Food has been an important element in human’s life throughout history. Not only it is an important element but also something that connects people together.
This week, we have 4 very different kinds of readings to describe food. Two are written in pretty academic manner while two others are written in a more vivid and easy going manner.
Mannur has used Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel “The Namesake” when the character, Ashima Ganguli, the protagonist’s immigrant mother assembles the dish to make a quintessentially Bengali dish more Bengali. The passage has begun with the replacement of taking canola oil over mustard oil because of diasporic perspectives. I like how the author Mannur has used a page from the novel on the side to share with the reader her personal experience how roti canai, flying pancakes, this taste of simple dish can transport herself to an earlier time and place. She has made a comparison of how roti canai in different places such as Malaysia, India, Singapore and Australia are very different and also a point how people have used food to think about their cultural identity. Through eating, Mannur has built up friendship with some Pakistani and Sri Lankan friends. This is an evidence how food connects people together. This piece of writing is convincing because it is a first-hand account of Mannur how she has learnt about being India was based on a diasporic upbringing. She is also intrigued by the role food has played in creating or destabilizing a sense of place and identity. She is eloquent enough to put her words to describe the nostalgic feeling due to diaspora. She can feel uncomfortable when there are spaces in the US landscape that don’t fit a standard expectation of what Indian means. It is interesting for reader to note her transition from disliking Indian spaces in the US to liking and exploring Indian spaces there. Indian food is re- imagined in exciting new ways. It is also through finding her favourite taste that she has re- imagined her childhood. Reading this has intrigued me to read her novel sometime. Her writing is easy to understand and keeps the reader anticipated to flip to the second page.
Sandra has taken another perspective in seeing food with a diasporic meaning. She has taken food as an object that connects the specific ethnic group, particularly the first-generation resident Koreans in Japan through the concept of bodily memory. Instead of using a personal account of lived experience as Mannur, it has used a more abstract concept of bodily memory, meaning the sensations and feelings that come along when eating Kimchee which can remind them of their painful history of moving to Japan. In attached with some background information here, being Koreans in Japan is not a glorious thing. They have been discriminated quite subtly. And in this case of the elderly, because they are old, they experience difficult relationship with their native cuisine due to their aging physiology, a.k.a. their stomach can’t take this like they used to be. Examples like Cho Han Chul and Koo Young Ja are used to deliver messages of how food has produce a bodily memory through Kimchee. This concept has been tied to Pierre Bordieau’s extension of Mauss’ framework, how there is the relationship between objective perceptions and social structure on human behaviour by locating bodily acts within a framework of behavioural strategies. He is concerned with integration of the body into social space and its refraction of embedded social relationships and meanings. (205) I appreciate how this article has been clear and lucid in talking about how Koreans in Japan contribute to this topic of diaspora in terms of food. After giving a general example of using Cho Han Chul, I like how the Sandra gives a historical framework “Colonial subjectivities” so readers can first understand how this topic first falls into place. It is because of how 90% Korean labourers in Japan were displaced therefore there is the special role which Kimchee plays in. Then Sandra explains the “Generational Locations”, meaning the element of generation in this whole picture. If it is set up in an elderly (first generation) setting, it might not be relevant to the theme of food in a diasporic persepective. Then when it comes to the last section before conclusion, Sandra has included “Postcolonial Identity and the Eating of Difference” subtopic so that the understanding of food can be better understood. The change in eating has been supported by the example of Koo Young Ja. Sandra has given another dimension of how food not only connects people to their personal but also social and political identities, as well as how they use what they eat to distinguish themselves from others. I personally think this article has explained and fulfilled the purpose of writing it well. The conclusion is useful to bring all the terms and suggested thoughts into a good closing.
Food for Thought:
(1) Can you imagine a situation or transition you’ve been through? For example: How you first hated the thing but through time, you begin to like it?
(2) Does Sandra’s article apply to the Koreans here in Toronto, Canada? And why?
Thank you for your kind words :)
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