Annotated bibilography

Terracotta warriors, a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. The sculptures are locating in Xi’an, China, where my hometown is.

Giskin, Howard, Bettye S. Walsh, and Vance Cope-Kasten. An Introduction to Chinese Culture through the Family. Albany: State U of New York, 2001. Print.

The editors of this book assembled a wide range of Chinese cultures from different perspective. From the analysis of different Chinese characters to the Chinese literatures and folktales. However, the editors chose the word “family” as the title of the book to connect all the Chinese cultures together. The order of the Chinese society is heavily based on the philosophy of Confucianism, which claimed that the “one continuous strand” serve as the ground and the connection and the order in the Chinese society is the word: “family”. The book covered a wide range of knowledge about China, but two of the chapters have profoundly discussed the importance of family in core Chinese value. The chapter written by Vance Cope-Kasten name “Meeting Chinese Philosophy” and the chapter “ Jia, ‘family’, and the Chinese House” written by Judy Schaaf. The first chapter discussed what is Chinese philosophy and how it is the base of Chinese philosophy and the second chapter talked about the structure of Chinese family and the traditions of Chinese family under Confucius influence.

Both chapters mentioned “family” as the central value for Chinese philosophy. As Cope- Kasten stated in the chapter “Meeting Chinese Philosophy”, “there is no atomistic, independent self which may or may not be involve in the relationships with others.” Chinese was born into a web of relationships being someone else’s daughter or son. Grandparents are not part of the extended family, which suppose to have a separate life with the central family, but part or the core family. Leaving grandparents out of the core of the family can be consider immoral is China. Even after grandparents, great grandparents have passed away, their rituals were suppose to be kept alive in their descendants’ mind, and “it was thought ideal to live as one’s ancestors would have wanted.” In Schaaf’s chapter, “ Jia, ‘family’, and the Chinese House”, the traditional Chinese family structure was reflected in Chinese household structures, “ … domestic architecture expresses a continuity and simplicity that clarify the daunting complexity and antiquity of Chinese culture.”

I use this source to explore more into the traditional Chinese structure. What was discussed in this book about the traditional Chinese family structure was really true according to what I have seen in Chinese society. This book connects the structure of the Chinese family with the Chinese philosophy and the base of Chinese central belief, Confucianism. Family is the core value in a Chinese society, which is also what brings family members closer to each other than western countries. The rituals of the family suppose to pass down fro generation to generations. My family like all the traditional Chinese families values the family most importantly. Although my family is fairly small and spread all around the world, but the central value of the family keeps all the members of the family together.

Wu, Annie. “Salty North China Food.” ChinaHighlights. ChinaHighlights, 25 Nov. 2015. Web. 12 Nov. 2015.

My hometown, Xi’an, is at the northern part of China. It has the cold harsh climate of the North and also the eating habitat of North. The harsh climate made the food usually contains more calories and more salty. A strong flavor probably is the first impression of the northern food for many southerners. The food in the North is usually more salty and contains more meat and oil. Wheat is the staple crop of Northern China. There are abundant wheat-flour products made in the form of noodles, dumplings, steamed buns, stuffed buns. One of the most famous example is the food eat in the traditional Chinese New Year’s Eve. In the North, the traditional food is dumpling made with flour and meat; however, in the south, the traditional food is sticky rice ball made with rice and sweet bean paste or other sweet stuffing. There are also a big difference on the serving size of the food. Northerners are consider more enthusiastic, generous, and very hospitable. They drink liquor with big bowls, and eat meat in big pieces. Therefore northern dishes are generally served in big portions. Instead in the South, dishes are usually in a smaller portion, but cooks with more delicate skill and takes more time because southerners are consider more meticulous and deep thinking.

I used this source in comparing the North and South’s different characteristics in food because my grandparents were originally from the southern part of China, while I was grew up in the North. I could see the characteristics of both North and South in my family’s cooking style because my family took in the influence of the northern cooking style in my family’s cuisine. To understand the characteristics and distinct difference between northern and southern style dishes is very important in exploring the heritage of my family. It is also very important to understand why different regions in China adopts different cooking style? This also helps explain the question is my family’s cooking style changed due to the climate or the influence of the culture?

This is a screen shot of Xi’an Famous Food’s website. Unlike traditional Chinese restaurants in Ameirca, Xi’an Famous Food add many factors of younger generation. The marketing strategy brought Xi’an’s traditional food outside China town and became part of the populat culture.

Shao, Heng. “The Phenomenon Of Xi’an Famous Foods In New York City.” Forbes. Forbes Investing, 30 July 2013. Web. 4 Dec. 2015.

