Diffusion of Asian food culture in Denver

 Denver is a relative big and well-developed city in America with a population of 600,158 (2010 census). Like many other cities in America, Denver shows the typical American culture – multiethnic culture. In addition, three-fourths of the recent U.S. immigrations have originated from Asia and Latin America (James M. Rubenstein 88). More and more Asian restaurants or tea places show up in Denver. I believe the diffusion of Asian food culture in Denver has both positive and negative influences. Besides, mixing of culture is the biggest product of globalization. Culture diffusion causes many effects to both the originated area and being influenced area. In the following paragraphs, many Asian tea places or restaurants in Denver would be listed and analysis one by one. Then, a conclusion of all the observations would be given to show how positive and negative impacts of Asian food culture in Denver.

  

The Lollicup Tea Zone in Denver on the south Colorado Blvd. Lollicup is probably the most famous boba place in Denver. I would like to use it as the most typical case of the result of the diffusion of Asian food culture in Denver. Boba is little pearl-sized tapioca ball at the bottom of drinks. It is made by the starch of the cassava root and would become sweet and chewy ball after cooking. Boba was originated from Taiwan. Within around two years, Boba was diffused to nearby countries, such as mainland of China, Singapore, Philippines, Canada and west coast of America. (U.S. TimeMagzine 2001) Boba as a kind of Asian food culture, being diffused and strongly influenced by foreign culture, presents to peoples from other ethnic groups a fresh Asian food idea and affect those peoples. Boba gradually became popular in America nowadays. In 2001, Jeffrey Ressner described the diffusion of Asian boba in states on U.S. TimeMagzine, “It (Boba) traveled to North America via the large Asian community in Vancouver, then migrated to Chinatown areas in New York and other U.S. cities before popping up at trendy college campuses in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles.” Americans love it because it’s attractive by adding some chewy balls in milk tea. Compared with boba, British milk tea became a kind of plain and boring drink. I interviewed one of the American guests in the Lollicup called Alice and she said, “Boba is so ethnic and unique that people could not buy it from somewhere else. ”

As an Asian, when I ordered a cup of boba in Denver Lollicup, I felt that everything here was what I was familiar with. Suddenly, I felt that I was lost because everything here was strange. Boba in America, as a result of culture diffusion, is somehow changed. In the Lollicup tea zone, we could see how Asian food culture and American food culture mixed and presented a new food style. To be specific, Asian peoples prefer to call boba as pearl milk tea rather than boba or tapioca. Asian boba places would only provided milk tea with boba at the bottom of the milk tea with various temperatures for guests to choose, such as hot, warm or cold. However, Lollicup in Denver provides guests with boba slush, snow bubble and normal boba milk tea. Boba slush is a drink that is made by boba and blended ice. While snow bubble is creamy and similar to boba slush. Moreover, Lollicup in Denver provides both Asian and American nibbles. Not only Asian steamed bun but also American bread and cakes are served in Lollicup. According to my observation, Lollicup in Denver serves hot chocolate, cappuccino and black coffee too. Lollicup as a tea place in America should serve drinks that are loved by Americans, such as hot chocolate, cappuccino and black coffee. However, Lollicup is showing Asian food culture that is relative fresh and attractive to Americans at the same time. Similar to Asian boba places, many social activities are associated with eating and drinking. Lollicup in Denver, as a result of Asian food culture in America, offers guests both Asian and American activities that they could spend time on. For example, Asian manga and American fashion magazines are putted on the bookcase. Besides, walls are decorated with oil painting and Japanese cartoon drawings. Finally, American foosball table and board games are also accessible.

Except the Lollicup Tea zone in Denver, Vietnamese Pho is quit popular in Denver too. There is a common characteristic between the pho restaurants in Vietnam and American pho restaurants. In addition, I believe the characteristic which is keep boiling the soup-stock for 24 hours is the most attractive point of pho. While the cow bones are keeping boiling, more nutrients would dissolve into the soup and the flavor of the soup would be tasty and the soup would be more nutritious. However, the flavor of pho in Denver is a little bit different from the original Vietnamese pho. Two years ago, I spent a whole month in Hanoi (Capital city of Vietnam). I was fall in love with pho at that time. There were a lot of spices and sauces that guests could add on in Hanoi’s pho restaurants. Take the fish sauce as an example. Fish sauce is not available on the table of pho restaurants in Denver. Like many other American restaurant, salt, pepper, Sriracha hot chili sauce and soy sauce are always on the table of Pho restaurants in Denver. However, the American type of Vietnamese pho has a unique flavor and I enjoy eating it too. Specifically, traditions of Vietnamese pho would boil the basil when cook the pho. As a result, pho soup would have the flavor of the basil. However, some foreign customers didn’t like the smell of basil. According to me observation, guests could decide whether add basil in their soup or not in American pho restaurants, as well as the basil in the pho is not boiled and the smell of the basil is not strong. Some people may love Vietnamese pho in the states because of the freedom to choose which vegetable they want add in and which not.

