to here but with less industrializing, less chain restaurants etc.
ReplyDeleteSiYang, your post is interesting. Why do you think you and the island woman get "whiter" from eating differently? never heard of this. Does your father adnd family see this in racial terms? Is whiter better?
I want to hear more of the particulars of eating in your family and city. Partly this is because I am very interested in food cultures, but I also think that some palpable detail helps to demonstrate a cultural sensibility.
CJ,
ReplyDeleteYour testimony about returning home from a different culture was very interesting; it is something I have not experienced, except maybe my aunt saying I looked wire-y at a Christmas get together years back (I had been eating vegetarian since I saw her last).
Also, what you mention about the wal-mart milk is an intriguing point. Maybe wal-mart will begin marketing organic milk in order to sell a more appealing product.
Finally, I get the impression that where you live in China there are lots of farmer's markets--that's great! Are there similar issues of mass food production in China though, as with genetically modified plants that are copyrighted, water pollution from mass pesticides, and feedlots?
I love what you have to contribute to the discussion.
@ albertoid,I'd like to talk more about it when appropriate. My family doesn't use the term "becoming whiter" with racial sense. However, I have mixed feelings towards the phrase after studying in U.S.I am more aware of the racial message contained in the word, thus hearing it differently when people use that on me.Yet, when Chinese people say this, they simply mean the skin color becoming lighter. But what is closely related with it is standards of living conditions, and therefore, regional stereotypes.That takes a lot to explain, but in short, regional stereotypes are stronger in China compared with U.S. since the differences between urban, suburb, and countrysides are still big.
ReplyDelete@ Russ,I'm glad you point out the issue about farmers' markets--I didn't get to explain it clearly. In general, farmers' markets are the main place where Chinese people get food except from diary products.However, the ideas of farmers' market and supermarket or pharmacy are different from that of American. Supermarkets are for groceries, and Chinese don't actually have pharmacies as within supermarkets;stall-owners of the farmers' markets are not the actual farmers who grow or produce the food, at least not in urbans like Shanghai. They are more like salesmen who only have second-hand information about the source of the food they sale.
The issue of mass food production is less concerned, but we do have serious food and pollution problems. What's more dangerous than those problems we are having, from my perspective, is that they have not gain public's attention.
Dear SiYang,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your narrative style and how you allowed the concept of place to rise slowly from descriptions of other things like people, food, stores, and colors. The force of the difference of place doesn't hit the reader until your parent's statement at the end. This is well done!
I could use a little clarification about when it was that you got everything cleared up about what organic meant in the US and when you started buying "good" food. I wasn't sure about the hows, whens, and whys of the change.
I wonder with Albertoid about the "whiteness." Obviously, as you know, this comes with connotations in the US. Also, like Albertoid, I have not heard about people looking whiter when they are healthier. Instead of looking at this ads problematic, I think it could be a really interesting point of departure for incorporating another framework for this essay, one that comments on cultural perceptions of health as opposed to real health and the ironies that go along with that.
Great stuff. Look forward to reading more!
--Eric