The article was about the pioneering story of a chain restaurant business selling traditional Xi’an food, the food from my hometown. The article talked less about the characteristics of the food but focused more on the story of expanding the business. Chinese restaurants always have an impression of cheap, small and highly Americanized. Most of the Chinese restaurant owners are satisfied with a small delivering restaurant with at most five tables and twenty chairs. The owner of the restaurant, however, has the ability to broaden his ambition to targeting the clientele outside the Chinese community and even outside of Manhattan. Traditional American restaurants’ marketing strategies was depending on the food that will please American’s taste bud. Wang, the owner of the restaurant, graduating with a business degree from University of Washington in St, Louis, brought his western style marketing strategy into the restaurant. His passion for the restaurant gave him the courage to break the traditions. He stayed true to the traditional recipe but promote the restaurants with menus that are easier to access by the clients other than the Chinese immigrants. Popular social media such as Facebook and Twitter also became part of the promoting strategy. He understood that it was not the “dragons, big golden gilded phoenixes” represents the Chinese food, but the food the recipe itself. It was not endless pleasing attracts American customers into the restaurants, but the clean and standardized quality product, not expansive and easily accessible food. Wang understands that he can’t force all the people to like his food, however, he has a very clear targeting group, “people who are younger, more adventurous about things, people who don’t mind a little spice in their life”.

I chose this source because this article aroused my passion. A young man in my age, used the knowledge learned from an American college to promote the most original and traditional flavor of my hometown to the American society. To comfortably blend into the American culture is one of the hardest problems every Chinese immigrant facing. How to blend in without lose the original Chinese identity, Wang, the owner of the restaurant gave out a perfect answer. I, as a Chinese also from Xi’an, is asking myself the same question, what should be my passion? What is my way of blending?

The article also showed food as a symbol of a culture. When the Chinese food could only stayed inside Chinese community, Chinese people also blocked themselves inside the two streets of Chinatown. However, Wang, used food as his medium, his symbol, to introduce his family heritage, his tradition to the whole Manhattan.

The poster for the documentary “A Bite of China”. The design of the poster was a piece of pork belly. The lean meat part was deigned into the mountains and the fat part was the river.

A Bite of China. Prod. Wen Liu. Dir. Xiaoqing Chen. China Central Television, 2012. Documentary.

A bite of China is a documentary introduce the audiences to the extensive and profound Chinese food culture. The documentary series introduces the history and story behind foods of various kinds in more than 60 locations in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. It involves food that represents the characteristics of every region in China. The documentary has also been actively encouraged as a means of introducing Chinese food culture to those unfamiliar with local cuisine. The documentary also includes the stories and history behind each dish, what the dish represents and means to the family cooking the meal. The dishes in the documentary were mostly not from big and fancy restaurant, but regular households. What people usually eats everyday and the small restaurants on the street. However, all of their food represents the characteristics of the local residents’ life style and their preference.

This is the most important source I want to use to introduce the food part of my project. It has massive information about Chinese food. When it first came out, the documentary rapidly became a popular series to talk about on Chinese social media, which is infrequent for a documentary. Its popularity reflects the importance of food in Chinese people’s everyday life. It involves the food Chinese people eats everyday and brings the audience. I remember when I was watching the documentary, it was my fifth year in America. The documentary was introducing a dish from my hometown, the food brought me back to my childhood and my precious memories. The documentary let me realize that food can be a conductor connecting the people and the memory.

Chang, Kwang-chih. Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives. New Haven: Yale UP, 1977. Print.

Food in Chinese culture investigated the change in Chinese food cultures at different time periods in the history. According to the characteristics of the food ingredients of the different time period in history. What are considering the foods for the upper class? What are foods people normally eat? What were kitchen look like? What were feasts look like? More importantly, this book investigated the characteristics of food cultures at different regions of China. What type of food each region prefers? What are the historical reasons behind these preferences? Each preference has a reason. Southwestern part of China prefers spicy food because of their humid climate, spicy food can help them taking the humidity out of their body. Northern China easts more wheat than rice not only because northern china has better climate and soil for the wheat to grow but also wheat can keep people stay full for longer than rice can, which helps northerners to work longer in a colder climate.

This source discussed my historical reasons behind Chinese food. How did a kind of food go on a Chinese family’s dinner table? How did different regions of China eats differently? And what was the reason behind these differences?

Chin, Ai-li S., and Maurice Freedman. Family and Kinship in Chinese Society. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1970. Print.

China, as a country with thousands years of history developed a very complicated social structure and family system. Family is the base of the Chinese society. It plays a significant role in China’s social values. Due to the significance role of family in Chinese society, children, even after they are fully-grown, still tend to live under the same roof with their parents, if not, live very close to. Chinese people who left their hometown for different reasons still have to find time to return home in a regular basis. As an old saying in China states, “falling leaves returning to the root of the tree that sired them.” In Chin’s book Family and Kinship in Chinese Society. Chinese family was analyzed in many different aspects. How the Chinese family developed in the modern society, what are the relationships between the family members are like, and how a child is usually trained to adopt the traditional family values. The book even provided a list of Chinese family kin term of references and addresses due to the complicated Chinese family structures.

