Food, body and identity

Today (Friday March 2nd) is the traditional Yuanxiao Festival in China. It is the 15th day of the first month in our lunar calendar, and Yuanxiao means the first full moon day in a year. In my “Friend Circle” on WeChat, friends share pictures of Tangyuan (a kind of food we eat especially for the day, see the picture below) to wish each other happiness. It is during these moments I miss my home the most and I wish I could be part of those moments back home.

tangyuan

Actually, China’s traditional festivals are always associated with certain special foods. In a sense, we make meaning with food. For example, we eat Zongzi in our Duanwu Festival (or Dragon Boat Festival) to honor an ancient patriotic poet who drowned himself as he lost his country; we eat Moon Cakes in our Mid-autumn Festival while the family is gathering together to appreciate the brightness of the moon, celebrating the happiness of familial unity. It is interesting to think that eating the food is our way to embody our commemoration, our good will and our desires and such collective embodiment instantiated at a certain time constitutes our common national identity as Chinese.

zongzi

moon cake

Overseas, we are known to others as Chinese and our food is known as Chinese food. However, there is no such thing as “Chinese food” -- a food so typical that it can represent the whole China as Chinese food.  Food always characterizes human adaptability to geographical elements like land forms, climate, etc. and embodies historical, social and cultural influences. With a history that had a continuing experience rivaled in duration only by that of ancient Egypt and a territorial expanse larger than that of United States, we boast as many varieties of regional cuisine as our diverse dialects could possibly indicate. But with the disappearing of locally distinctive dialects that used to foreground our geo-social identity, the local food culture that permeates into our family dinner table delicacies brands us as who we are as we grow up. For a people who physically look alike and who speak and write the same language, the Chinese are probably more differentiated by their taste buds than by anything else.

However, it may seems a paradox to say that foods divide us as well as unit us. They divide us by locality and they unite us with time. Whether we were brought up to eat rice or noodle, there are certain times we all eat Tangyuan, Zongzi and Moon Cakes. No matter how far away I am travelling from home, I am still a rice eater whose memory of my parents’ home-made Tangyuan lingers on as it has unknowingly been crystallized into my palatal identity.

I am what I eat.