You must be wondering what I’m talking about with such a title like that but as you will read on here, I’ll be able to hopefully make this claim quite convincing. First of all, when I talk about Chinese food, I’m not referring to the chop suey or chicken balls with fried rice that you get in little cardboard takeout containers along with the little packets of soy sauce. I’m sorry to inform you but that takeout fare is NOT Chinese food. It’s a westernized, watered-down, convenient imitation of the real thing.
For real Chinese food, you have to go to an authentic Chinese restaurant and such an establishment might not even exist in your city. Major cities with Chinatown communities will have authentic Chinese restaurants though. A sure way to tell is to look inside and see who the restaurant patrons are. If there are quite a few Chinese diners, then it’s a good bet that the cuisine is authentic. If all the patrons are non-Chinese, the food there will likely be of the westernized fare.
Now that we got the differentiation out of the way, you might be wondering if the real authentic stuff will be too foreign or not. You might have thoughts of gushy animals on the plates with their eyes still looking at you. Don’t worry, it’s not that bad and besides, being a bit foreign is actually going to be a requirement here.
Enlist Chinese Dining Partners
Now, let’s assume that you know that there is a Chinese restaurant serving real authentic cuisine. The next step is to enlist the aid of any Chinese friends or associates that you may have. If you don’t know any, then start to get to know a few as you will see, this is the whole point in this activity.
The best way to experience ethnic cuisine is to have somebody from that culture show you the ropes. They can help select what’s good and what’s a bit too strange for first time diners.
Now what you want to do during a dining excursion with your Chinese friends is to not only enjoy the cuisine, but also use the opportunity to get to know them better. Ask questions about the food as well as the culture and customs. These will be natural topics of conversation during such an outing.
The Hidden Benefit
If you are wondering why I’m even advising you to go through this exercise, well here’s the hidden benefit for you. By dining authentic with Chinese folks, you have just used Chinese food as a fun way to expose yourself to more diversity. By learning more about the culture and experiencing the real cuisine, you are improving your own interaction skills with people of another culture or race.
If you repeat this same type of exercise with authentic Indian, Mexican, Japanese, Middle Eastern, or any other ethnic cuisine with a representative from that culture, your exposure to diversity will skyrocket. The main advantage from these types of diversity activities is that you will be able to interact really well with people from all sorts of different backgrounds. This is a definite plus in terms of doing business in diverse environments these days whether locally or globally.
On another level, these diversity activities will also help your own personal growth as well and perhaps even on a social level. Many communities these days are quite diverse and being effective in such environments can be important to success.
This strategy works very well for ethnics as well. I’ve taken many non-Chinese to a particular type of Chinese dining called ‘dim sum’ which is served mainly during lunch hours (see featured photo as a sample of dim sum). I’ve been able to build many successful business and social relationships over Chinese dim sum luncheons.
So this is how Chinese food (or any other ethnic cuisine) will help you with success. What better way to develop your own diversity skills than through food? Just make sure that you are not simply ordering chop suey takeout.
Well said. This is so true: ＂A sure way to tell is to look inside and see who the restaurant patrons are. If there are quite a few Chinese diners, then it’s a good bet that the cuisine is authentic. If all the patrons are non-Chinese, the food there will likely be of the westernized fare.＂Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for confirming Susan!
this is by far, the dumbest, and most racially naiive article i’ve ever met.
clint, you need to realize that in this day and age, getting to know “ethnic” people is a lot more than finding sneaky ways to eat at an ethnic restaurant with them and getting them to tell you all about their culture. you send a message in this article that if you want to expand your exposure to diversity, it’s as easy as grabbing a random ethnic buddy and have them take you to a “cultural” place so that you can have a so-called cultural experience and improve your so-called diversity skills.
get real. this is 2011. take a look around. there are people with all different types of faces and guess what — they’re as AMERICAN as george washington. sure, there are plenty of immigrants in this country, but i bet you that most of your readers here are under 35, and nearly all the ‘ethnic’ people they know speak english without an accent and watch football on sundays. so before you give any advice to anyone about enhancing their diversity skills, take a look around and maybe build some of your own. the real issues in enhancing people’s ability to interact with others of various cultures is not needing to understand their chinese, indian, or mexican cultures. don’t do that… please. you do not create relationships and build unity by expanding the gap between people. this only leads to the inability to accept them as AMERICAN. to continuously label somebody as an outsider who must know the history of the dumpling or can tell stories about chinese new year traditions is both inane and not useful. use wikipedia. google it. it’s not that difficult.
if you want to develop your diversity skills, just be real. talk to people, be sincere about getting to know them. ask them questions about their culture wherever you happen to be with them. go to freaking mcdonald’s, watch the game on sunday, be a real person. ask them about their background and their family whenever you happen to see them and be genuinely curious, but by no means simply assume that taking a chinese guy to a chinese restaurant will result in a night of cultural exploration and bonding. that’s just silly, and could be totally offensive. “diversity skills”? i don’t even know what that is, but i suppose i just described how you might enhance them if for whatever reason you didn’t have any before.