I chose this source because it gives a clear explanation of the importance of Chinese family structures and developments. The most important part is that it shows how family value can impact Chinese society in a very obvious way. The book also discuss the development of Chinese family in modern society. It is very important part of my project because my family is a very typical type of modern Chinese family, with the size of the family getting similar and relationship between family members getting closer.

Yeung, Yue-man, and Jianfa Shen. Developing China’s West: A Critical Path to Balanced National Development. Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong: Chinese UP, 2004. Print.

China has the second largest continent in the world. The broad land resources caused distinctive differences in development in different part of China. The vast land resources caused the unbalanced development in different areas of China. South and Eastern parts of China were always the first ones to become prosperous due to the fertility of the land and the ports by the ocean. Instead, the northwestern part of China was always hard to develop. The land in the west was dry and sterile. Because of the Loess Plateau, which is a desert-liked geographical area, the climate was always dry and full of sand flying up in the air. It was not surprised hat the wstern part of China developed much slower than the eastern part of China. Developing China’s West thoroughly explained the historical, geographical and political significance of Chinese’s western development. The underdevelopment of the West led to the national policies mobilizing resources from other affluent areas. These policies led to large population emigrate from their hometown in support of the development of the West. The book also thoroughly investigated the profiles of population and economical growth of the individual providences in western China.

I chose this source because my hometown is one of the biggest cities in the western China, Xi’an. However, there were not many people originally from Xi’an around me when I was a child. Most of the older generations in my grandfather’s age were from either south or eastern part of china. As matter of fact, the company my grandfather worked for, a government owned company, was composed of people from all over China. All four of my grandparents came from different areas of China. They were part of the mobilized resources to develop the poor and backward west. Combining this book with my grandfather’s stories, my family history was tightly linked with the recent history of Chinese development.

Falk, Ursula A., and Gerhard Falk. Grandparents: A New Look at the Supporting Generation. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2002. Print.

Grandparents are the most important component of a family. In different cultures, grandparents play an important role to be the leader, the educator and the support of a large family. This book discussed the role and statues of grandparents from the history and different culture’s aspects. How the family structures was like in history, how did the importance of the role of the grandparents grew during different time in history. How grandmother and father’s role are different in a family. Grandparents’ role in rising the younger generation of the family due to parent’s working hours was very important in many culture’s family. Many children developed very close relationships with grandparents during their childhood. The book is very useful because it compared the role of the grandparents from many different cultures, including my own, Chinese culture. How grandparents family position was like in Chinese culture and how the position changed over time.

I use this source because my grandparents took an important role in my childhood. With my parents were always busy working, I spent many time in my grandparents’ house. Therefore, many of the family dishes in my childhood memory is from my grandparents’ dinner table. This is usually very typical in china. With grandparents taking care the grandchildren while the parents are working. Most of the time, parents also return to the grandparents’ house after work to eat lunch or dinner together. Grandparents are still center of the Chinese family.

Fong, Vanessa L. Only Hope: Coming of Age under China’s One-child Policy. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2004. Print.

Many people had heard of one child policy in China but not many people actually spent time to see what was the children and family was really like in china under one child policy. When Chinese government just changed the policy to allow a second child, my generation became the first and last generation of only child in China. Chinese family prefers more children and larger family. One child policy completely shifts China’s social structure. Children as the hope and future of a Chinese family became the only hope and the center of the family. Family size shrink, with four grandparents, two parents and one child became the most typical type of a normal Chinese family structure. Parents in the middle has to carry on more responsibilities and financial needs, therefore has to work harder. Grandchildren were usually left with the grandparents to take care. This book described the one child policy in a very negative aspect. It talked about the competition, the stress and the heavy expectations the only child has to carry. It focused on how spoiled the only child can be. This book represents a common opinion about the only child society in the western countries perspective. However, as part of the society, I experience much more than the stress and spoiled up bring method of the only child. Instead, I see a more responsible generation unite the family closer together. Family usually has closer relationships because all the focus is on one person. Only child usually has better relationships with their parents because they are the only hope of their parents in traditional Chinese value. Children are also more responsible because they realize the responsibility carry on them.

I used this resource because one child policy is the turning point of the Chinese family structure. However, this book, in my opinion did not discuss the topic from an objective viewpoint. I will use the source to expand my own argument and provide more knowledge about the influence of only child policy to the Chinese society from my own point of view.

Brooks, David. “Lady Gaga and the Life of Passion.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 22 Oct. 2015. Web. 26 Oct. 2015.