According to the guests survey on Yelp, the Pho 96 ranks as the No.1 pho restaurants in Denver. As the typical American pho restaurant in Denver, the décor and the setting of the pho 96 are showing the Asian culture. To be specific, bamboo elements occur in Pho 96 frequently. There is a pot of bamboo in the front desk of the restaurant. Moreover, a big drawing of bamboo putted on the wall. Bamboo has a significant meaning for business mans because the bamboo is growing quickly and always grow upward. It would represent the bamboo owner would be successful on his or her business and more and more money would be earned by he or she. As a result, many Vietnam restaurants would use many bamboo elements to sent the best wish to the business. Similar to bamboo, some Asians believe that fish globes would “grow gold” and the business would be successful with a fish globe in. In the pho 96, there is a huge fish water globe like many pho restaurants in Vietnam. Bamboo and fish globe are two typical elements that are always used in Asian restaurants.

 

Generally speaking, the development of transportation, Internet and media (Television) promotes the globalization. As a result of globalization, culture diffusion is enhanced. I hold the view that diffusion of Asian food culture in Denver brings both positive and negative impacts on the original food culture and American local food culture.

The Asian food culture diffusion is positive for both Denver and Taiwan food culture for several reasons. First of all, the modification of the Asian food culture in Denver restaurants would make this kind of drink more creative and popular. The snow bubble, boba slush and pho without boiling of basil are widely welcomed by guests from various groups. Secondly, the Asian food culture could be known and promoted in Denver. The only way to protect food culture is that more and more people know about it and want to protect it. Besides, the variety of the restaurants in Denver would be enhanced that local people would have the chance to know about foreign food culture and have a chance to taste them. Also, many Asian immigrants and international students in Denver could order food from their hometown because of the variety of food selection in Denver. More importantly, the boss and several staff of most Asian restaurants and tea places like Lollicup and Pho 96 were come from Asian. Asian culture diffused in Denver would provide many immigrants or long-term residents working opportunity and living on running an Asian restaurant or tea place that they could do it more successful than people didn’t come from Asia.

On the contrary, the diffusion of Asian food culture has many negative impacts at the same time. To begin with the loss of traditional values, the Asian food culture is changed and lost it’s tradition by being modified in Denver in order to be more and more guests accepted and welcomed. Furthermore, when a new food or drinks selling is boomed in Denver, other Denver’s traditional food industry would face a risk of break down because of the competition. Also, the local food culture would be changed by mixing and influenced by foreign food culture. For example, the dining hall of DU (the university of Denver) serves their student Asian rice or Japanese Tofu in most meal. Like I mentioned that, the traditional milk tea was boring for guests in U.S. when people were crazy about the boba from Taiwan.

Generally speaking, the diffusion of Asian culture in Denver makes huge impacts on both areas (being influenced area and origin area) in positive and negative ways.

Diffusion of Asian food culture in Denver

Denver is a relative big and well-developed city in America with a population of 600,158 (2010 census). Like many other cities in America, Denver shows the typical American culture – multiethnic culture. When the statue of liberty was dedicated in October 28^th 1886, migrants from various countries were welcomed and started a new life in America. The international immigration boomed during the first decade of the twenty-first century. What’s more, three-fourths of the recent U.S. immigrations have originated from Asia and Latin America (James M. Rubenstein 88). From my personal perspectives, the level of multi-ethnic is associated with the level of development. Denver is a perfect area that shows how Asian food culture is influenced and impacts the natives in America. In this paper, diffusion of Asian food culture in Denver would be illustrated by giving many specific examples. More importantly, I believe the diffusion of Asian food culture in Denver has both positive and negative influences. Besides, mixing of culture is the biggest product of globalization. Culture diffusion causes many effects to both the originated area and being influenced area.  Explains would be given in the following paragraphs.

