globalization and food culture in hk term paper

Fast Food, Complete Foods, Foodstuff, Western Traditions

Excerpt from Term Paper:

Hong Kong Food Culture

Unlike various other cities, Hk offers an exceptional case study inside the effects of globalization on regional economies and cultures because of its premier position as a nexus between China and tiawan and the West. Over the years, as well as through English rule, Hk maintained a unique distinctly Chinese language culture actually in the face of constant influence from a different nation and specific attempts to manipulate Hong Kong lifestyle. However , the positive effect has involved with Hong Kong, greatly shorting the traditional Oriental culture, a well known fact seen the majority of clearly in the case of Hong Kong foodstuff culture. non-etheless, Hong Kong retains its Chinese language cultural importance, such that one particular examining the decline of Hong Kong foodstuff culture cannot help although see the areas in which the method has been upside down as well, with Hong Kong culture serving to integrate particular foods or refreshments into China society. As a result, as the positive effect has certainly and irreversibly undermined classic Chinese lifestyle in Hk, the strength of that traditions has allowed Hong Kong to become a kind of cultural clinical, in which global customs and products are vetted ahead of gaining more widespread approval in mainland China.

For quite some time, one of Hong Kong’s biggest draws to international businesses and travelers was the fact that “Hong Kong is almost generally lauded intended for hard work, flexibility and the rule of legislation, and its achievement has been largely attributed to the willingness to transform itself and its ability to utilize rather than avoid the pushes of globalization” ( Kwong Miscevic, 2002, p. 323). Following the change from English to Chinese language rule, however , Hong Kong skilled a number of financial shocks which will left “plenty of old-time hardpressed citizens are still trapped in poultry coops of the bygone era” (Kwong Miscevic, 2002, s. 325). This kind of left billions of15506 Hong Kong real-estate unoccupied as the shipping and delivery of manufacturing careers to landmass China, coupled with the surging importance of Shanghai, gutted the island of equally a robust economic system and its “indispensable role” in bridging the cultural and political difference between Chinese suppliers and the West (Kwong Miscevic, 2002, l. 326). Affordable real estate in conjunction with an excess of “younger unskilled workers” provided the best context for the importation of globalized food and culture, mainly because “As U. S. organizations [sought] to expand their very own presence in global markets, one of the primary regions of opportunity [was] providing services to the growing markets in Asia” (Kwong Miscevic, 2002, p. 325, Keillor Fields, 1996, p. 83). As a result, in a process beginning in the 1980s yet picking up swiftly in the nineties and early on 2000s, American fast food corporations aggressively broadened into Asia, with Hong Kong representing one of the key areas.

To see just how Hong Kong offers attempted to avoid the shorting of a household cultural heritage through globalization, one require look no further than American attempts at marketing take out on the island. Research investigating Hong Kong’s occupants perceptions of fast food discovered that “fast food is regarded as a convenience item rather than special treat, ” therefore attempts to trade fast food “as an opportunity to embark on an American social experience” fall season flat, since they disregard the cultural variations between “staple versus ‘treat’ foods” (Keillor Fields, mil novecentos e noventa e seis, p. 99, Furnham Li, 2008, g. 299). This may not be to claim that American fast food has not successfully made the way in Hong Kong meals culture, since it has, but instead a means of pointing out that American take out has ultimately served to undermine a conventional Chinese culture specifically by adjusting the meals offered to be in line with regional tastes. The study found that “traditional components are important at the product providing (i. electronic., the introduction of traditional fast food things on the fast foodstuff menu) whilst in the the atmosphere in which the item offering is usually conveyed” (Keillor Fields, mil novecentos e noventa e seis, p. 99-100). Make no mistake, this does not represent an instance in which traditional culture has been retained, but rather an example of the positive effect taking classic culture and commodifying this by lowering certain areas of it with their most basic essence in order to better suture traditional food culture and globalized fast food. Sure, American take out companies may include traditional items on the menu in certain parts, but this is as a means of shoring up a buyer base throughout the homogenized, globalized meals menu. As a result, the affluence of American junk food and classic Chinese food culture in Hong Kong can be an discussion which in the end subsumes the latter into a globalized cultural marketplace in which it truly is ill-equipped to successfully keep itself.

