Banquet in the garden: Chinese food impression of Chinese businessmen in the early days

In the world, the catering culture of different ethnic groups has always inevitably occurred and collided, becoming a unique scenery in the history of the world. In the historical interaction of China and the United States for more than two hundred years, diet has always been a cultural factor that is extremely active but often ignored, becoming the mutual understanding, mutual understanding (or misunderstanding) of the people of the two countries and define each other Important medium.

Since the first American merchant ship "The Empress of China" arrived in Guangzhou in 1784, the Americans have begun to experience the Chinese food culture. This "tip of the tongue" experience has become an early Americans who come to China in the early days. Cognize important sources of Chinese, Chinese, and Chinese culture.

Due to the late history of the founding of the country, the direct contact of the United States to China is far later than Western European countries. Before the United States launched direct trade with China in 1784, American society's cognition of the East, including China, often wrote from European missionaries in China. Among them, British writers' writings had a great impact on the early US view of China.

In the 18th century Europe's description of China, the traditional Chinese food culture full of oriental mood, unique and even "weird" often became an important part of the missionary and literati. Contradiction primitive imagination.

This aesthetic mentality for Chinese culture is similar to the concept of "Monstrous Beauty" (weird beauty) proposed by David Porter about the Chinese view of the 18th century. A contradictory mentality in the process.

The "General History of China" by the Catholic Jesuit Jean Baptiste Du Halde (1674-1743) is undoubtedly the most important historical text of the West in the West in the 18th century.

▲ "The Chinese Empire" was first published in Paris in 1735, and was regarded as one of the "Three Masterpieces of the Early Western Sinology in the West"

The book was written by Duchid's Chinese description of the Chinese Jesuit missionaries in accordance with the Chinese Jesuit Missionary. It introduced Chinese history, culture and customs and customs in a very detailed manner, and also specifically introduced the etiquette and customs of traditional Chinese banquets. The cooking deer whip and bird's nest "also wrote like a person:" They boil the bird's nest with other meats, so that it can produce a memorable taste. "

"Chinese Empire" has been widely circulated in Western society since the first half of the 18th century, and also provided the most abundant knowledge reserves of Chinese social culture for the American knowledge class at the time -many American elites, including the US father, Franklin and Jefferson read this book.

Another book, which is also written based on the Chinese traveler's "The Chinese Traveller", also written based on the Jesuit missionaries. In addition to describing the Chinese style travel notes and adventure stories, the book also describes the Chinese dietary customs that are extremely strange in Western society, such as Chinese food for rice, eating chopsticks, chopped ingredients and fried food. A missionary wrote without horror: "They not only eat meat, fish and poultry like us, they also eat even horse meat, and they feel that there is nothing wrong. In addition, whether dogs, cat meat, snake meat, frogs, frogs They all think they can be eaten for meat or any harmful creatures. "

The book also quoted another missionary's vivid description of the local cuisine market in Guangzhou: "At first, I saw someone selling dog meat, cat meat, mouse meat and frog meat in the vegetable market in Guangzhou. It is found that no matter what kind of meat is eaten by the Chinese ... Most of the cats and dogs in the vegetable market are fat and tender, and they are still alive. Unpredictable, there are some large figures and usually have not peeled, and they are nailed to the pole of the booth. "

It was with such a Chinese food picture that Americans finally started their own trip to China. In the second year after the end of the independence war, the US merchant ship "Queen China" opened anchor from New York in February 1784 to China.

▲ The first American merchant ship "Queen of China", the first American merchant ship that arrived in China

Investors not only loaded the popular sea otter skin on the ship, but also deliberately prepared 30 tons of North American ginseng -Americans are full of expectations for the value of these goods, because Duchd's "General Chronicle of the Chinese Empire" mentioned China. People like to eat ginseng. After 188 days of sailing, the "Queen of China" arrived in Macau on August 23, 1784, and arrived in Guangzhou a few days later. Since then, it officially opened the history of Sino -US trade. This time, the trade that was not expected to cross the ocean was unexpectedly. Essence It can be said that Americans have succeeded in the first trade with China.