Many people may have heard about the Lollicup Tea Zone in Denver on the south Colorado Blvd. Lollicup is probably the most famous boba place in Denver. The major group of customers in Lollicup is high school students and college students from various ethnics. Boba is little pearl-sized tapioca ball at the bottom of drinks. It is made by the starch of the cassava root and would become sweet and chewy ball after cooking. Boba was originated from Taiwan. Within around two years, Boba was diffused to nearby countries, such as mainland of China, Singapore, Philippines, Canada and west coast of America. (U.S. TimeMagzine 2001) Boba as a kind of Asian food culture, being diffused and strongly influenced by foreign culture, presents to peoples from other ethnic groups a fresh Asian food idea and affect those peoples. Boba gradually became popular in America nowadays. In 2001, Jeffrey Ressner described the diffusion of Asian boba in states on U.S. TimeMagzine, “It (Boba) traveled to North America via the large Asian community in Vancouver, then migrated to Chinatown areas in New York and other U.S. cities before popping up at trendy college campuses in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles.” Americans love it because it’s attractive by adding some chewy balls in milk tea. Compared with boba, British milk tea became a kind of plain and boring drink. I interviewed one of the American guests in the Lollicup called Alice and she said, “Boba is so ethnic and unique that people could not buy it from somewhere else. ”

As an Asian, when I ordered a cup of boba in Denver Lollicup, I felt that everything here was what I was familiar with. Suddenly, I felt that I was lost because everything here was strange. Boba in America, as a result of culture diffusion, is somehow changed. In the Lollicup tea zone, we could see how Asian food culture and American food culture mixed and presented a new food style. To be specific, Asian peoples prefer to call boba as pearl milk tea rather than boba or tapioca. Asian boba places would only provided milk tea with boba at the bottom of the milk tea with various temperature for guests to choose, such as hot, warm or cold. However, Lollicup in Denver provides guests with boba slush, snow bubble and normal boba milk tea. Boba slush is a drink that is made by boba and blended ice. While snow bubble is creamy and similar to boba slush. Moreover, Lollicup in Denver provides both Asian and American nibbles. Not only Asian steamed bun but also American bread and cakes are served in Lollicup. According to my observation, Lollicup in Denver serves hot chocolate, cappuccino and black coffee too. Lollicup as a tea place in America should serve drinks that are loved by Americans, such as hot chocolate, cappuccino and black coffee. However, Lollicup is showing Asian food culture that is relative fresh and attractive to Americans at the same time. Similar to Asian boba places, many social activities are associated with eating and drinking. Lollicup in Denver, as a result of Asian food culture in America, offers guests both Asian and American activities that they could spend time on. For example, Asian manga and American fashion magazines are putted on the bookcase. Besides, walls are decorated with oil painting and Japanese cartoon drawings. Finally, American foosball table and board games are also accessible.  

Except the Lollicup Tea zone in Denver, there are enormous Asian restaurants and tea places in Denver that show the mixing of Asia and America food culture. Take panda express as an example, Chinese food in Panda Express is selling with the American fast food selling way. Prepared food enhances the efficiency of selling but the tradition of Chinese cuisine is lost. Vietnamese Pho is quit popular in Denver too. However, the flavor is a little bit different from the original Vietnamese pho. Two years ago, I spent a whole month in Hanoi (Capital city of Vietnam). I was fall in love with pho at that time. There were a lot of spices that guests could add on in Hanoi’s pho restaurants. Take the fish sauce as an example. Fish sauce is not available on the table of pho restaurants in Denver. Like many other American restaurant, salt, pepper, Sriracha hot chili sauce and soy sauce are always on the table. However, the American type of Vietnamese pho has a unique flavor and I enjoy eating it too.

Generally speaking, the development of transportation, Internet and media (Television) promotes the globalization. As a result of globalization, culture diffusion is enhanced. I hold the view that diffusion of Asian food culture in Denver brings both positive and negative impacts on the original food culture and American local food culture. 

Eating in the Task Oriented World

Horwitz, the author of “Eating at the edge”, pointed out an interesting and debatable social topic of people’s contemporary eating style. Various people have their different eating time and space. Instead of having everybody in home for lunch, people chose to eat in their own time-space(16). As a result, traditions and customs that related to eating in the past decades are gradually disappearing. People start to follow a new global eating pattern that is strongly influenced by “the task oriented world”. More specifically, the most efficiency way for eating is chosen.

