Eat, Drink, James, Watson

J ohn king and Wilma Cannon Fairbank Professor of Chinese Society James L. Watson, an Iowan born and an anthropologist by trade, is known for his lecture in Anthropology 105: "Food and Culture." He recently sat down to share his thoughts on McDonald'sTM, China and Seinfeld, and provide a little food for thought.

Some Background:

My undergraduate was at University of Iowa. I'm a native Iowan, so naturally I went to my state university. This was during the bad days of the Cold War and those days there were very few Americans who know Chinese (at least there were very few American students going through school who knew Chinese and there was a big demand) so U of I in those days started a Chinese language program.

But they didn't have any students because who in their right mind was going to study Chinese when they grew up in Iowa. I had never even eaten Chinese food, I had never even thought about China until I was 18 years old and ended up in Iowa City, and I saw a poster saying critical language studies. Of course in those days, and this was the early 60s "critical languages" was a euphemism for "enemy language." They were advertising fellowships for Chinese, Russian and Serbo-Croatian. It was pretty apparent what they had in mind.

The US government was funding people to learn these languages. And I was broke: I was a sophomore and I'd used up all my money earned from sacking groceries in high school. I'd used up all my money and I had to find a job or some way to fund my undergraduate years. I figured everyone would sign up for Russian, but nobody would sign up for Chinese because nobody knows about it. It turns out I was one of three students in the entire state of Iowa studying Chinese and we had five teachers. It turns out I loved it, it clicked, it took, and I love Chinese. I went from there with my Chinese Studies and Anthropology BA, and I went to study at Berkeley in the heyday of the crazy years at Berkeley. It was a fabulous time in terms of the culture at Berkeley and there I studied anthropology.

I grew up in a very small, tiny little Iowa town, the town had a population of about 400. My high school graduating class had 19 people and that was the biggest class that school had ever had. My dad was a school principal and coach, and my mom was a housewife. And they couldn't figure out what on earth anyone would do with Chinese but they figured I needed the money and I had to get through the BA and maybe I'd be sensible and go to law school or medical school. They figured it was a vehicle for finishing the BA. They were very supportive; they didn't say, "No you're crazy." They just said, "Well, that's interesting . Maybe you'll do something with it."

How did you go from Chinese studies to studyingfood?

it's very obvious. You can't understand Chineseculture--you can't understand any culture--withoutknowing about food patterns, etiquette, systems.There are certain cultures where food isparamount, like in Italy, France and in China. TheChinese are absolutely preoccupied with food. In aplace like China you learn very early that it'salmost more important to know how to behaveproperly, that you know the etiquette. when you goto a banquet, you have to learn never to sit downanywhere until they force you into a seat, becauseof the hierarchical arrangement of positioning ofguests. I made a lot of mistakes early on that Ifeel horrible when I look back on. One goodexample is the first wedding banquet I ever wentto. The food was great, and it was a 12 coursemeal. I was young and ate everything in sight. Atthe end of the meal they brought out bowls ofrice, and I took one and proceeded to eat it down,and I noticed that my fellow diners were pickingpolitely at it but weren't eating much. But Ifigured I'd eat it, so I ate most of the rice. ButI didn't realize until a week later that I hadcommitted an absolute mortal error, I had horriblyoffended my host. Because, of course, you're notsupposed to eat the rice It's there as aconclusion. To eat any more than a little bit isto signal that you're hungry and that the guy wasa cheapskate, and he didn't give you enough food.

I learned right away that I had better payattention to the dining customs. From that searingpersonal experience, I went on to study foodetiquette, dining, and patterns.

Is it true you are a McDonald's expert?

I'm not sure I'm expert, but I've published abook (Golden Arches East: McDonald's in East Asia,Stanford University Press, 1997). It's aboutMcDonald's in East Asia: Hong Kong, Beijing,Seoul, Tokyo. It deals with the impact of thistransnational corporation; the book is reallyabout globalism. Globalism is everywhere, but veryfew people know how to deal with it. This is anattempt to look at what might be called atransnational system to see how it's treatedlocally. You see how McDonald's has changed theculture or more likely, how it's changedMcDonald's has changed dramatically.