The truth of American take out companies in Hong Kong just might be the most obvious example of globalization ultimately causing a vast undermining of classic Chinese foodstuff culture in Hong Kong, yet globalization has wrought various other, more refined changes as well. For example , “moon cakes are a traditional food eaten to signify Chinese conventions, ” and “for age groups, they have been produced by master bakers using their very own secret recipes” (Elsey Tse, 2007, p. 511). Due to globalization, nevertheless , the demand intended for moon truffles has questioned the traditional technique of production, and a look at one specific Hong Kong bakery offers a case study in the ways in which the positive effect gradually erodes traditional meals culture even while it is evidently expanding the reach of these culture to international markets.

Like various other Hong Kong businesses in the 1980s, the food handling business in question “grew and celestial satellite cakes and also other products were exported to the international industry [] although continuing to serve a delightful local Chinese language market by using a chain of retail outlets and restaurants” (Elsey Tse, 2007, p. 512). Thus, at first glance globalization would appear to be a benefit for the regular bakery, opening new market segments and sustaining it to the point that “the celestial body overhead cake [could remain] such simple and sole ‘flagship’ item, symbolic with the state of the company, ” which by itself “remained deeply entrenched in a traditional Chinese business and management attitude [] positioned to generally ignore ‘the winds of change’ in an increasingly technology driven and a more competitive market environment” (Elsey Tse, 2007, l. 512). By providing an initial chance for expansion, the positive effect appears to offer businesses specializing in traditional foodstuff the opportunity to support that traditional culture through an influx of worldwide money, as well as, this does occur for a while. Soon, however , the true effects of globalization turn into clear, mainly because just as the regular bakery has access to a worldwide market, the market has usage of that bakery’s product such that it may be copied and produced for less funds somewhere else. Such as the inclusion of traditional menu items in American fast food restaurants in Hong Kong, the expertise of the traditional food handling business demonstrates the way in which globalization requires traditional lifestyle and commodifies it, therefore severing any real connection between the merchandise and the culture which made it. Even those businesses which are able to succeed pursuing globalization, such as the bakery in question, are eventually only in a position to do so by altering their particular traditional results in order to satisfy the trends of the global market. Thus, the Hong Kong bakery ultimately altered from the creation of traditional moon truffles “to [creating] a whole fresh range of superior moon cake products” just like “an remarkable array of versions for international travelers on the airport shop” (Elsey Tse, 2007, s. 525). It really is worth pointing out here that even the scholarship or grant on this subject works to undermine and minimalize the value of classic culture; aside from the glowing description of the extended moon pastry line that is certainly essentially a line of souvenirs for Traditional western tourists, the analysis of the Hong Kong food handling business in Elsey and Tse’s essay is definitely intent on portraying the traditional modes of production, administration, and foodstuff culture since hopelessly, provincially outdated, like it is traditional businesses’ mistake that the hegemony of global capitalism maintained by simply massive multinational corporations can make it difficult to continue turning money. Thus, the commodification and disintegration of traditional foodstuff culture is definitely presented while the hopeful future for the traditional business.

As this essay investigates the changes in Hong Kong food culture as a result of globalization, the course of exploration is toward more and more local levels, in a way that one may discover not only just how alien foods and cultures are shot into Hong Kong society, although also just how traditional meals are irrevocably changed. Thus, the moon pastry bakery previously discussed proven the way in which globalization forced a conventional company to shift it is target market away from domestic likes and begin wedding caterers almost specifically to intercontinental desires. Even more subtly, however , globalization features altered meals culture in Hong Kong a whole lot that actually “domestic” likes cannot really end up being called that anymore, and this is no place more evident than in the situation of products produced from