At the beginning of the article, Horwitz came up with an idea called “eating at the edge”. “The phrase refers to occasions when food is an additive to a situation, such as a cigarette would be, rather than being definitive.” (1). From my personal perspective, the phrase perfectly explained the importance of food in people’s heart is changed. In the past, eating is an important part in people’s daily life. It’s the time for people to spend time with families, chatting with friends and having social activities. The eating time and space were definitive and people followed the tradition of eating. However, people prefer to eat alone in the most convenient way nowadays. Take college students as an example, they eating during the walk to classroom or dorm, nibbling during the lecture and choosing food that they could take away easily. The most importantly, food producers start to supply food with a new style that could meet customers’ new need in the task-oriented world. To be specific, package of food is modified into single-serving package.

To be honest, I think I’m a workaholic who regards eating as a nutrient taking process in my daily life. I would prefer putting my whole time and energy on working and study with simple form nibbles in my dorm rather than wasting time in a restaurant and waiting waiters serving my food. However, I still miss the time when I share food with my parents and have a pleasant conversation with them during our dinner. 

Boba in America

Many people may have heard about the Lollicup Tea Zone in Denver on the south Colorado Blvd. Lollicup is probably the most famous boba place in Denver. More specifically, boba is little pearl-sized tapioca ball at the bottom of drinks. It is made by the starch of the cassava root and would become sweet and chewy ball after cooking. Americans love it because it’s attractive by adding some chewy balls in milk tea. Compared with boba, British milk tea became a kind of plain and boring drink.  Boba gradually became popular in America nowadays. In 2001, Jeffrey Ressner described the diffusion of Asian boba in states on U.S. TimeMagzine, “It (Boba) traveled to North America via the large Asian community in Vancouver, then migrated to Chinatown areas in New York and other U.S. cities before popping up at trendy college campuses in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. America as a big multi-culture country, Lollicup Tea Zone in Denver is a great example shows how various cultures from outside of America be diffused and influenced in states.

The Lollicup Tea Zone mainly serves guests boba drinks. Many students in Denver enjoy spending time in Lollicup, especially high school students and college students from DU (University of Denver). According to my observation, a fair amount of peoples who from other ethnic groups love Lollicup Tea Zone too except Asian people. The boss was a nice Asian young lady and she told me she opened the Lollicup Tea Zone in Denver since 2003. “My brother in vacation of California with his family. And they saw many boba places surround Asian influenced area. They tried few places and brought the idea back. Denver is a good place.” She told me the reason why she opened this boba place in Denver. Indeed, boba is a kind of Asian twist on thing. Moreover, boba is so ethnic and unique that people could not buy it from somewhere else.

Menu is presented with colored chalk on a menu board that is popular in Asian boba milk tea stores. To be honest, there are many kinds of drinks guests could choose. To be specific, non- dairy milk tea, flavored ice tea, snow bubble, slush, juice and other hot drinks. Milk tea always served with boba. And 17 flavors (royal, coconut, ice tea, taro, honey dew, coffee, jasmine, chocolate, cappuccino, black, barley, sesame, almond, thai, lavender, four pudding, pumpkin and ginger) you could choose when you order your milk tea. Guests would be attracted easily because each flavor has its own color. Flavored ice tea is made based on black tea or jasmine tea. Snow bubble and slush are always popular in summer. However, snow bubble is creamy while slush is made by blended ice. As for other hot drinks, hot chocolate, cappuccino and black coffee are available too. The Lollicup Tea Zone as an Asian boba zone in America, hot chocolate, cappuccino and black coffee are necessary drinks in American tea place except typical Asian boba milk tea. Not only drinks, some nibbles are popular too. Similarly, nibbles are combined with Asian style steamed buns that called Baozi and American style bread. Most of tea drinks were served by plastic cups and sealed by plastic tops with an automatic bubble tea boba cup sealer sealing machine. There are different colors and sizes of straws that guests could choose from.

I went to Lollicup several times and I love the atmosphere and décor of this tea place. The whole room was painted with warm colors, such as red, orange and yellow. Besides, dark lights created a relaxing and comfortable atmosphere. I noticed that there were couples of charming oil painting and creative Asian cartoon paintings on the wall. Adorable stuffed toys were used to decorate the bookcase. A Fashion black sofa in a quiet corner was available for guests if they want to sit down and reading some fashion magazines or manga. However, people who want to play board games or chat preferred circular tables with wooden chairs that they could gossip around. Not only drinking boba, guests come here for social activities too. There are many thing people could do in Lollicup Tea Zona. A large collection of Chinese, Japanese and Korean manga, as well as American and Asian fashion magazines were provided in the bookcase. Guests also could play board games, chess or foosball in the back room. Further more, staffs told me that guests could stay as long as they like.

