The Research On Traditional Dietary Etiquette In Chinese Upper Class During Ming And Qing Dynasties

In Chinese traditional cultural treasures, food culture is undoubtedly the jewel bright which is shining the glory of human civilization. As to meet basic physiological needs of human activity, diet behavior is not only keeping the maintenance of individual survival, but also fully reflects the different ideological and cultural differences between social groups. Among that, the dietary etiquette is worth further study as a typical example. Just as what we are felt in daily life, compared to the consumption of cuisines, people pay more attention on the behavior which are met etiquette specification performed by individuals in public banquet. In the authoritarian societies with strict hierarchy, especially in the upper class group, this strict constraint on individual behavior is more obvious, always following the traditional "ritual" requirements.Ming and Qing Dynasties, at the end of Chinese authoritarian history, is the peak period during the development of Chinese ancient dietary culture. It was not only performed a high level on material such as ingredients selection, cooking made and so on, but also had systematic and comprehensive dietary theories and ideas especially a large number of diet books has been published during this period. And it is so unique that other times could not be compared with it. Therefore, the research on dietary etiquette of Ming and Qing Dynasties can surely help us to show the diet activities and ideas of people during that time. Besides, it can also lead us to explore the interaction among the social transform which occurred in political, economic and cultural structure and the dietary activities and concepts. And then it can benefit us to solve dietary problems exposed in modern society. Based on these, with keen interest, we are still working on this issue.Indeed, Chinese civilization is a continuous and complete cultural sequence. Among this, the presentation of any phenomenon definitely has its birth environment, development process and variation part. Thus, the analysis on dietary etiquette of Ming and Qing Dynasties can not be accomplished without exploring its birth mother, reappearing its original state and then reviewing the process of its growth and development. So we have made a briefly describe of traditional dietary etiquette before Ming and Qing Dynasties. And we have tried to deal it with three aspects-cultural origins, groups application and social function.After that, we have turned the research view into Ming and Qing periods. By using historical documents and information notes in both Chinese and foreign language, we have systematic collected and summarized the specific cultural representation of traditional dietary etiquette in upper class during this period from five aspects-banquet planning, seating arrangement, feast standards, eating ritual and entertainment games. Besides, we have tried to use theoretical methods of symbolic anthropology to find special culture meaning behind the specific phenomenon. Therefore, we can sketch out the typical characteristics and culture evolution of dietary etiquette during this period.In addition, with increasingly frequent exchanges between China and other countries, more and more foreigners had come to China and toured throughout the whole territory during this time. As the different identity and purpose, their visions involved all aspects of social life. Thus, they were able to observe up close the unique Chinese culture and then had preserved these ideas and experiences in the form of texts in which there were lots of descriptions and recordings about dietary culture. As a result, in the last part of this article, we had to discuss the evolution of Chinese traditional dietary etiquette under the influence of the West, including different understanding by Westerners in different period. Meanwhile, under the violent collisions between sino-west cultures, the Chinese traditional dietary etiquette were also deeply suffered by it, accordingly appeared the inevitably’improved’ changes and then it surely had a profound impact on the further trend.