My Encounter With China

I have only been enrolled and attending Folklore F-121 for a couple weeks, and already it is challenging me to truly get out there and experience cultures not similar to my own. The idea of an Encounter Project is to go out into the world around you and experience a new culture. I decided to try a new cuisine. Now you may not know, but I am a very picky eater, and I rarely venture to foods out of the ordinary. In my opinion, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. And the food I eat has always been pleasing to me, so I rarely go out looking for something new. For this project, I decided to go to a true Chinese restaurant and get a dish representing their rich cuisine. The restaurant is called Fortune Cookies, and it is a small “mom and pop” Chinese restaurant that has a great atmosphere, and even better food. When I chose this place to eat, I wanted to eat true Chinese food and nothing like a “Super China Buffet” that serves very poor meat. I went to Fortune Cookies with two of my friends so we could all try different things. I ordered the Sweat and Sour Chicken with white rice. One of my friends ordered the Kung Pow Chicken, and unfortunately my other friend was picky and ordered the same thing I ate. The restaurant was brand new, but still it was very busy. This did not stop the waitress from being very professional and offering great service. The Sweat and Sour Chicken was amazing and the exotic music playing overhead only added to my wonderful experience with Chinese cuisine. My friend’s meal really put the “pow” in Kung Pow Chicken, and it was as good as it was hot. Upon the conclusion of my meal, I loosened up my belt buckle and talked to my friends as I awaited my check. Along with the check came a couple chocolate fortune cookies…which is a sign that the planets have aligned as far as I am concerned. We ate our “dessert”, left a well-deserved tip, and retired for the night. I strongly recommend eating at Fortune Cookies to anyone who either loves Chinese food, or has yet to try it. The food was delicious, and only made better by the service and atmosphere. This is a response to the Restaurant Visit Project for the first Encounter Project in my Folklore F-121 class.

My Family Thanksgiving

Folklore is involved in everyone’s individual lives, but many may not realize how so. It is amazing to me that at a place with such a vast variety of culture as Indiana University, that many people either do not know what folklore is, or have never even heard of it. The reason for this is probably because even folklorists who have studied this field for years still can not place a concrete definition on what exactly it is. Folklore focuses on the knowledge that people learn from each other rather than a textbook. The arts and crafts, jokes and riddles, and even the ritual you go through everyday when you wake up are all part of folklore. Opinions on folklore vary from person to person because culture varies from person to person and everything is constantly changing. The list of genres included in folklore is very vast, but I would like to choose one that is especially important to me. Rituals and celebrations are part of everybody’s lives. Whether it is how you celebrate a birthday, a lucky way of preparing for a basketball game, or simply how you eat dessert after your main course…ritual is a huge aspect of culture and life. For all of my life, my family has gotten together at my Grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving. I know this may not seem out of the ordinary from what many others do, but there are certain activities that my family does that have never changed. Every year, no matter how busy you are or what tragedies you have going on, on Thanksgiving everybody shows up to my Grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving lunch, not dinner. We all show up, talk and reminisce for about an hour, and then eat. The food is always the same, and yet it tastes better each year. There are noodles, turkey, vegetables, mashed potatoes, and two different types of cranberries. After lunch, the men of the family retire to the couch for the football games like clockwork. This will always result in my father taking a nap, and my mother usually cracking a joke about him. After football, we will all participate in a game or two of euchre…and like clockwork, my Grandmother beats everybody resulting in everyone losing their urge to play. I swear, for someone who is in their early eighties, she can be fierce. After euchre comes our dinner consisting of leftovers, and finally, everyone will part ways. For my entire life it has been this way, and I would not change one thing about it. This is so important to me because it is nice to have a constant like this in my life. My family has undergone sickness, divorce, anger, new jobs, new homes out of state, and just about everything under the sun, but no matter what, we always get together for Thanksgiving. I learned this ritual from my parents, who learned it from their parents, and it continues on and on farther than I will ever know. But I do know that this tiny part of folklore in my life is also one of the most important occurrences for each member of my family. This blog entry is my response to the Chapter One Reflection Question.