Reasons of the formation of diet cultures are discussed to help people understand the formation of values. With the development of society and multi-culture, different diet cultures and values are becoming more and more adopted by different people. Nowadays, people take delicious food as an enjoyment and also pay attention to the nutrition of the food. So, to cater to people’s demand of food, Chinese diet is changing gradually under the influences of Western diet, which makes it healthier than before. From the changes of dietetic cultures, people can know values are changing gradually.
2. Literature Review
In 1980, Greet Hofstede published a book, Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work Related Values. He started to conduct opinion surveys of people in companies around the world instead of categorizing values and then he used statistical methods to analyze the findings of the survey. From his analysis, he concluded four cultural dimensions on cross-cultural field. Each country that he surveyed was assigned a score for each pair of contrasting values. The four cultural dimensions are: “inpidualism versus collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, masculinity versus femininity.” (Xv Lisheng, 2013: 99) “According to Geert Hofsted’s cultural dimensions, America has relatively high inpidual index and therefore is highly inpidualistic, believes that people are only supposed to take care of themselves, and perhaps their immediate families” (Dai Weidong, 2013: 100). Even though China was not surveyed in eastern countries, Hong Kong and Formosa were surveyed and belonged to collectivist regions. So, there is no doubt that China is a collectivist country (Hu Wenzhong 1999: 165, 171). Besides, according to a Chinese scholar, Luo Yanli, she analyzed how three aspects of diet culture: the ways of producing, the ways of eating and table manners reflect the core values-inpidualism in America and collectivism in China (Luo Yanli, 2007: 17). This article will further analyze reasons of the formation of different values and then study the integration of collectivism and inpidualism in the modern time.源:自*751~·论,文'网·www.751com.cn/
“The discovery of a new dish does more for the happiness of mankind than the discovery of a star.” (Du Li et al. 2007: 62) It is apparent that the diet is important for it influences all aspects of human life. People can understand other countries’ culture better through learning their diet cultures. People know inpidualism is a moral political and social philosophy. It argues that personal interests should be the most significant factor in determining behavior and pays attention to the importance of inpidual freedom, personality and personal virtues and independence. Western inpidualism has an influence in the emergence and development of capitalism. But with the development of capitalism, the disadvantage of western inpidualism and the negative development of the society come up, making a lot of people rethink about many problems of the contemporary capitalism. They think collectivism and socialism together are the methods to solve all the problems of the contemporary western society. Today, the impact of inpidualism and collectivism can be seen in many aspects. People from collective culture have higher tendency to obey. A study of Chinese students who study in America found that Chinese students tend to be more obedient than their American peers. When Chinese students meet with difficulties, they are likely to turn to help from the supervisor but American students turn to friends (Xv Lisheng, 2013: 101). From the view of psychology, the influences of inpidualism and collectivism also have an impact on the personality of ego. Compared with American culture, independent model of self, the self in Chinese cultures is a kind of dependent self. For Chinese, to a certain extent, the self is only a part in the group. So, people will often consider organizations when they deal with the relationship with outside world. Inpidualism and collectivism have an influence on people's social behavior. When they solve the interpersonal conflict in reality, the collectivist tend to use the method of consultation but inpidualists resort to law often. In terms of social perception and interpersonal interaction, collectivists pay attention to the joy and harmony of groups and inpidualists focus on the personality. Due to these characteristics in interpersonal communication, people's physical and mental health are affected. Loneliness is a problem of the culture of inpidualism rather than cultural problems of collectivism. However, it does not mean that collectivism is always good. Due to the expansion of emotional connection, the possibility of feeling nervous for the collectivist is higher than the inpidualist, which does harm to health.