Drew’s CP Blog

Cultural Differences

August 22nd, 2008

With one day left and 34 or so behind me in I thought I’d post some information about what I’ve learned here for those that are interested in going to China.

 There are many differences between the Western and Chinese cultures, the biggest of which have to be related to cuisine and eating.  The biggest difference between American Chinese and traditional Chinese food is the amount of oil utilized in cooking and lack of thick sauces loaded with sugar.  Our cocktail table in our room also cameos as a dining table and desk and I have to wipe the grease off after every meal.  For some reason though the oil that’s utilized doesn’t make me want to vomit like everytime I eat McDonald’s.  There are a lot more vegetables, soups/broths, ginger and garlic utilized as well.

 Eating out at a traditional Chinese restaurant is also very different than a Western restaurant where every person orders their own meal and rarely (if ever) shares with the larger group.  When dining with a large group its (as I’ve found) very common to order multiple dishes that are shared amongst everybody.  Table settings consist of a small plate, small bowl, chopsticks, a glass to shuttle beer (later Greg) and usually a small rest to keep the business end of your chopsticks off the table.  Larger tables will also include a huge wheel to spin dishes around on and share with everyone.  Most of the time you will just pick out what you want directly from the serving plate, eat it and repeat without transferring to your dish with the exception of something really messy (i.e. a ton of noodles or long vegetables).

At one point or another I read about the concept of wholeness in Chinese cuisine and its not uncommon to find almost every part of an animal utilized and/or present while eating.  For example if you order fish, you get pretty much a whole fish sans internal organs.  The meat here is OK but at most of the places I’ve been to thusfar takes a bit of effort and working at something to get the good stuff separated from the bones/etc is common.  Soups are really good and have a ton of flavor.  Even though a lot of it is cooked with oil vegetables are in everything and are a part of every meal.

In traditional places menus didn’t seem like that big a deal – the food they could whip up was out there or there was at least a picture of it.  Most seafood such as fish and shrimp are extremely fresh as its usually killed, cleaned and cooked all in the same place.  Other than the aforementioned fish, eating shrimp was another thing I had to learn over again in China.  As shrimp is fresh, they are usually thrown in whole and boiled/cooked then served (head on, shell on).  Separating the head is easy but taking the shell/legs/etc off is something I forgot to do.

Drinking in China is also very different.  In a restaurant setting you don’t drink beer from the bottle.  This is where the (4~5 oz. or so) glass comes in.  Everyone at the table will fill their glass and say cheers every so often, sipping out of the glass.  As the night goes on sipping the glass usually turns to finishing it and saying cheers goes to speed chugging the guy(s)/girl(s) across from you.  Being a Westerner usually makes you a target.  Luckily beer is more filling here than potent at an average of 2.8% ABV.

Dessert isn’t really a big thing here either but the closest thing to it is somewhat healthy.  After a large meal its (from what I saw) common to have cutup watermelon (seedless, pretty much like back in the US).

Really different, but really good.

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