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.