Thanks for your comment. You don’t know what diversity skills are? I happen to be a professional speaker who has spoken on this very subject in both the corporate sector as well as the college level. Been in corporate life for 25 years working in all sorts of diverse working environments so I would think that I would qualify to speak on this topic – and so do the organizations, including many HR associations that invite me to speak.
You are right about many people under 35 who also come from different cultures but are still as American as everyone else. But at the same time, look at many company cafeterias and school cafeterias during lunchtime. Although we do see many people mixing well, there is still a LOT of segregation by choice. HR departments tell me all the time. Yes, there is already a lot of diversity out there but many people are still not embracing it. HR folks want to know how to manage this issue and that’s why people like myself are called in.
Your 3rd paragraph starts out very valid — talk to people. Many people do. But again, many do not. As a Canadian-Chinese myself, who like you as an American-Asian, doesn’t speak with an accent and is as North American as everyone else. However, I would not be offended at all if somebody wanted to invite me out to a Chinese restaurant to try something cultural. As I said in my article, I invite others all the time to Chinese dim-sum. Sure, I could have taken them to McDonald’s or just Denny’s. But taking them to a Chinese restaurant where I have expertise in the fare gives them a much more special experience.
Building relationships by exposing our ancestral cultures to others, even if our own families have already been established in North America for many generations, is a great thing. It helps people become more open in general. I don’t feel any less North American when I get to play this role. In fact, I also learn more about my own ethnicity which is something that as you probably already know, has been lost among many Americans with some type of ethnic background. Ethnicity needs not be ignored. One can be both American and ethnic with much pride at the same time.
Now, I’m not suggesting that Americans simply just pull off any Asian off the street. Yes, that would be labelling or even creepy. But in a work office situation or if students start to know each other in a college class, and there happens to be a mix of cultures, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with furthering the relationships by visiting cultural and yes, ethnic restaurants. My Chinese food example is just another (out of many) way for people to embrace diversity which is a good thing. My east Indian friends use this similar experience as they love taking their non-Indian friends to authentic Indian restaurants. They could have taken us to Burger Kind but no, an Indian place would be a much better experience.
I absolutely agree. I found this article superficial and offensive. I have been subscribing to Lifehack for a while, but the fact that they chose to feature this article may make me unsubscribe.
Clint, I can appreciate your experience, but I agree with an asian american, that it’s not really that sound of a strategy. It feels objectifying and simplistic. I agree that talking to people is the important piece. Why not just invite people out to get to know them? Does the choice of cuisine matter? Why does one person need to feel like an expert in the food in order to be able to go out for a meal? It may be dangerous to invite someone out, thinking – hey, they know a lot about this food – when they may not. I think this strategy relies too much on assumptions. “You’re Indian! Teach me about Indian food!” Maybe the person grew up without a lot of Indian influence because her parents wanted her to be American (this was actually my experience. I am Asian, but my parents didn’t teach me the language or much about the traditions because my dad wanted me to “have a better life” and be American…which of course, I regret. I wish I knew more…but anyway…). So what if someone you ask doesn’t actually connect to the food you think they will?
I also challenge some of the language you use: “This strategy works very well for ethnics as well.” Ethnics? Maybe it’s because I’m coming from an American lens and it’s a common term used in Canada, but this struck me as problematic.
I don’t think that your idea (at the heart of it) is what is wrong…I think it’s how you go about it and talk about it that is rubbing me the wrong way.
Thanks for your comment too and first of all, I don’t think you should unsubscribe to Lifehack based on just one article. These are meant to create discussion and by no means do any of us expect everyone to agree on all issues on every article too.
I can also relate to your position about being Asian and perhaps not knowing a lot about the Asian culture. I’m not that far behind but I’ve made it an effort in the last several years to relearn my ethnic language as well as other aspects like cuisine. I don’t know what professions you and Asian American are in but in my corporate experience where there is a LOT of competition, I found that over the years, being ethnic can be positive or negative depending on how you make of it. In my case, instead of viewing being Asian as a possible victim of discrimination, I chose to use that fact that I may be different from a business sense. I can’t even start to tell you how many business deals I’ve done because of relationships I’ve built up using my ethnicity as a way to stand out as well as to entertain potential clients who are not Asian.
Now, of course there are many other ways to accomplish this but I’m just pointing out in the article that being ethnic can be a real goldmine if you approach it right. ’Ethnic’ is NOT a bad word! I don’t know why you see that as a negative term. I realize that many North American born people from different cultures ignore their ethnicity because they want to be totally American and not different. I felt like this way for many years myself until I started to realize that being ethnic can be advantageous.
In the end, you can compete in this world of commerce anyway you want. But because many business environment here in North America are becoming more diverse all the time and the fact that global business is on the rise, being able to use diversity and ethnicity as one of the ways to forge business relationships will be advantageous.
Nice to know that Chinese food is good for health but i have herd a lot about it being bad for health as it effects some parts of the body.
Usually the fast-food style which is more deep fried and higher in fat is not as healthy. But there is a lot of authentic fare which is much healthier.
