Family Dinner Analysis
For this assignment, I interviewed my friend Edgardo, who is from Mexico and currently an International student in Vancouver. In his family, the mandatory family meal was usually lunch rather than dinner or breakfast. Lunch was the main meal of the day, which took place in the afternoon around 2:30 to 4:00 pm, while dinner for them was more like a snack meal with tacos and soup around 8:00 pm. All family members (Edgardo, his father, his mother and his younger brother) were expected to attend the meal, and the meal would start after everyone came home from school or work. An interesting fact was that Edgardo’s family members had school and work from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm, which was quite different from a typical 9:00 am-5:00 …show more content…
My mother has been a full-time housewife, so usually she would get fresh meat and vegetables from the market and prepared the meal. Sometimes I would help her with the dishes after I arrived home. My 7-year-old sister usually got home by 5:30 pm, and we all waited till my father went home from work to start the dinner, usually around 7:00 pm. We waited until all members were seated to start eating, and my mother was usually the last one to sit down after she finished cooking. My father and I would help set the table, preparing bowls filled with soup, spoons and chopsticks. My mother was usually seated with my 7-year-old sister to take care of her eating. Usually a typical dinner for the 4 of us would include soup, rice and four dishes: one meat or seafood dish, one dish of green leafy vegetables, and two miscellaneous dishes (i.e. sautéed meat and veggie, stir-fry tofu, braised eggplants). Food was picked out from the communal plates on a bite-by-bite basis with our chopsticks. The dishes were put on the table all at once and could be consumed in any order according to our preference. For example, we could pick up food in the dishes while we were having soup or rice. Our family meal also involved some table manners that everyone had to follow, such as holding chopsticks in the right way, picking up our bowls when we were eating, no talking with food in our mouths, and no rummaging through the plate for …show more content…
In both families, mothers play a central role in the family, being the one who cook, clean and care for other family members on a full-time basis. Fathers on the other hand are the bread winners. Family meals for both cultures play a vital role in relationship building and family coherence, and they serve as important indicators of family roles and values. Some commonalities in these meals include all members eating at the same time, spending time to talk while having food together and children helping with set up and cleaning. Although the two meals are composed of similar elements, these elements serve different social functions in the two cultures. As illustrated in the previous paragraph, some main differences I have noticed are the way food is served and shared and the way conversations take place during the meal. Conversations can serve different functions in the Mexican family compared to the Chinese family. Mexicans think of mealtime as a good time to chat and hear from the family members about how they are doing. The main purpose is to get to know about individual member’s thoughts, feelings and personal lives. On the other hand, conversations in a Chinese family may serve the function of reinforcing collectivist values and parental authority besides
For this assignment, I interviewed my friend Edgardo, who is from Mexico and currently an International student in Vancouver. In his family, the mandatory family meal was usually lunch rather than dinner or breakfast. Lunch was the main meal of the day, which took place in the afternoon around 2:30 to 4:00 pm, while dinner for them was more like a snack meal with tacos and soup around 8:00 pm. All family members (Edgardo, his father, his mother and his younger brother) were expected to attend the meal, and the meal would start after everyone came home from school or work. An interesting fact was that Edgardo’s family members had school and work from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm, which was quite different from a typical 9:00 am-5:00 …show more content…
My mother has been a full-time housewife, so usually she would get fresh meat and vegetables from the market and prepared the meal. Sometimes I would help her with the dishes after I arrived home. My 7-year-old sister usually got home by 5:30 pm, and we all waited till my father went home from work to start the dinner, usually around 7:00 pm. We waited until all members were seated to start eating, and my mother was usually the last one to sit down after she finished cooking. My father and I would help set the table, preparing bowls filled with soup, spoons and chopsticks. My mother was usually seated with my 7-year-old sister to take care of her eating. Usually a typical dinner for the 4 of us would include soup, rice and four dishes: one meat or seafood dish, one dish of green leafy vegetables, and two miscellaneous dishes (i.e. sautéed meat and veggie, stir-fry tofu, braised eggplants). Food was picked out from the communal plates on a bite-by-bite basis with our chopsticks. The dishes were put on the table all at once and could be consumed in any order according to our preference. For example, we could pick up food in the dishes while we were having soup or rice. Our family meal also involved some table manners that everyone had to follow, such as holding chopsticks in the right way, picking up our bowls when we were eating, no talking with food in our mouths, and no rummaging through the plate for …show more content…
In both families, mothers play a central role in the family, being the one who cook, clean and care for other family members on a full-time basis. Fathers on the other hand are the bread winners. Family meals for both cultures play a vital role in relationship building and family coherence, and they serve as important indicators of family roles and values. Some commonalities in these meals include all members eating at the same time, spending time to talk while having food together and children helping with set up and cleaning. Although the two meals are composed of similar elements, these elements serve different social functions in the two cultures. As illustrated in the previous paragraph, some main differences I have noticed are the way food is served and shared and the way conversations take place during the meal. Conversations can serve different functions in the Mexican family compared to the Chinese family. Mexicans think of mealtime as a good time to chat and hear from the family members about how they are doing. The main purpose is to get to know about individual member’s thoughts, feelings and personal lives. On the other hand, conversations in a Chinese family may serve the function of reinforcing collectivist values and parental authority besides