摘 要：餐具在家居生活中是必不可少的,它与文化的关系密不可分,在中西方饮食文化中也发挥着重要的作用。随着饮食文化的发展，餐具的使用也日渐趋于完善。中西方餐具的差异所渗透出不同的价值观。它对中西文明和礼仪的发展，都具有深刻的影响。本文从文化的视角来论述餐具与饮食文化两者之间的联系,以及两者背后所蕴含的意义,进一步深刻的探讨中西方的饮食文化。通过了解中西方饮食文化的不同,加深对中西方饮食文化的认识,从而理解中西方文化传统的不同,有助于跨文化交流和沟通。

关键词：餐具；饮食；价值观；影响

Abstract：Tableware plays an important role in the household life. It is closely connected with culture. In particular, it influences Chinese and western diet. With the rapid development of food culture, the use of tableware has been increasingly improved. Different tableware has different values. It has profound influence on both of Chinese and western civilization and the development of civility. According to cultural viewpoint, we can know the connection between the tableware and diet culture and its inner meaning. Through the analysis of the different Chinese and western food culture, we can deeply understand the food culture of the two countries, so as to knowledge the differences between Chinese and western cultural traditions, which is helpful to  communication with every country.

Key words: tableware; diet; values; influence

Contents

摘 要 i

Abstract.....ii

I. Introduction 1

II. Chinese and Western Tableware 2

2.1 The Feature of Chinese Tableware 2

2.2 The Feature of Western Tableware 3

2.3 The Culture Connotation 4

 2.3.1 Chinese Tableware 4

 2.3.2 Western Tableware 5

III. Chinese and Western Diet Cultures 6

 3.1 The Connotation of Diet Culture...6

 3.2 The Chinese Diet Cultures 6

 3.3 The Western Diet Cultures 8

IV. Tableware Influence on Chinese and Western Diet Cultures 10

 4.1 Similarities and Difference of Chinese and Western Diet through Tableware 10

  4.1.1 Similarities between Chinese and Western Diet Culture 10

  4.1.2 Difference between Chinese and Western Diet Culture 11

 4.2 Tableware Influence on Chinese and Western Diet Culture 11

  4.2.1 The Influence on Civilization 11

  4.2.2 The Influence on Polite 12

  4.2.3 The Influence on Diet 13

V. Conclusion 14

Bibliography 16

Acknowledgements 17  

An Analysis on the Chinese and Western Diet Culture from the Angle of Tableware

I. Introduction

In the word today, with the rapid development of the globalization, the traditional patterns of social development have been greatly changed. In the development of human society, the most essential basis is diet. As the development of society and constraints of geography, climate, and other factors, the diet of human has changed from the condition for “eat the raw meat and drink blood” to a varied and colorful diet culture.

As the center of oriental diet culture, Chinese people are very proud of China’s brilliant diet culture. As the long-term self-close in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, China’s diet culture always accept the foreign diet culture passively, especially the western diet culture, and pay less attention to the foreign diet culture. Therefore, the introductions and discussions of western diet culture become quite rare in a very long time.

Now, with the advancement of reform and openness, the communications of economy and culture between China and the west have become more and more frequent. What’s more, the western diet culture has poured into China, which not only occupies a part of Chinese and western diet market, but has a deep impact on people’s diet consumption.  

Recently, Chinese and western food culture become more and more popular among persons. Tableware is used uniquely by people, which is represented by knife and chopsticks. The most basic differences of table manner between China and the west is the different between knives and forks. It not only brings the differences of eating habits but has a profound influence on life conception between China and the west. Western tableware tend to leads people to eat separately. They start to eat separately when they were born, which result in characteristic of independent and thoughts for western. Nevertheless, the China’s chopsticks result in a habit of eating together, which emphasizes family and affects oriental people to build a notion about solid family. In addition, chopsticks are characterized by “maintaining the status quo”. A knife and fork appeared later than chopsticks. The famous physicist, Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Lee said that chopsticks are extension of human’s finger, which can do everything as long as the finger can do, and it is not afraid of high temperature and chill. This is really a wise invention(Li 172)!