Its not really racial, what the writer is trying to convey is that people learn from mixing with other cultural background.
Its not really racial, what the writer is trying to convey is that people learn from mixing with other cultural background.
Yes thank you Vik, that’s what I’m trying to get across. And by the way, just to further put things in the right perspective, I happen to be Canadian-Chinese and a huge promoter of diversity.
Just because you are Canadian-Chinese doesn’t mean you have the historical context and social experience to understand the repercussions of how Chinese are perceived and treated in society. You can’t just say you are Canadian-Chinese and have people give you the benefit of the doubt. Sure, it might give you lots of credibility in the eyes of non-Asians vs. you being a White person, but for Asians who are keenly aware of the ongoing stereotypes and social issues that affect Canadian-Chinese and Asian Americans everywhere, we find your comments overly simplistic, wholly superficial, and holding a severe lack of judgment. Have you ever been discriminated against? Have you ever grown up with kids making yelling “do you love chop suey?” in your face? Have you ever sat in a history class talking about the Vietnam War where the teacher asks you if you know anything about it (even though you’re Chinese)? These are just some of the many things that many young 2nd generation Asians go through — they do not need for naiive classmates and coworkers to randomly ask them to host a Chinese dinner and expect to have a cultural experience and pretend they just expanded their understanding of diversity. It ain’t that easy. So we’d appreciate if you didn’t imply that it is.
Your article, though well-intentioned, doesn’t tell the full story. It assumes an ideal world. Nobody is disagreeing with the learnings that can be had with what you describe, but you need to put it out there that is not a first line, not a second line, not even a third line option for getting to know someone. You’ve told your personal perspective, but you need to tell the full perspective and come clean about historical stereotypes before giving out advice to the masses. That may not be your responsibility nor your personal desire, but it would be the right thing to do. You need to make an effort to de-simplify things and say that expanding your cultural horizons takes real effort to be open-minded, it takes a little bit of research to understand history, it takes an understanding of where racism and discrimination has occurred in the past and where it continues to exist. And once you have that background, I’d say go ahead and freely ask your Indian friend to take you to an Indian restaurant. It might take you a couple hours of google-ing and maybe a couple conversations with friends with some insight, but it will make a world of a difference. And then, maybe then, you’ll be in good shape to simply ask an Indian friend to take you out to an Indian meal and say you can take that that experience to make you a better-informed, more fully aware person of diverse cultures.
Thanks again for your comment. The answer to your various questions is – yes I have. I’ve been subjected to extreme racism in my childhood even as far back as the 60s. Of course this article is a simple overview. The topic is way too involved to be covered in one little article – which is why I have keynotes and full day seminars. Although I appreciate from your tone that you and your friends/family members have also been subject to racism, I’ve been there too and again, back in the 60s when times were even tougher since there were fewer Asians back then here in North America.
Now, to clarify, I wouldn’t just suggest non-Asians to simply go up to any Asian and say, ‘hey, can you show me some Chinese food?’ That would be ridiculous and I am NOT advocating such an approach. What I would suggest is if an non-Asian had work colleagues or classmates they have seen for some time – so they are not complete strangers – it is quite acceptable to go up to them as say, ‘I’m just wondering if you would happen to know much about your culture’s cuisine and the reason why I’m asking is that I have a few friends who would love to try it out but it would be better to have somebody with some knowledge in that area to help us …’
Now, if somebody used such a line on me, I would not be offended at all. Whether I have a knowledge of my culture’s cuisine or not could be irrelevant. I could say yes or no but in either case, the other person made a nice approach to possibly begin a friendship. Even if I said no, I would not have been offended.
The whole context of the article was that racism can only be overcome if people get to know each other. And one of the best ways is through food since everybody likes food. But to make it even more fun and interesting, cultural cuisine could be an option (I didn’t say the only option). It is an option to explore.
If I met any other person whom I know is of a certain cultural background, I would ask if that person knows much about his or her culture’s cuisine. There’s no harm in this if it’s not a complete stranger. If the answer is no, I might even go as far as asking if he or she knows of anybody who does AND I would tell that person why I asked. The intentions are upfront and honest plus it shows the person that I’m genuinely interested in other cultures. How bad could that be?
Again, as an Asian-American or Asian-Canadian, you and I could approach our social/business life in anyway we want. Yes, thousands of Chinese were discriminated and loss their lives when they built the railway up here in Canada and thousands of Japanese-Americans were subject in camps during WW2 (I do know my history) but that doesn’t stop me from choosing to use diversity, multiculturalism and ethnicity as positives.
I am a native of China, but if this happened to me, I would accept it. I’m happy to introduce our cultures to foreigners, especially through food (I’m crazy about food…). I think having Chinese cuisine is a good way to interpret our cultures. (Correct if my English is wrong)
correct me if my English is wrong sorry….
Your English is fine. Thanks for your reply. I too, would not be offended if somebody asked me about my culture. It would open up an opportunity like you said, to educate that person with something from our culture. As long as their intention was genuine.
I love chinese food !