Cultural Awareness

Chapter 5.1
French Food

When we talk about western food,what comes to our mind?Romantic,flavorous,good atmosphere,and so on. Last week,on the 21th of December, I went to a French restaurant with my classmates.

This restaurant is located at Qing Liangshan Road,the restaurant is not so small,but I think inside this restaurant, the style of interior decoration looks like a Chinese restaurant.Maybe you will ask me, why do I chose this restaurant?Because this is a special restaurant which is run by the parents of my French classmate,Hugo.When we took the seats aroud the table,the French music began.It was warm inside.There were some pictures on the wall.We waited for a long time before the food were sent to us,because French food entailed a very special preaparation. Our first course was salad.This salad was imported from France so it was of original taste and flavour.Salad was a standard course in western restaurants.The second course was called pumpkin soup.The soup was in a vessel which shaped like a small boat.I thought this soup quite distinguished from traditional Chinese soup.The third course was the main dish.Everyone was given a big plate with duck meat,chicken,potatoes and some peppers in it.In the plate there was also a fork and a knife for eating.The main dish was very delicious,it was a little bit salty.I thought the flavouring agent had a most usage.I like this kind of food,because it was quite different from Chinese traditional food.It gave me a fresh feeling.The last course was some dessert.The dessert was a small cake.I felt quite full after I had the dessert.

This is my eating experience at a French restaurant,and it is very different from the way we Chinese eat.In Chinese restaurants,we order a table of dishes while in French restaurants we are served only one portion;In French restaurant,the waitresses give us a big stone board,knives and forks while in Chinese restaurants we use chopsticks;In Chinese restaurants we serve soup at last, but in French restaurants, soup is served at first.This meal gives me a big cultural impact,and let me learn a lot about French eating costoms and culture.Maybe next time I will invite other friends to eat with me in such a restaurant.

food picture 1

food picture2

menu

group picture in front of the French restaurant

food picture 3

guest artist

Guest ArtistLast Monday we listened to a wonderful speech from Mr. Zhao. He told us a lot about the knowledge of gardens and we learned a lot from him.First he told us what the garden was: Gardens are the type of buildings. In China we have many types of gardens, such as Su Zhou garden, Forbidden City and so on.The gardens are places to change the natural physiognomy for people to appreciate. These places can provide people for living, wandering, playing and so on. We know gardens are very beautiful places to visit because there are many trees, water ponds,flowers, bridges,rockeries. And you can also see many traditional architectures from ancient China. Gardens have a very long history. They had appeared before West Han dynasty.The earliest garden in China is”围”,and it is the place to give shelter place.But until Wei,Jin and Nan Bei dynasties, they became neck and neck with royal gardens. The royal gardens have not only the general features but also the unique thoughts of designings. In Ming and Qing dynasties,the private gardens had been popular throughout China.Second,he gave us a picture of pictograph which was written in modern Chinese character”园”.This character has 4 parts:one is soil(土),it means the changes of the physiognomy.One is well(井),it means one well.One is “V”,it means the trees.And the last one is a big”口”,it means the border. In the garden there are many water ponds,when they are interconnected the water is living.If there is only one water pond,it becomes dead water.So the best way to enlive the water in the gardens is to keep more fishes in the water and the water will flow more.Last,to make the gardens more beautiful you can also put many stones,plant different trees and build rockeries in the gardens..From this lesson we have learned a lot about the gardens,and I think this lesson is of useful knowledge for us.It is also good for us to rise our literary expression,so some days later I will travel one of the greatest Chinese gardens,in this way I can have more experience.