About the project
My project is about how Chinese food is affected by the political environment of American society. My goal is to generate more thoughts on how one culture adapts to another through looking at the evolution of Chinese food in the United States.
There are four main components in this project: a timeline of the historical events from 1850 to present, a collection of local stories, a gallery of menu covers, and a visualization of menu data sets.
- The timeline shows how the international relationship influences America's acceptance of Chinese food.
- The local interviews come from three Chinese restaurants in Lewisburg, P.A: Pandaly, Fuji Steakhouse, and Yung Ting. The restaurant owners share their own stories of their adventures in the U.S.
- The gallery of menu covers shows a variety of forms a Chinese food restaurant menu can look like. There are annotations pointing out some interesting features of the menu cover pages.
- The data visualization comes from the historical menu data sets. It gives people a chance to explore the data themselves. The digital tools make the data easy to understand and interesting to play with.
Part II: Where does the Ideas come from?
I go to Bucknell University, which is located in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. In this small town, there are two Japanese restaurants owned by Chinese. The menus are a mix of Chinese and Japanese food. The distinctiveness between the two becomes ambiguous nowadays. It seems that Japanese and Chinese restaurants emerge into one “brand” under the influence of the American culture. I am curious to find out how Asian food adapts to American culture.
Part III: The mission and goals
I hope the project generates more interests in studying how one culture adapts to another one. The evolution of Chinese food is not only about the tastes, but also about how the Americans view China as a country. Chinese culture in America is not limited to exotic cuisine, but is also related to the people and international politics. The adaptation of Chinese food tells us a lot of stories.
