Self Reflective Essay: Cultural Identity

My PIP process was sparked from my interests in food anthropology and my Chinese cultural background. Given the sheer breadth of a study on cultural identity, I found it more practical to focus my studies through the lens of a medium that was not only appealing to my personal interests but also universal in its significance. I was drawn to how as an Australian-BornChinese teenager, like many of my peers; my identity was an integration of my cultural heritage and Western values which arose from my socialisation in, and acculturation to a Western society. Upon my initial process of self-reflection, I realised that tradition and kinship is a central identifier in the Asian diaspora and my Chinese heritage. This discovery, supplemented with my

My secondary research established a macro-level understanding which was essential in revealing the complexities I had failed to consider in preliminary contemplation of my topic. I became aware that I had approached my study with a mentality that solely equated changes to

Asian food cultures as a results of integrating Western values that deconstructed traditions in

Chinese cultural identities. The traditions most affected by the result of the hybridisation of

Chinese cuisine extended across three broad categories: processes of food preparation, gastronomic shifts in traditional Chinese dishes and finally, communal acts of consumption.

Based on my secondary research, my primary research explored the constructs of the migrant

Asian cultural identity and its relation to food culture trends on a more detailed and analytical level. I began by consolidating my secondary findings with primary data collected through two questionnaires. One explored the role of food culture had in modern lifestyles and the second targeting Asian-Australian adolescents with questions addressing the changes and continuities of traditions and values in Non-Western food cultures. I also conducted

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Originally, I had planned to supplement my research process with two expert interviews: one addressing traditions of Chinese cuisine and the second clarifying the links between food culture and identity. However, upon several rejections, I chose to replace this primary research methodology with a case study. Although this deviated from my original plans, the case study

I had conducted on 6 different Chinese restaurants over 12 weeks in the Beverly Hills district provided insightful means to explain my research findings. Through a combination of interviews, questionnaires and participant observation I was able to frame the challenges of cultural identities forming new dominances within existing complexities of construction from the perspectives of creators and consumers of hybridised Asian food culture.

With the completion of my PIP, I have reconstructed my own understanding of the sociological effects of migration and determined the importance of various socialisation agents in the development of an Asian migrant cultural identity parallel to hybridised food cultures. My newfound awareness of the wider repercussions of Western socialisation on the