Abstract

Ancient Chinese said: Food comes first to human. Without doubt, dietary culture is an indispensable part of traditional Chinese culture. With the development of globalization in the 21st century, cross-cultural communication between China and western countries soar over the last decades. Dietary culture has become an inescapable aspect in cross-cultural communication. Because of the differences between Chinese and American cultural traditions, Chinese and American dietary cultures are different in concepts, objects, and nature. This paper includes 4 parts: the first part gives a short introduction of this thesis that the comparison between China and American philosophies and table manners is to analyze the dietary culture differences and to promote the Sino-American cultural exchange; The second part gives a detailed introduction to Chinese and American dietary philosophies with a further analysis of the causes of the differences; the third part uses comparison method to analyze the different table manners between the two countries. The last part is the conclusion part. By the analysis of the differences, we will learn to avoid cultural taboos, and we can also promote cultural exchange.

Key words: dietary culture; cultural comparison; cultural differences

摘  要

民以食为天，饮食文化是民族文化的重要组成部分。随着21世纪全球化进程，跨文化交际日益频繁，饮食文化是东西方文化交流不可避免的重要内容。饮食是人类生活、生存与发展的必需，可是由于中美文化传统的差异，导致了中美饮食文化在观念、对象、方式、归属与性质方面产生了差异。该论文研究内容分为四大部分：首先介绍本文主要从中美饮食观念、餐桌礼仪等方面来论述中美文化差异，以促进行中美文化交际的顺利进行；第二章分别对中方及美国的饮食观念进行介绍，并分析观念不同的原因；第三章以餐桌礼仪作为分析的一个方向，阐述中美不同的餐桌礼仪，指明差异并进行对比；最后对论文进行总结。研究这些差异，找出可以融会贯通的地方，从而避免文化禁忌，促进中西文化交流。

关键词：饮食文化; 文化对比; 文化差异