ethnic food and "but, i have a black friend"

after dinner tonight, my brother, his girl woman girl (woman just sounds funny) and I went for some bubble tea. my brother's girl is still fresh to the states (about a month in), but when she said she never had bubble tea before, i was taken aback. what?! how could she not have had bubble tea? isn't it super-asian (hah! coming from the asian adoptee)?!

i had taken for granted something that i think most asian-americans and, for that matter, americans in general have tried before. milk tea with little tapioca balls in it. so, i asked okay then where did bubble tea originate? taiwan. hm, ok. then, i started to think about how special asian-americans were what with our bubble tea, karoke, korean bbq, tea iced tea, sushi, dim sum, bah minh and pho -- food that i take for granted as transcending their national origin and becoming just "american food." and then after all my constant hate of racial inequality and the social reality of america, i figured tonight's blog post will be different. i'll talk about what i enjoy about american culture.

but, then when my drunkeness wore away a bit, i realized that all of these items that i enjoy so much have really just been commodified and packaged for american consummation and removed from the culture they came from. in a way, they are quintessentially american. where people just assume that most people know about them in an ambiguous "that's asian" type way and all asians are really supposed to know about that.

was i slumming for food? or in other words, was i pretending to be cultured because of my enjoyment of some foods that are marketed to american culture? do we, as americans, think that because we've tried a certain cultural's food that we are all of the sudden culturally sensitive, culturally relative and culturally knowledgable. we go to ethnic restaurants and try ethnic cuisine and all of the sudden we fancy ourselves cultured. like trying the most americanized dish in the culinary repertoire is somehow going to give us insight into a culture.

in what ways does saying "i'm down with taiwanese culture because i'm down with bubble tea" mean exactly the same thing as saying "i'm down with 'cultural diversity' because i have a black friend." instead of understanding and appreciating a culture or a race, we boil it down to an auxilory food or peson that in our head speaks for the race and makes up for our complete lack of cultural or racial understanding. being versed in a variety of cuisines doesn't make you cultured or tolerant or any closer to being knowledgable about the intricacies of group culture. yet, somehow we think it does.

but, in what ways can being introduced to a culture through food help others to appreciate other peoples more? i think that in a very narrow (very very narrow) sense, food can be a foot into the door. but, nothing more than a foot. you can have an introduction to a different culture through the food but you must consciously seek more. otherwise, you're just enjoying food.