Boba was originated from Taiwan. Within around two years, Boba was diffused to nearby countries, such as mainland of China, Singapore, Philippines, Canada and west coast of America. (U.S. TimeMagzine 2001) Boba as a kind of Asian food culture, being diffused and strongly influenced by foreign culture, presents to peoples from other ethnic groups a fresh Asian food idea and affect those peoples. Mixing of culture is the biggest product of globalization. Culture diffusion causes many effects to both the originated area and being influenced area. In the Lollicup tea zone, both Asian and American cultures are reflected. For example, boba and hot chocolate, steamed bun and bread, Asian manga and American fashion magazines, oil painting and Japanese cartoon are exists at the same time in Lollicup. Similarly, young folks are the major customers in Asian too, as well as most of boba drinks are packaged by automatic bubble tea boba cup Sealer sealing machine. Boba in America has exactly the same flavor in Asian. Nevertheless, boba places in America are a little bit different from Aisan boba places. Generally speaking, boba is called pearl milk tea in Asian. Moreover, there is no foosball table in a boba place in Chinese boba place. Asians make their boba place be cute, colorful and comfortable. Fashion black sofa is randomly appeared in a boba place in China. When I ordered a cup of boba in Denver Lollicup, I felt that everything here was what I was familiar with. Suddenly, I felt that I was lost because everything here was strange. Boba in America, as a result of culture diffusion, is somehow changed.

Work Cited

Ressner, Jeffrey. “Boba Drinks.” Time Magazine. Feb. 2001. Web. Apr. 17. 2012.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,999172,00.html

Lollicup. “About Us.” Lollicup, 2003. Web. 17 Apr. 2012.

http://www.lollicupstore.com/

Here is a great article about Boba in America.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,999172,00.html

Food Culture in A O

I personally believe that the development of a unique food culture is based on well adapting to the specific social background. So, any unique food culture is developed in a circle (constrain).

In the article “The Cultural Politics of Eating in Shenzhen”, O'donnell illustrates the political and economic transformation in Shenzhen according the influence of food, as well as food changed over time. The author illustrated “socialism will be the means through which eating”. More specifically, O’donnel compared the food in north and south part of China. “Northern beef eaters symbolize state socialism, and southern seafood eaters represent the emergent capitalism of China’s post-Mao market economy. “ She thought Shenzheners are successful in business because people in south part of China have to be quick and sneaky to catch fish. “ Furthermore, she mentioned “Talking about food is one way in which the Chinese speak about the transformation of China’s socialist economy into a capitalist one since Mao Zedong’s death in 1976.” In the past, if peoples failed to run business, they still could get food from the government. However, their business was limited and no space to further develop. After the transformation, the economy in China was booming. She talked about how important food is in China. There was a say that “Min Yi Shi Wei Tian” – Chinese treat food as their heaven. Finally, the author gives me an idea that people start to concern about the food related health crisis rather than just eating well.

Cate, the author of “Breaking Bread with a Spread”, described a kind of food that is called “spread” in jail. Inmates made it because they were tired of the food in institution and they could get full by eating spread in the institution. Inmates used the ingredient they saved from other meal to make spread. Spread started to become a huge part of food culture in prison. Type of spread became more and more various and inmates coded them in the order sheet. Some inmates started to consider the nutrient in spread. Not only eating, but also the social activities in a prison is influenced by the spread culture. For example, inmates share their spread or give their spread to their leader of groups to “show little respect”. Finally, spread maker encourage goods consumption in commissary.

In cases like Shenzhen economic booming though fish industry and spread in prison, I could see that food culture is shaped under a specific time, location and by a certain group of people. Social, economy and policy would be influenced by the food culture. However, at the same time, food culture is influenced by social, economy and policy too. From my personal perspectives, I believe the development of a unique food culture is based on well adapting to the specific social background. Take Shenzhen and Jail as two examples, Shenzheners were successful under the special policies of socialism in China. Similarly, inmates made spread with the limitation of money and ingredient in prison. 

read Kaichen's article

Kaichen

I was interested with Kaichen's essay because I also write about green tea advertisement. He mentioned about the Chinese traditional tea culture and I mentioned about the Japanese tea culture. Tea culture is really a key branch of food culture in Japan and China. Besides, both of us talked about that japan and chinese food customers focus on quality. As a chinese, I do proud of Chinese tea culture and we have a better taste on tea. it's necessary to show it in our advertisement.

