Where’s the General Tso’s Chicken? A Caucasian American Visits the Chinese Christian Family Church of Fontana, California-USA
Author : Simon J Woodstock
Abstract :
As a Caucasian American visiting a Mandarin speaking Chinese Christian Fellowship in the United States, this research could not avoid taking an outsider’s perspective in searching to answer the following questions: Were there any cross-cultural spiritual commonalities to be located between the white American and Chinese-American Christian cultures? And, could a Caucasian learn any key spiritual lessons from visiting a Mandarin speaking fellowship? Since I do not speak Mandarin, this study had to rely heavily on other senses to make researched assessments. To some extent, this may have been beneficial, as my focus was then on the fellowship’s non-linguistic movements in hopes of gaining an understanding. That said, the greatest culture shock happened during the food-fellowship session after the service, as the authentic Chinese cuisine was much different than the common Americanized ‘“Chinese food” readily available in the USA. Nevertheless, the straightforward methods employed toward answering the previously mentioned research questions consist of my own personal observations synthesized with information from the fields of Chinese ecclesiology, ethnomusicology, and culturally comparative foodstuffs.
Keywords :
Chinese religion, Christianity, cross cultural issues, ecclesiology, ethnography, global cuisines, musicology, pastoral ministry, outsider perspectives