It's two-way street. it isn't as if suddenlyMcDonald's appears and changes everything. In factthe company has to change itself. The book dealswith one food system in five different places. Asin a controlled comparison. It's just a lens. Youcould take anything--KFC, Baskin Robbins, a goodexample is Kellogg's breakfast cereals. How isAmerican breakfast cereal spread around the worldand adapted in various ways?

Do you actually like McDonald's?

Well I have to confess that I eat McDonalds andBurger king and others when I travel in thiscountry because I go back to see my mother in Iowaand my in-laws live in Illinois and drive back andforth between Illinois and southwest Iowa a coupletimes a year, and I usually stop along the roadjust to find out what's going on.

Do you have any preferences?

My preference is a Big Mac, chocolate shake andfries. I just love that, but I don't eat it veryoften. There's only two time when I eat fast food:when I travel in this country and when I do fieldwork in Hong Kong, because the reason I got intoMcDonald's is because the families that I know goto McDonald's because that's where the kids wantto go. The kids--I'm talking about little kidsabout four to 12, control the family and tell thefamily where they want to go. So I go with myfamily friends and we end up at McDonald's. I eata lot of fast foods in China and Hong Kong and Iend up going to McDonald's and there I eat fishsandwiches, which I think are OK>

McDonalds's V. Burger King?

Oh, I don't know. I like certain things ineach. I have to confess I love McDonald's fries,but everybody loves McDonald's fries. They'reunparalleled! But I make a point of eating in allthe other places to keep up. I'm interested indoing a project on not just McDonald's in EastAsia, but the entire fast food system, in Europeand Russia, too. I'm going as a visiting professorthis spring to the University of Paris and Iintend to take that as an opportunity not just tohave some great French food in restaurants, but tocheck out the indigenous fast food rivals toMcDonald's. I want to see what the French aredoing to compete.

There are competitors almost everywhere in theworld. I've become interested in local competitorsto these transnational firms. There are a lot inChina, many in Hong Kong. Now I want to go toEurope to do some work.

Do you indigenous restaurants try to do whatMcDonald's and Burger king do, or do they try andcook their country's food, fast?

The point is that there has always been fastfood in China. You could find it on the street.You could stop and someone would whip something upquick, so that's been there for hundreds of years.

What distinguishes the fast food chains is thatthey put them off street into a nice airconditioned, well lit environment. They bringstreet foods, domesticate them and sanitize themand put them on sale behind a counter: that's whatI am calling fast food chains. In Hong Kong, thereare four or five different places that have takenChinese style fast food right off the street andput them on the menu. McDonald's doesn't really dothat, but there are places in Hong Kong that do.Some of the stuff's not bad. Some of it's prettygrim. I've tried all of them. I've put my stomachon the line for many years.

Tell me about your favorite adventure or meal.

There’s nothing better than really, really goodcountry Chinese food. I don't mean fancyrestaurants, but if you go out to the Chinesecountryside. I was in the province of Jiang-Xi acouple years ago over reading period, doing somefield work. Isolated, beautiful hillsidecountryside area and they didn't have a great dealof variety but what they had was so out of sight,it was just impossible to rival. They had--theonly time I ever had this--mountain catfish. Theyalso had the best, most fabulous bean curd I’veever had in my life, because the water they had inthis area was crystal clear beyond belief. The keyto good bean curd is having fresh wonderful water.I couldn't believe it. They had a hot pot withmountain catfish and this fresh bean curd thrownin with a bunch of ginger and a few other things.I've never ever had anything just so...sofabulous. And it was just out in the countryside,in little joints along the side of the road cookedby ordinary people.

That's the kind of food I look for when I do myfield work. To them its just ordinary stuff . Itreminds me of what I grew up with in Iowa. Myfather had his summers free, so what we did washave the biggest garden in the planet, and I wasthe laborer. We had heavenly sweet corn, andvarious kinds of beans and things like that--justordinary food we took for granted. I look back atthat as literally food from the goods.

You can't find it, there's no way: it's gonenow. That was what I was experiencing in China.Everywhere I go in China I've found examples ofthis. Not in the high fancy expensive restaurants,but out in the countryside. That’sB-13