Just in this trade with China, Americans had the opportunity to contact China's diet in China for the first time. We can get a glimpse of the record of Samuel Shaw (1754-1794) from the "Queen of China". Shan Maozhao was an outstanding general during the American independence war. In the second year after the founding of the United States, he abandoned the army to become the first businessman to come to China. He also accepted the appointment of US President Washington in the following years, and served as a business representative of the United States to Guangzhou, becoming the first diplomat in China in American history. As a pioneer of Americans, Shan Maozhao has a profound impact on China's observation and impression on the Chinese view in the early days of the United States. After returning to China, he submitted a report to the US government after returning to China to record his initial impression of China in the form of a diary. In the diary Zhongshan Maozhao admits that due to the limited action everywhere, the foreigners' cognition of China at that time was limited to Guangzhou. Maybe they lacked overall and accurate understanding of Chinese society and customs:

The governments of this country should be carefully guarded everywhere, restricting all exchanges between their children and foreigners. We are in the suburbs of one of the cities, and our actions are greatly restricted. As for understanding the system of its country, or the customs of its people, there are few opportunities and minimalist opportunities. Therefore, it is not enough to make us full understanding of the country by what we see in Guangdong, and thereby making an accurate evaluation of any of the above.

The situation that Shan Maozhao said was true. Due to the strict prevention of foreign merchants at that time, the Qing government was banned from entering Guangzhou City and restricted to the restrictions on everywhere. It can be imagined that their contact with Chinese food culture was also very limited. From his diary, we can see that foreigners were mainly Western food at the time, and they were also western food for each other. Shan Maozhao once recorded the situation of American businessmen's participation in the British East India Company dinner. In his description, this dinner was extremely luxurious. On the long dining table for 30 people to eat, there was a glittering silver candlestick. Tableware and porcelain are provided with French dishes popular in Europe.

▲ Shan Mao Zhao signature portrait

But in China, it is impossible to deal with the Chinese 13 businessmen. It is impossible not to contact Chinese food. The Journals of Major Samuel Shaw recorded the first encounter between Americans and Chinese food. Shan Maozhao once, accompanied by several French merchants with John Green, was invited to the dinner of a businessman named Chen in Guangzhou, accompanied by several French businessmen. This should be him. See the best opportunity to see the Chinese banquet. However, Shan Maozhao seemed to be impressed by the place of the banquet. In his diary, he praised the Chinese garden "exquisite" of the Chinese garden, but he cherished the Chinese dishes at the banquet and did not add the beak. In his diary, we can find the reason for it: "During the garden, the French people will bring their own tableware wine and most dishes."

It seems that he was a food and beverage that French people who had eaten their peers. They might not try to try the Chinese food in the seat, so they were not impressed. We have reasons to believe that the way of bringing self -containing food should be very common in the exchanges between Chinese and foreign businessmen at that time. It can be seen that Westerners are generally unacceptable to Chinese food at this time, and they are not too risky.

The American businessmen who came to China in the following half a century were roughly the same as Shan Maozhao in China, that is, they still maintain the same eating habits as the basic diet in the United States. Most of them hire Chinese servants, mostly exchanged with foreigners and eat Western food. But in a foreign country, it is impossible to have no impact of Chinese food culture at all. For example, in the communication between Westerners and Chinese businessmen through translation, a "mixed language" that integrates local pronunciation in different Western languages, the so -called "Boss" (Pidgin, is generally believed to be evolved from the term Business), of which There are very common owners to say "Go Catchy Chow-Chow" to Chinese servants.

In addition, in the US merchant ships to China, the ginseng mentioned in Duchid's "The All -in -law of the Chinese Empire" has always been an important product. Later, Americans also collected valuable ingredients that Chinese people liked Chinese people like sea cucumber and bird's nests from the Pacific Islands for a while, and sold to China for huge profits. Of course, Americans in Guangzhou will also see various Chinese food on the streets. Some American businessmen once described the Guangzhou scene that they saw: "A long row of snack stalls, including fruit selling fruits, cakes, selling honey, and honey. Sell ​​soup and so on. "

In the first half century when Americans came to China, the most detailed record of Chinese food was a American businessman named Bryant Parrott Tilden (1781-1851).