Food Culture in Advertisements: Japanese Tea & American Coca

Food culture usually could be reflected in food advertisement because advertisement is designed according to the local food culture to attract audience to buy their products. In this short essay, two advertisements from America and Japan would be mentioned, as well as the food cultures they are appealing.

The topic of the Japanese food advertisement is “Japanese/Thai tea Commercial with caterpillars”. The advertisement describes a story that both caterpillars and the worker from the Japanese/Thai Tea Company want the top leaf from the green tea plant. In order to get the top leaf, the baby caterpillar cried and he hoped the worker could take pity on him. However, the worker cried too because he wanted the top leaf too. Then the baby caterpillar tried to use curses to force the worker give him the top leaf. At the end of the story, the curses didn’t work too. Generally speaking, the worker from the Japanese/Thai Tea Company putted lots of effort on getting best tea leaves (the top leaves) to make the tea beverage.

In this Japanese advertisement, the designer used a funny cartoon to attract audience and let them know the raw material of tea beverage from their company is the best. Moreover, the advertisement tells audience that all the stuff in this company is putting 100% effort to make the best tea beverage and the tea beverage should be loved and appreciated. Also, the advertisement is high definition (HD) and the background is the natural and lovely green forest. Green always stands for healthy and natural and audience would love to buy the tea beverage because healthy and nature is Japanese customers looking for.

According to the Japanese tea commercial, some parts of Japanese food culture are showed. More specifically, Japanese prefer food with high quality rather than high quantity. At the last 3 seconds in the advertisement, we could see that the tea beverage is contained a small green box. The Japanese/Thai Tea Company attracts customers by showing their tea products are healthy rather than large quantity. Furthermore, this advertisement shows the sophisticated tea culture in Japan. The top leaf of a green tea plant is called white tea. White tea is the best tea with the most essential part of the tea plant. Only people who have a good taste on tea would know the fact. In this advertisement, people could see that Japan tea culture should be an important part of Japan food culture.

 

Another advertisement is an American coca cola advertisement. The topic is “Coca Cola Best Commercial”. In this advertisement, coca cola is promoted through a cartoon story too. A rat dressed like an eggplant because he wanted to slip into the refrigerator when the owner of the house opened the refrigerator to get two cans of coca cola. When the rat successfully slipped in and stared at the only one can of coca cola, he realized that there were many other rats dressed like him to get coca cola. Finally, the rat owned the can of coca cola after a big fight. He happily drunk it on a sofa with satisfy and relaxing. Similar to the previous advertisement, everyone tried their best to get a can of coca cola. It seems that people would love and appreciate something that everyone compete for.

“Coca Cola Best Commercial” is designed into a funny cartoon story to attract more customers of coca cola. The development of the story is out of people’s expectation. The close-up of the can of coca cola could attract people’s eyeballs. People could find some tiny water drops on the outside of the can because the can of coca cola is cooled and taste would be delicious. Besides, the face and body expression of the rat when he drunk coca cola shows the product is really delicious and attractive. Moreover, the can of coca cola is almost as tall as the rat. However, the rat drunk it all with happy and satisfy. Audience could be told that the large quantity of coca cola would meet whatever amount you are looking for.

In this American food advertisement, America food culture is showed. First of all, Americans love food that could make them relaxed and happy. According to the face and body expression of the rat when he drunk coca cola, American audience would know that lying on a sofa with a can of delicious drink and being relaxed and happy is exactly what they want from food and drink. Besides, cold drinks are quit popular in American. The close-up of the coca cola can and those tiny water drops on the can shows probably most of American audience love cold drinks. The last and most importantly, large quantity is attractive too for a part of Americans. In this advertisement, the can is even much larger than the rat. However, the rat finished it all and he was quit enjoyed it. This turns out that probably a part of Americans love food and drink with a large quantity.

Through the compare and contrast of the Japanese and American food advertisement, there are some similar points too. For example, cartoon is used a lot in food advertisement. Because, abstract is a key element in food advertisement for attracting more customers and cartoon is a good way to show abstract. Except cartoon, funny is another universal element in food advertisement. If people enjoy the food advertisement, they would be curious the kind of food. As a result, the number of potential customers would increase dramatically. The last point is competition. Both two advertisements emphasis everyone is going to compete for the products. Audience would be encouraged to buy their products too.

Food culture is reflected through the food advertisement. Knowing about the food culture of a country or a region, finding and analyzing food advertisement could be a great path.