Asian Society Lived Experience And Asian Food History Essay

Asian society is comprised of the broad range of land, different weather and geographical environment has resulted in the different food accordingly, in the mean time, the development of the Asian countries has placed the serious effect on the constitution of local food as well. And it provides a series of lived experience of the society through the food as well. In the following section, the reflection on the lived experience from the food would be described in detail. In first section, it is mainly focus on the eastern Asian countries such as China, Japan and Korea, and then the south Asia and South Asia has been analyzed with the typical countries such as India and Thailand, furthermore, the Meddle Asian country such as Kazakhstan has been described, in the end, the western Asian country and Arab country such as Turkey and Saudi has been discussed as the typical representative to be discussed.

Main section

In China, the people in North China prefer to each noodle, the people in South China prefers to eat rice. It is linked deeply with the different geography environment in China (Tang and Fong, 2004). The boundary line between North China and South China is the Huai River and Qinling Mountains, in the South of the area, the weather is relatively warm and rains much, it is appropriate to cultivate rice, and in the North of the area, the weather is relative cold and dry, they have to cultivate the wheat which need little water and cold-resistant. In the daily life, people in the South area would prepare the dish and eat rice with the dish, but in North of China, they usually make the food with wheat flour and eat directly without dish.

In China, with the development of the daily life level, people not only focus on the obtainment on the energy, but also the dish appearance as well as the dinner atmosphere (Halbrendt, 1994). Take radish for example, either the red radish or the white radish, the different shape would created, and different name would be created, even it can be decorated in the upper class dinner as well, in other words, it has reflected the rich life experience of the people as well.

With the food cultural development, the dinner in China has been requested on the strict requirement, even the color, flavor and taste has been requested further. Even the dinner has the further development on the dish name, taste pattern, entertainment during the dinner. It is confirmed that the name of the dish has reflected the historical experience, such as Dongpo meat, it is said that it is the favorite food by the famous poem poet in Song dynasty-Su Dongpo.

In Japan, the dish can be named as Japanese Cooking, the cooking style is very special. In fact, it is descended from the Chinese food. Japanese food is comprised of rice, Japanese soup and seasonal vegetable. The same as China, Japan food is focus on the dish shape as well, probably the taste is very common, but the shape of dish would easily inspire the appetite. Japan is the island country, the warm weather and typical season has enriched the seafood. In the daily life of Japan, they are interested in the peaceful and simple life, in the dish, they manage to put less oil in the dish in order to foster the insipidity food. In the mean time, the humility and harmony is the main rhythm in the daily life. Thus they would not like to slaughter the big dumb in order to save the animal life, and the little plain is difficult to cultivate dumb in large quantity. Thus the beef and pork is not the key food before 1950s (Novotny and Boushey, 2003).

Generally speaking, the food culture in Japan has been affected by the Chinese culture deeply, they are focus on the family dinner in the weekend, and the family members would sit behind the big table, the soup is also packed in the big bowl, and decorated with sushi and sashimi, the dish would be usually prepared by the females, which reflects the social status of the females in Japan society. But in the recent years, the family dinner preparation has been reduced gradually, in the one hand, the western fact food culture has placed the serious effect on Japan society, more and more Japanese has become interested in the fast food from the western countries, it is linked deeply with the quickened life rhythm in Japan, the other aspect is that with the development of Japan economy and the aging population, it requires more people to finish the task in fluency, more and more females in Japanese family has gone out of the home and contributes to Japanese economy. Thus they would not have more relaxed time to prepare the delicious food for the family all the time.

Korea has been under the agricultural society for a long time. Thus their main food is the rice. And the country is near the sea, fish is the main food for Korea as well. Pickled vegetable, Hoisin and Soybean paste are the typical ferment food, which is for the nutrition value and special odor (Beghin and Park, 2003). The pickle vegetable in Korea is famous in the world. In the earlier time, the economy in Korea is not very developed, the society is the agricultural society at the time, due to the poor technology of agriculture and the limited land resources, the people in Korea cannot have enough food after their hard work on the land. They have to adopt the more economic way to save the limited food. And the pickled vegetable is just appropriate for their daily life. The pickled vegetable is mainly the cabbage, they wash it clearly and pickle it with the salt, and then put it into one big tank, and the cabbage would be able to storage for several months, they usually consider it as the important food when they last the time of food shortage. After the years descendent, the daily life of Korea have been improved greatly, they would not be afraid of food shortage any more, but the pickled vegetable has become the delicious food in the table of Korea.

In addition, the people in Korea are very focus on the traditional family. They usually hold the large size family dinner party in order to emphasis the sense of family. Probably the family members would be consisted of grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters. The females in the family would positively take the private traditional delicious food on the table to be spilt to other family member in order to link the positive family emotions well. Even in Korea society, the government would also make measures to encourage the people who cooked well, for example, one famous TV play named Da ChangJIn has described the story that one female from the very poor family has worked very hard on the cooking, in the end, she has been approved by the Korea government and been prized for the top honor, in some sense, it has reflected the food culture of Korea as well.

