The Chinese daily meals consist of four food groups: grains, vegetables, fruit, and meat. Because of lactose intolerance, the Chinese do not consume large amounts of dairy products. Instead, the Chinese substitute these with soymilk and tofu, which also contain large amounts of protein and calcium. Vegetables, fruits, and meats are usually fresh. Some exceptions include preserved vegetables such as snow cabbage or mustard greens, preserved eggs, aka “thousand-year-old eggs” or salted and dried fish. Other exceptions include snack items such as beef jerky, cuttlefish jerky, sweet and sour preserved plums, or dehydrated mango slices. Canned or frozen foods are seldom eaten. Western desserts such as cookies, cakes, pies, and ice cream are eaten only on special occasions such as birthdays and weddings. After dinner, families usually eat seasonal fruit as dessert. Chinese desserts such as red bean soup, sweet white lotus’s seed soup, or steam papaya soup are served every so often as a special treat on a hot summer’s night.
Ethnic Chinese cooking does not involve a lot of deep-fried cooking. The reason most of the Chinese restaurants in America have deep-fried dishes such as sweet and sour pork, almond fried chicken, and deep-fried shrimp is to promote business and to please western tastes. This reflects why there are more overweight and high blood pressure concerns in Western culture than there are in Chinese culture.
The effect of mythological thinking on the Chinese population is respect for the past, worship of ancestors, attention to detail, high creativity, scientific potential, and the ability to model possible worlds. All these characteristics can be extrapolated to the social practices in modern China.
The findings indicate that the results of the research can be further extended to other types of Chinese narratives and can lead to their practical application in text interpretation, education, literature studies, and intercultural communication contexts. Detailed interpretation of complex meanings expressed in narratives of different kinds can lead to a deeper understanding and harmony between China and the outside multicultural world.
China, being considered historically the dominant culture in East Asia, as one of the earliest ancient civilizations, Chinese culture exerts a profound influence on the philosophy, virtue, etiquette and traditions of Asia, and it shows its roots within the cultures of other neighbouring Asian countries.