I once interviewed
a Chinese poet who made an interesting, probably inaccurate, but ultimately
insightful claim about intercultural relationships. Asked why the number of Chinese men who dated
western women was relatively small compared to the number of Chinese women who
dated western men, he replied in one word: breakfast. Chinese men had a clear idea of what they
wanted for the first meal of the day (and for every other meal as well) and
were not interested in the compromise, negotiation, or god forbid change, in
dietary habits that a relationship with a western woman would entail. While we
in the West obsess about appearances or fret about emotional compatibility, the
Chinese mind, as is its nature, focuses on a practical, earthy, and ultimately
much more relevant issue. Looks fade and disagreements are inevitable; but meals
are forever, a permanent part of the marriage landscape.
Like any potential
area of conflict in a marriage, which cuisine a couple will consume is a
decision best reached in a conscious, intentional, and the thoughtful
manner. If a Catholic and a Jewish couple
were to have a child, it would only make sense to have some discussion before
deciding which if any religion that child would be raised in and not just
imagine the issue would simply resolve itself.
The comparison between different cuisines and different faiths seems
appropriate. As with faith, most of the
world is raised on a single cuisine, and are not only passionately fond of it,
but come to believe, on the basis of no rational evidence, that its own cuisine
is superior to all others. And while I have
yet to learn of any wars started over this issue as have been commenced over
the matter of faith, I have witnessed my share of heated arguments devoted to
the topic carried out with the intensity of a religious debate (proving my
observation that the passion of a discussion increases with the lack of proof
available on the subject). Granted, what type of meals you and your love will
be sitting down to on a regular basis is probably not on your mind as you flip
through profiles. Another of the primal appetites is driving the day at this
point. But somewhere between the first flashes of infatuation and saying the
words “I do,” it would, I suggest, be in the interest of the long term health
of your intercultural relationship to take up the topic. Indeed, unlike some
areas of discrepancy in a marriage, differences in the area of cuisine cannot
simply be avoided. A couple who disagree radically on politics can simply consent
not to discuss politics. But an intercultural couple cannot agree just to not
eat.
When it comes to
the matter of cuisines, there are a triad of strategies an intercultural couple
might employ: capitulation, alienation, and negotiation. Capitulation is the
decision—implied or explicit—to adopt one of the cuisines as the preferred
cuisine. A couple operating in
capitulation mode has the understanding that, unless a specific agreement is
reached or a mention is made, this preferred cuisine will be the one prepared
and consumed at all meals. In my
experience the dominant default cuisine for intercultural couples operating in
this mode is Asian. This is a
combination of a Chinese woman’s attachment to her own country’s cuisine—which falls
somewhere between her passion for her parents/children and her love of country—and
a western man’s inherent laziness. Lenny Bruce observed that “men will f**k
anything: chickens, dirt.” I would add they will eat anything, so long as it is
prepared for them.
However, I suspect
there are more than a few Western men who would no more consider switching
cuisines than they would contemplate swapping religions, who would give up
their guns before their mean and potatoes, who would fast before consuming a
bowl of noodles for breakfast, and for whom rice is as unnatural an
accompaniment for dinner as, well, broccoli. To these Western men who would
impose their dietary preferences on their Chinese partner, I say simply: Gook
luck with that.
At the other end
of the spectrum, each member of the couple may opt to consume his or her own
country’s cuisine. This strikes me as a dangerous
route to take. Dinner possesses a
significance that goes beyond the materiality of the food consumed. It represents a reconnecting at the end of
the day, a metaphysical function that is ill served by eating different foods
and using separate cutlery. Indeed, it
is not too much to imagine a slow slide from separate meals to separate
bedrooms, separate vacations, separate lives. There seems a special danger from
this strategy for the Chinese woman. Just like someone who grows up in the
desert will be especially impacted by a move to the Midwest, so the communal
nature of the Chinese meal—where not only food but dishes and hence spittle and
bacteria are shared—makes it more than likely that the Chinese member of the
couple will be especially impacted by the alienation involved in this style of
eating.
