Jie’s new article got online

Jie’s new article got online

“‘If there is anything we are serious about, it is neither religion nor learning, but food.’ This is how Sinologist Lin Yutang introduces his countrymen to foreign readers. As one of the most basic and accessible social codes, food has many social and cultural connotations.” said Qin Jie, the fourth year PhD student of the lab. Offering a semiotic reading of ordinary Chinese meals, Jie’s new article “ Food and Binary Oppositions in the Chinese Meal System ” will appear in the first issue of Society magazine in 2014. The Online First version is available on SpringerLink. In her article, Jie discusses the three-meal structure and four binary oppositions (Cooked/Raw, Fan/Cai, Solids/Liquids, and Vegetable/Meat) in ordinary Chinese meals. “Ordering at a Chinese restaurant is regarded as an art. Its merit lays in the ability to balance the oppositions. In other words, you have to learn how a Chinese meal is organized,” Jie stressed, “The laws that govern the Chinese meal system reveal how Chinese people see themselves and others, how they connect the past and present, and how they identify themselves with their culture.” (QJ)