In the early 19th century, Tilden came to China as a business agent of cargo ships. In Guangzhou, he was familiar with Pan Zhencheng (Westerners used to call it Pan Qiguan, that is, the Minnan pronunciation Puankhequa, 1714-1788). Before Tilden returned to China in 1819, Pan Zhencheng invited him and some other American businessmen to the Panfu for a banquet. Tilden's observation of this Chinese feast is much more specific than his predecessor Shan Maozhao: "A list of servants walked in with pots and bowls. These containers were painted with bright colors. Including the famous bird's nest soup, a variety of chopped dishes and many rice, it also placed the same but smaller bowl of bowls, but God, there is no plate and knife and fork! "At first, the Americans bravely bravely bravely. Try to eat with chopsticks, but "even the monkey holding the needle is not funny of some of us." Until the host made people bring their familiar knife and forks and spoons, American talents were relieved. Tilden records the Chinese food he saw in this way: within three hours, 20 dishes are put on the dining table with exquisite porcelain, including soup, vegetable paste, and a variety of stewed potatoes. All meat, as well as the chicks that Chinese love, as well as fish and various vegetables, rice, and mustard that Chinese people love to eat very much. Most dishes are added with ginger and pepper to taste. There are no large pieces of meat on the dining table, and no poultry or birds are seen. The servants kept picking dishes, and we chatted smoothly, while drinking European -style wine and expensive Chinese tea such as Madeira.

Tilden's writing is filled with an excitement and surprise of the first encountering oriental culture. He recorded what he saw from his perspective and described a fantasy style to Americans. In the early days of Sino -US exchanges, especially at the end of the 18th century and early 19th century, this curiosity about Chinese food culture could be understood in the historical context of Chinese and Western politics and cultural collisions. Different from the comparison of the Chinese and Western forces after the Opium War, before the early 19th century, the British -based Western powers have not been able to suppress China politically and military. Effective and effective. Whether it is an emerging capitalist country such as the United Kingdom or the United States, it has not yet formed a general "orientalist" cultural mentality, and has not overlooking the East with a high attitude. In this kind of situation, the Chinese diet in China for the first time to experience the Chinese diet in the past, and it is not difficult to understand that curiosity and surprise.

Source of this article: "Travel of Text: Translation, Communication and Writing of Modern Literature".

/ Recommended reading today /

"Travel of Text: Translation, Communication and Writing of Modern Literature"

Editor -in -chief Ma Jia Li Nan

Published in December 2021, Fudan University Press

brief introduction

This book is a collection of the papers of the 49th Issue 49 of the China Civilization International Research Center of Fudan University in 2019. These papers have a multi -perspective and comprehensive discussion of the unprecedented state of collision, exchanges, and issuing new chapters in the background of the Republic of China in the late Qing Dynasty. The tortuous path and multiple faces of the text travel of Chinese and foreign writers, as well as the impact and value of overflowing the scope of literary literary.

Directory of this book

Ma Jia Li Nan preface: text of text and travel -translation, communication and writing of modern literature

Raymond L. Whitehead Christian mission

Chen Jianhua's images, texts and history -centered on the image of Liang Qichao and the "New People's Cong" and "New Fiction"

Duan Huaiqing Chinese missionary literature: history, text and literature

Pietro GIORDAN open-end narrative and fable: from "The Journey to the Old Capital" to Shen Congwen's Xiangxi Literature Travel

Ma Jia followed the soul of light roaming -the missionary/nun image in the late Qing Dynasty and European writers' travel writing in China

Song Lihua in modern times, Chinese translation of Chinese translation novels

Different State on the tip of Wang Hongjie: Chinese food in the late Qing Dynasty to China

Yao Da's Chinese translation of Shakespeare of Western missionary Mei Yisheng

Zhu Shoutong's cultural consciousness of the new literature and the translation of the form of the translators

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