And then there is
the middle way. By the middle way when
it comes to eating and marriage I mean any dietary strategy that attempts to
combine both countries’ cuisine on a regular basis. Living for a half-decade in China instructed
me in the middle way, provided me daily with examples of its usefulness and, in
the end, transformed me into one of its greatest advocates. It seemed a
refreshing alternative to the polarization gripping my country – a polarization
that, as anyone who has followed recent American politics can tell you, has
only worsened with time.
I would be lying, however, if I were to say
that it was philosophy alone that motivated my search for a culinary path in
our marriage that would include both Western and Asian foods. I lived for five
years in China—a time during which I not only sampled numerous regional cuisines
but also acquainted myself in depth with the food of one particular area,
Sichuan. So when I declare unequivocally that I cannot exist on a diet of
Chinese food, I am not expressing an irrational preference for my own country’s
cuisine but proffering a piece of knowledge gained--as all true knowledge is
gained--through painful experience.
I am also
confessing to a secret shame. My Peace
Corps training made it a point of pride for us to integrate as completely as
possible into the local culture. We were
encouraged to eat the same foods, speak the same language, live in the same
apartments, and shop the same stores as the locals –and provided with the
poverty level stipend specifically designed to prevent us from indulging in
western conveniences. So I tried,
believe me I tried, to subsist on a purely Chinese diet. My efforts, however, were undermined by the
realization that extended exposure to Chinese food invariably resulted in extended
time in Chinese bathrooms. Nor was this simply a coincidence, as the aforementioned
bathroom time was significantly reduced by a WFI or western food intervention. Slowly,
reluctantly, but inevitably, I was compelled to confess my inability to subsist
on a purely Chinese diet. Hence not only philosophy but necessity as well drove
me to the middle way of intercultural marital eating.
The main, though
not the only, culprit was the infamous Sichuan peppercorn. Responsible for the
sizzle in Sichuan food and its reputation as one of the spiciest in the world,
this culinary speck was my undoing, wreaking havoc on my digestive tract and
inducing the notorious heat hiccups. This phenomenon, if you have not experienced
it, involves obvious signs of distress (e.g., sweating), upper body
convulsions, and an inability to consume more food until the situation resolves
itself. There was an upside
however. For while I found this condition
obviously painful it was nevertheless a source of great amusement to countless
Chinese friends, colleagues, and even random restaurant patrons. Like Napoleon
with arsenic I tried to inoculate myself with small amounts of the deadly
material but to no avail; I was unable to get beyond the first dose. It turned
out that placing me in Sichuan was like plopping Dracula down in Arizona--the
one element that could destroy me existed in abundance. The analogy is not
completely accurate, since Dracula must avoid the sunlight while I could
subsist for limited stretches in the world of Chinese cuisine, but only on the
condition that I return, at some point in the not too distant future, to the
world of Western food.
Of course to
embark on a middle way in marital cuisine is to solve one problem only to
encounter another. How exactly is such a
strategy to be implemented? Does one
simply alternate days of western and Chinese Food? Or include dishes from each culture at every
meal? Is it possible to invent some
fusion cuisine that can consistently combine both traditions? We’ve actually tried all of the above as well
as numerous variations on these themes. We have consumed typical Chinese dishes
one night and broiled steak or salmon the next, devoured stir-fried eggplant
along with blueberry pancakes at a single sitting, and eaten “dueling
noodles”—one bowl ladled with tomato sauce and served with a fork, the other
drenched in soy sauce and Sichuan peppers and accompanied by chopsticks.
And although I
would prefer a more systematic solution, this ad hoc approach seems to be
working so far. Unfortunately this does not leave me much in terms of specific
advice I can provide for those journeying on a similar culinary path, except to
say that the principles that guide us through this situation—compromise and
mutual respect—are probably pretty good principles to apply to all areas of an
intercultural relationship.
Bon appetit!