In Thailand, the country is near the sea and in the tropic zone, the broad plain is rich in rice, vegetable and coco, the endless sea line has brought a lot of seafood for Thailand, thus Thailand food is consisted of seafood, fruit and vegetable. It is focus on the taste, it is the rich flour with the pepper, garlic, caraway, curcuma, lemon-glass, coconut and other plant from the tropic zone, the rich flour is linked with the Thailand food would be extended into more types of Thailand special food. The Thailand Soup, Garlic and toast are the representative food of Thailand. The key food is the rice in Thailand, and decorated with the garlic, fish or soup. They usually use the sword and fork to get the food, the local specialties such as seasonal fruit or snack made from flour, egg, coco milk and palm sugar. One special snack is the stew, in Thailand, the lemon shrimp soup is the positive food to maintain the family harmony as well as the couple emotion, the females in the family would be proud of preparing the delicious stew for the husband. Thailand s not good at utilize china, thus in the earlier time, the people in Thailand would like to pack the rice with the local plantain leaf, and obtain the food with the hand directly, the traditional dinner pattern in Thailand has not much tools. Till now, the dish wares in Thailand is still very simple, it is comprised of soup spoon, chopstick and a plate, in some sense, the dinner patterns has been affected by China as well, but the taste is much different from China, in fact, the local special taste of food has attracted a lot of customers in the world.

The middle Asian food is popular in the five countries in middle Asia. Kazakhstan is famous on the mixed noodle, toast, horse meat, horse milk and so on. Uzbekistan owns toast and fruits. Kazakhstan owns toast fish and types of milk bean curd. Kyrgyzstan is the typical middle Asian country in the Asian area. The country is mainly comprised of mountain and grassland, the agricultural and pastoral is developed. Thus a lot of live stock has enriched their food, the milk from the animals is their main drink such as purified yoghurt and yoghurt cheese. The horse meat, beef, camel meat is their main food. Considering that the local handicraft industry is not developed in the past time, they have no technology to produce iron tools, thus till now their stewed meat has still deserved the traditional way, they usually killed the horse at first, and then break it down, and the iron pan is the boiled water, the bone would be put into the iron pan at first, the bunch of meat would put into the iron later, people would sit in a circle to enjoy the meat in the pan. It is the very typical life experience in the society of Kyrgyzstan.

In India, people would like to adopt the flavor as the decoration, even they has applied the flavor into the dish as well, which is one special on the Indian food (Derrickson, Fisher and Anderson, 2000). Considering that people’s preference on the flavor is different, thus the flavor ratio in the dish is different accordingly. And it is the Hinduism popular country, a series of religion custom has placed the serious effect on the Indian food (Adhikari, 2000). The cow is considered as the holy animal in India, they would not eat any food with the beef, in addition, Moslem would not allow the drink with any alcohol. The food is linked deeply with the religion in India, which is the greatest characteristic in India (Hamlett, Bailey, Alexander and Shaw, 2008). In addition, the hot weather in India has requested the food hot flavor. A lot of garlic would be use into the rich and dish in order to encourage the appetite under the hot weather. Since that the excessive restriction on the meat in religion, the mead cooking in India is not developed, and not to be the key dish as well, the vegetable with the garlic is the market of Indian food (Joshi and Lamb, 2000).

For Turkey, the special geographical location has decided the food has mixed the oriental food an d western food. The historical empire in Turkey has included the western Asia, North Africa and South Europe, the huge land area has mixed the variety of food and gradually become the special food culture in Turkey. And the local resident is comprised of Christ, Islam and so on. The intricate nation and broad land areas in the past time has provided the enough room to cultivate the local food culture. The people from the oriental countries has enriched the dinner with rice and noodle, the people from the western countries has enriched the dinner with cheese and bread, even the people from the nomadism had brought the fresh milk, the rich types of plant and descended palace cooking from the empire time has placed the deep effect on the Turkey cooking. The dish usually includes the cereal food with soy sauce, vegetables, meat soup and olive. Their breakfast is similar with the western countries due to the cultural effect. They usually adopt the cheese, bread and fresh fruit such as olive or tomato as the food, in noon, they prefer the stew and salad, and in the evening, the dinner is very grand, most of time the family member would sit together to have the dinner in order to increase the family emotion. And more dishes would be enriched in the dinner as well, a lot of appetite snack and delicious fruit would be prepared and the tea would be adopted as the drink, in fact, the people in Turkey is good at enjoying the life.

The intricate area distribution had made the food very diversified, the fresh fish from the Mediterranean is thanks to the hard work of fisher, and the delicious grape juice is the favorite drink which is cultivated in the plain of Turkey. The Turkey hamburger with the meat is from the grassland of Turkey. In other words, western sea line has constitutes the daily life of fisher, and the plain near the sea had resulted in the daily life of famers, the north grass land has confirmed the daily life of herder, the intricate environment has enriched the Turkey food.

Saudi Arab is the typical countries in the western Asia, desert, torridity, gale wind and drought has been comprised of the local environment (Palaniswamy, 2001). It places the important impact on the rough and open characteristic of the people in Saudi. Their food is simple as well. The desert and black tea is their favorite. The poor geographical environment has requested the local people to prefer the food with less water, because Saudi is the country with little drink water, thus the Arab big bread cake is the main food in Saudi, it is toasted by the special stove, and the price is cheap, thus most of Arab families prefer it as the important food (Musaiger and Abuirmeileh, 1998).

Conclusion

After the serious discussion in the section above, it is confirmed that Asian food is diversifies, and the lived experience of Asian countries is different as well. Different countries lived experience can be reflected from local food as well. Based on the section, the geographical gap has made the countries constitutes the local special food culture. The Confucianists culture and religion culture had put the different food culture on the society. It is confirmed that China, Japan and Koreas is much different from India, Turkey and Saudi on the item. But different food in these countries has just reflected their real lived experience of the society, it would be highly beneficial to make they further research on Asian culture as well.