In this article, Books used Lady Gaga as an entering point to discuss the importance of passion in a person’s life. How important is passion to a person? Passion is the soul and the compass of a person’s life. Passion is the result of one’s desire to complete themselves, as Brook was stated in the article. Everyone needs passion to thrive in his or her life. The most important part of stay passionate is not afraid. Not afraid of discovering new territory, not afraid to dig in and not afraid to lose what they already have. My family’s story is a story full of passion. Starting from the day my grandfather left his hometown to move into the poor and underdeveloped western China, he started our family history of adventure. To abandon the old way of living, under the protection and the web of relationships of the family requires the passion and the courage to explore and to abandon the judgment of the public opinion. It was my grandfather’s passion to find himself and to achieve what he was passionate for gave him the courage to be “recklessness” and to abandon the “tyranny of public opinion”.

My grandfather built his own web of relationships in a land that had not been conquered by the complicated family relationship webs and stayed true to himself. My father did the same thing. Refused to live under the shadow of my grandfather, my father chose to move to America to build his own world. It was passion gave them the courage to left his comfort zone, to careless about the public opinion and most importantly abandoned their fear for failure to do what they wanted to do.

To be passionate is “ to put yourself in danger”, but it is this danger brought my family forward, from place to place.

China. China Internet Information Center. Illuminating China’s Provinces, Municipalities & Autonomous Regions-china.org.cn. China Internet Information Center, Web. 04 Dec. 2015.

This website is an official Chinese government website introduced detailed information about geography and natural conditions, population and ethnicity distributions, and economy of all Chinese provinces. I found all the facts about my hometown on the website and these gave me a better understanding about the city I grew up. My hometown is the capital of the Shannxi Province, which is an inland province along the yellow river. The province is the gate of the northwestern China, which made it the transportation junction between all the northwestern cities and rest of the China. The population distribution is very dense with 174 people per square km. 99.4 % of the population is the Han ethnic group, which is also the largest ethnic group in China. Xi’an was the starting point of the Silk Road, as result, Xi’an is also one of the earliest cities to have Muslim population. This also caused Xi’an’s cuisine was influenced by the culture of Hui, the descendants of the Muslim traders. Due to the severe climate and air pollution, government continued to carry out the state policy of converting the land for forestry in a pro-active manner.

Xi’an is one of the oldest cities in China. Its main agriculture product is wheat, which is the raw material for flour. Many of Xi’an’s traditional cuisine were passed down due to historical reasons. For example, one of Xi’an staple food, mo, is a type of bread made with unleavened dough. This type of bread is very dense and easily fills people up, which can helps traders going toward the west stay full longer. Many of Xi’an’s cuisine is made with lamb or beef, this is due to the influence of the Muslim cuisine. Unlike Chinese food from other region’s of China emphasize on the balance of nutrition and the matching of the colors, Xi’an’s traditional food emphasize on easy and quick cooking styles, ability to keep people warm due to the climate and easily filling up the stomach. Therefore flour-based food is a more popular choice than rice because flour is harder to digest than flour.

Xi’an Muslim Quarter: A famous snack street selling different Islamic foods. The street was right behind an acient Chinese drum tower that has more than 600 hundred years of history.

Tieso, Micheal. “The Foods of Xi’an, China Muslim Quarter.” Art of Adventuring. Art of Adventuring, 05 May 2011. Web. 11 Nov. 2015.

This article is more like a travel journal introducing the readers to one of Xi’an’s most famous attraction Muslim’s Quarter. It is a district filled with traditional Xi’an food. Most of the dishes have more than hundred years of history. This article introduced some of the traditional foods on the Muslim quarter.

Xi’an was the first city in China to be introduced to Islam. Located in the downtown, Xi’an, Muslim Quarter is the gathering place of the Muslim community in the city. The quarter covers several blocks and is inhabited by over 20,000 Muslims. Despite its religious significance, Muslim quarter is now consider a local snack street and tourist attraction. Snack shops sells dried fruits such as dates and raisins such were made from local raw materials. Other famous Xi’an dishes such as paomo, unleavened bread soaked in the lamb soap were also very popular on the street.

I used this source because Muslim quarter is one of the most famous snack street in China. It has many food represents the food style in Xi’an. Many of Xi’an’s traditional food were heavily influenced by Muslim culture. Sometimes, people mistakenly took Muslim’s traditional food as Xi’an’s traditional food. However, there are still difference between Muslim food and Xi’an’s traditional food. Xi’an’s population can be divide into two biggest categories, Han and Hui. Han enthic group is about 99% of Xi’an’s population, which is also the largest ethnic group in China. Hui, is the descendants of Muslims. Most of the Muslims in China had already blend into the Han’s community. The existence of Muslim’s quarter was government’s reserved district for Hui; however, because of its geographical advantage, in the middle of Xi’an downtown, the district is now more commercially significant than religiously. However, there still are difference between Han and Hui’s food. For example, one of Xi’an’s most famous food roujiamo, pork burger, can’t be consume by Hui because of the pork ingredients.