How would you feel if a popular blog wrote a long post utilizing your culture and its traditions, but only cherry-picks the appropriate details to serve their argument and in doing so, proliferates misinformation?
Additionally, I was criticizing the website you sourced (Foreigners-in-China.com, whose author himself does not offer any sources other than his own native knowledge of Beijing), not you yourself. I’m sorry that you took it that way. Your response, however, is also quite rude, so let’s not be pointing fingers in terms of web etiquette, because that will get us nowhere.
You want proof of my point? Oh, I’ll show you proof.
First off, my credentials -
Lived in Guangdong for 1 year, which is commonly known as the “Soup Capital” of China when it comes to the 8 traditional flavors of Chinese Cuisine
Studied at Chinese Culture and History at Hong Kong University for 1 year
Studied Ancient Chinese History at East China Normal University in Shanghai for 6 months
Lived in Beijing for three months on a fellowship, during which I received a scholarship and a stipend to study Ancient China and its culture and traditions.
So even though I am of Cantonese Heritage, and am primarily knowledgeable and experienced with Southern Chinese traditions, I have still studied Ancient and Modern China a fair bit, and in different regions. I do not purport to know everything there is to know about China, because that’s impossible. Not even Chinese people know everything there is to know about China and all its different customs and traditions, because it is much more diverse than most people realize.
But of course, this is all anecdotal evidence. So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty, shall we?
Many different regions have many different customs regarding dinner courses and etiquette. There is no uniform “Chinese-style” (so I did misspeak to that degree), though there are very specific trends. For instance, most meals in China are designed to be balanced, not only in terms of flavor, but also in terms of temperature. This is due to the belief in 食療, and that the body requires a mixture of “cold air” and “hot air” in order to keep your humors in balance. (Wiseman, Nigel and Andy Ellis (1995). Fundamentals of Chinese Medicine: Zhong Yi Xue Ji Chu.) One of the most ancient Chinese texts, 黃帝內經, (The Book of the Yellow Emperor), which still serves as a cornerstone of Ancient Chinese Medicine, documents this belief to go as far back as 2000 years ago. Thus, in many traditional Chinese regional meals, a hot, savory soup follows a cold appetizer. (Kwang-chih Chang (1997) Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives).
Since these books are not easily accessible to most people, here are some links that state that soup is served early on during a meal, (though their sources have not been fact-checked, so I loathe to post them):
You’re right, of course. This is the internet. It’s not hard to post links. But it is much harder to fact-check them. I pulled several textbooks (not journals, not articles by the New York Times, and not websites to restaurants with unverified authors) off of my shelf (which I listed above) to verify my sources. Did you do the same for yours?
Speaking from personal experience, having had meals in major regions located in the North, South, and Eastern parts of China, most banquets serve the hot, savory soup after the cold appetizers. Sweet, thin soups, such as those made with beans or tapioca or lotus root, are served near the end, before the fruits. Again, this is purely anecdotal evidence.
I will admit that I was hasty to say that “everyone knows that soup…” because obviously that is not uniformly true across the board, judged purely from the many sources you cite stating the contrary. This is because, as you yourself said, culture and traditions vary across regions.
As for the my comment about the cakes, that was merely an opinion. They look like these to me, which have sweet filling. Feel free to disagree.
My point is and was, you cannot simply cherry-pick facts that support your argument and present them as the pure and only truth, which is what that infographic and your original post does. Your sources in this case, though they are indeed websites that someone wrote and published, are not verified, and not everything you read on the internet is true.
