Multicultural tasty

This morning Perugia was occupied for the fellowship between China and Italy. The panel called “Italian life style as seen from China” invited the participants to understand the Chinese media point of view about Italian cuisine. The discussions, conducted by Federico Fioravanti, were focusing on break stereotypes and emphasize how the Chinese media help to improve economical and cultural issues in those two countries.

The enologastronomic journalist Lawrence Lo discussed the risk of using stereotypes to describe the traditional Chinese and Italian cuisine. “Europeans always think that Chinese culture is only made of rice, tea and strange hats as we think that German culture is made of a typical hat, beer and sausage”, said. Lo reported that media is also responsible for this misunderstanding because the Chinese journalists aren’t educational prepared to cover this kind of issue.

In the other hand, the Italian journalist Claudio Grillenzoni who lived in China five years, feel that Italian Culture is well represented in the Chinese way of life. “Chinese people use to use Italian brands and are influenced by Italian fashion style. They are also interested in Berlusconi gossips”, said. Claudio defends that the most important challenge is the socialist capitalist government which control people lives.

Now a days Italy is one of the most important exporter of olive oil, tomatoes, coffee, prosecco and sparkling wine. Italian foods also showing in tv programs related to tourism, history and life style to Chinese citizens. According China-Italy Chamber of Commerce there is close to 12 italian restaurants in China. CCTV correspondent Yang Xiaolei emphasize that Italian embassy is a important increaser to expand the exportations between the two countries promoting events related with enology and degustation. Those kind of events and TV programms works as an indirect publicity and reinforce the partnership between Italy and China. So besides to know about food, “Italian lifestyle as seen from China” knows about business and market.

Ariane Gervásio