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Critical analysis of my cultural identity
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Eyeing the mostly burnt fried fish with literal air bubbles forming in between the scales and meat and wrinkling of the top layer skin that was just a disaster on one plate. Not only that, but there seem to be hundreds of bowls of rice, with the bright white grains seeping over the top. Within the bowls of rice were dry-microwaved pieces of Spam and toxic shiny film created from being out for too long. The more I looked at it, the more the food began to resemble increasingly intimidating mountains of dirty snow and less like an edible meal. However, this isn’t a story about my struggles with my Vietnamese culture, although it may seem to be, it just so happens my Mom isn’t necessarily the best cook around. When my family gathered around the
Chao-Wei Wu Jeffrey McMahon English 1A 23 July 2014 Chef Jeff Henderson_Cooked Chef JH’s personal memoir, Cooked, is a model confirmation that it is feasible for an author to give a moving message without sounding sermonizing and redundant. Cooked takes place after Henderson's rise and fall (and rise once more). The story begins with his alliance with drug merchants of becoming one of the top split cocaine merchants in San Diego by his 23rd birthday. It leads to his capture and inevitably his rising into the culinary business (Ganeshram 42).
his sons, Tuan and Tu, for wanting to get seconds of the food. For the Vietnamese culture, it is
This is a story of an immigrated family, narrator’s father and mother who immigrate to Canada from Malaysia. In this family father prepares foods for everybody every day. One day, son’s rebellious behavior broke the silence of life, and father used violence to teach him a lesson, all this happened were in daughter’s eyes. The story is written by Madeleine Thien, “Canadian-born daughter of Malaysian-Chinese immigrants, who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Now, whose collection Simple Recipes was named a notable book by the 2001 Kiriyama Paci fic Rim Book Prize” (Brown, 2006). The theme of cultural conflicts are shown through the setting of rinsing rice in kitchen, the character of brother’s rejection in life and the metaphor
Originally the narrator admired her father greatly, mirroring his every move: “I walked proudly, stretching my legs to match his steps. I was overjoyed when my feet kept time with his, right, then left, then right, and we walked like a single unit”(329). The narrator’s love for her father and admiration for him was described mainly through their experiences together in the kitchen. Food was a way that the father was able to maintain Malaysian culture that he loved so dearly, while also passing some of those traits on to his daughter. It is a major theme of the story. The afternoon cooking show, “Wok with Yan” (329) provided a showed the close relationship father and daughter had because of food. Her father doing tricks with orange peels was yet another example of the power that food had in keeping them so close, in a foreign country. Rice was the feature food that was given the most attention by the narrator. The narrator’s father washed and rinsed the rice thoroughly, dealing with any imperfection to create a pure authentic dish. He used time in the kitchen as a way to teach his daughter about the culture. Although the narrator paid close attention to her father’s tendencies, she was never able to prepare the rice with the patience and care that her father
After reading different articles and learning more about African American culture, it made me want to find out more about my own family culture. There are different traditions that are pasted down in generations, which could have been a part of African culture that we don’t realize such as parenting styles. I don’t remember hearing too many stories about my past relatives growing up, so I had to find out more on my family experiences in the south. Also, I wanted to see how spirituality played a roll in my family choices. My goal in this paper is to show how I got a better understanding of the reason my family could be structured the way it is now.
In the essay " Rice for Thanksgiving " by Jocelyn Fong who is a full american, partial asian young girl is a young girl who admires her untraditional thanksgiving, and meaning. Fong loves thanksgiving, due to her Grand mothers special dish " Rice and Gravy " as said in the essay Her Grandmother always celebrated the American way, She even never got around to teaching Fong's father their native language. " I believe in rice and gravy, I am half Asian and completely American. " by Fong saying that, she completely accepts the mix she is by referring to the mix of food that is a tradition. You should celebrate holidays the way it makes you happy, with your very own culture regardless the fact if it is different.
Reading Catfish and Mandala reminded me of my cultural closeness through food. Due to being bi-ethnic I learned how to cook food from both my ethnicities, however there were times when I found myself acting like a foreigner towards certain dishes. A prime example was when I had Chitlins or pig intestines. I had eaten menudo, thanks to my Hispanic mother and this was the first time I had Chitlins, an African American dish via my paternal grandmother. Unlike Menudo, which to me has an appetizing smell and taste, Chitlins were a gray stringy putrid smelling dish. Remembering the utter dislike I obtained from that African American dish, reminded me of Pham’s experience with Vietnamese food. While there are some dishes people can’t stand, most usually embrace a dish from their culture and that helps ease some of the pain or discomfort.
