A Comparison Between Chinese And Western Banquet Custom From The Cross-Culture Perspective

Food is the first necessity of the people. People from different ethnic groups consider food as a top priority. Because of that, people can make the most simple food become a rich and interesting banquet culture. With the development of global economic diversification, Western and Chinese banquet customs have also been colliding and merging each other. The banquet customs in different countries also embody different characteristics and cultures of different nations. The banquet is not only an important part of diet culture, but also an important representation of the development of social etiquette and civilization. Therefore, it is very important to conduct a research on Chinese and Western banquet customs.The author respectively studies the historical development, custom differences, and factors for the differences of Chinese and western banquet by a comparison between them in this article, so that this research can cultivate the consciousness of the people on custom difference and promote the development of the intercultural communication. Specifically, in the long evolution and development of the banquet customs, the custom differences of Chinese and Western banquet manifested in the following three aspects: the concept of diet, Chinese emphasis on taste, while western on nutrition; the way of banquet, Chinese put into practice “Gather Dining System”, while the west put into practice “Individual Dining System”; banquet etiquette aspect, Chinese focus on “elderly persons priority”, while the west is “lady first”. These differences are mainly formed by Chinese and Western geographic environment, philosophy, religion and other reasons. In the actual cross-cultural communication, the misunderstanding and ethnocentrism also make the differences between Chinese and Western banquet perform more prominent. Therefore, we advocate learning the differences between Chinese and Western culture to minimize the communication conflict.Overall, the banquet is a kind of social activity which is closely linked with people’s daily life. From a primitive form of life to hardly preparing food, to meticulously pursuing table manners, nutrition and health, banquet culture affect the process of human civilization in an unexpected manner. The author hopes that people can get a more deep understanding on Chinese and Western culture, and improve the ability of cross-cultural communication by studying the Chinese and Western banquet customs.