She talks about how she felt ashamed about her culture and the food. In Amy Tan's essay, she had a crush on boy from the minister's family named Robert. They were invited to have Christmas Eve's dinner at Tan's place. Tan was curious about how the minister's family would react when they saw Chinese food instead of traditional turkey and mashed potatoes. She was thinking to herself that what Robert will think about the evening. The minister's family arrived and started digging in on the appetizers. Tan was embarrassed to sit with them at the table because the minister's family was surprised. But as the evening prolonged, Tan's father said “Tan, your favorite" as he served the fish cheeks to her (Tan
I was born and raised in Vietnam, so I naturally observed my culture from my family and my previous schools. I learned most of my culture by watching and coping the ways my family do things. My family and my friends all spoke Vietnamese, so I eventually knew how to speak and understand deeply about my language as I grew up. At home, my mom cooked many Vietnamese foods, and she also taught me to cook Vietnamese food. So I became accustom Vietnamese food. I also learned that grandparents and parents in my culture are taken care of until they die. At school, I learned to address people formally and greet higher-ranking people first. In Vietnamese culture, ranking and status are not related to wealth, so they are concerned with age and education.
What is culture? Culture is the idea of what is wrong or right, the concept of what is acceptable within our society. Culture serves us as a guide, taking us to the "right way" and helping us to make sense of things that surrounds us. There are many different cultures around the world. A lot of them are similar in specific ways and others are just completely different, this difference explains why we think that people from different backgrounds are "weird".
This novel Paradise of the Blind, written by Duong Thu Huong, is set in the 1980’s. The novel narrates the life of a twenty year old Vietnamese lady, who has been through a great deal of things in her life. While she is on a train to Moscow, Russia, she reflects on her childhood in Vietnam during the time of communism. Throughout the confusing yet great novel, Huong writes the story in the perspective of a main character, Hang, by using many different motifs. No doubt, one main motif is the use and the culture of food that is told throughout the novel. Food is mentioned countless numbers of times, it is very significant through the novel and the Vietnamese culture. This novel, is a great written novel, considering it was banned from Vietnam in 1993. There are many foods mentioned throughout the book, and each of them have a great significance of the culture Vietnam and areas around that region as well as in the book, Paradise of the Blind. The author emphasizes food in the novel, which reveals once status of hierarchy, which also brings in family as a connection with the culture of food they have other homes in Vietnam.
Growing up as a first generation Chinese-American, I felt as if I was stranded in the void between two worlds, isolated and alone. At school, I hid my Chinese self and tried to be more ‘American’ in order to fit in. At home, I then carefully tucked away my American half and acted the dutiful Chinese son to please my parents. If Chinese and American were two planets, I was a vagabond flitting back and forth between them, unsettled and insecure, never quite belonging in either one.
My personal cultural identity is a lot different compared to the society I am surrounded by. I am considered an outsider in my society. I am an outsider living in a constantly changing environment where there are many different kinds of people and many different cultural identities. In my culture we know how to respect people and their belongings, know how to work hard, use what we have while being thankful for it at the same time, and last we know how to stay true to ourselves in this very fast pace world of ours. I am a cowboy.
One of the things I realized, at this time in society other cultures do not feel as joyous about their current cultural status like it, was when I was growing up. People were happy to be from another culture. I remember times when I went to events like Kwanzaa and Cinco de Mayo, with open conscious to learn and enjoy myself. My interview is with Carlos my neighbor, we talked about how the United States used to be described as a "melting pot" in which different cultures/events have contributed their own certain "flavors" to American culture. I instantly understood he knew he was from a very unaccepted minority group in his responses. Carlos, who is 58 years of age told me in the mid-80s he felt like he belongs to America. This indicated “speaking in
I was born in a refugee camp in Ethiopia, at the age of six i lost my father. and my mother had to become both of my parents. eventually we end up coming to the united states in 2005, where it was very difficult to adjust to but me and my family came along way to be better of the community and to integrate with the American culture while staying true to our culture. During my undergraduate years in college i had to work 40 plus hours a week to help out my mother pay the bills and keep roof on top of my siblings. I came close to dropping out of school several times during those difficult times, but eventually i ended up finishing school. in my last semester of college my mother , the only person who i had as role model was shot 7 times while