Food Culture in my Household

After viewing the presentation on the different Jewish food rules, I found it very interesting and thought about how different it was to my own culture. I am Hispanic, or more specifically Mexican, although I was born in the United States. My mother is from Mexico and she was born there while my father was born in the United States. His family was from the area of Mexico in which my mother grew up.

After my parents were married, they came to the United States. However, their cultures and traditions still live on in our household. For example, we make many Mexican dishes. One of my favorites is called Arroz con Leche. We tend to make this dish when we want to relax or have some sort of vacation. It's been a while since I've had it but it's definitely an important dish to my family.

A part of our culture is pretty obvious to most people. We eat lots of beans and rice as well as meats. We use tortillas for nearly every meal. Usually we would gather with family for dinner. However, most of my family lives in Mexico and so it is just my parents, my brother and sister, and I. I think most of the foods we eats might not be too healthy, but all in all, they are still very good.

Global Warming Presentation Reaction

The presentation on global warming on Monday was definitely an eye opener for me. I had heard a lot about the topic, but I had never looked into it at all. I liked that there were many scientific reasons as to why it was not simply the Earth's natural cycle and that it may actually be us and our actions that are causing the Earth to warm up.

An important part that was brought to my attention was the part about the difference in temperatures. If the Earth gets warmer - even by just a few degrees - it may affect us in a negative way. As mentioned, it may get harder to harvest crops and to grow things because the soil may dry out, making it unfertile. Even if it is very difficult to change our lifestyle because it requires a slight bit of effort on our part, it is extremely important that we do so. If not, the lifestyle that we live now may not be as comfortable anymore. A few degrees of change does not seem like a lot. However, once we looked at the past of how the Earth was when it was a few degrees colder, we can easily see the difference - much of North America being covered in a layer of ice.

The farming and agriculture part of the presentation is extremely important because global warming has a huge effect on agriculture. I figured that global warming would only affect the weather or something of that sort, but this entire presentation opened my eyes. I really enjoyed it and think that if more people were aware that we are the cause of the Earth's warming, maybe something would be done about it.

Ironic Video Games

It was mind-blowing to find that video games that we all play are very ironic. I think the presentation on Wednesday was very interesting actually, something that caught my attention. This was probably because of the fact that we could all relate to it. All of us had played some sort of video game, but I'm pretty sure that none of us had ever really stopped to think about the message that the makers were trying to get across or even the shocking culture revelations.

I very much enjoyed the examples of Bioshock and Grand Theft Auto, personally because I had played those games before. However, while I played those games, I had never stopped to think about the irony behind it all. For example, Grand Theft Auto had many parody-type factors that played into it. In class we went over the commercials that appeared in the game. When you are playing, you never really pay attention to things like this. Instead, we simply move on with the game and the goals set out for us. But the songs shown actually do contain a message that can be shared with everyone.

There was a message about fast food restaurants and this was interesting to me because it was a reflection of real life. We had heard many scandals about the food industry and the way that it worked so it was fascinating to see that even in media such as video games, we can see messages reflected there. The injecting of hormones into chickens in the song of the restaurant (whose name I cannot seem to remember right now) was very alike to how fast food restaurants operate. I remember hearing a lot about how McDonald's would crush the chicken completely and use every single part of it, even the eyes and the beak and everything to make chicken nuggets. Of course, this was something that we all tend to ignore - even I ignored it because I love chicken nuggets.

Even if we see all of these messages in our video games, I can't help but to think that the majority of us simply ignore them. It may be funny because we relate to it, but seemingly at the end of the day, we only care about beating our game and moving onto the next one.

Eating at a Korean Restaurant

There are many different restaurants around Kalamazoo from different cultures and although a list of the different ones were provided for our literature class, I decided to do something a little different. My friend had told me about how she had been working at a Korean restaurant in Kalamazoo, a small shabby place that seemed to be a bit of a ghost on the street. I hadn't really noticed it before but it caught my eye once and noticed the name was Lee's Garden.

I went with my friend to this restaurant  few weeks ago actually, before we were actually assigned to eat at a culture-rich restaurant, and I've got to say that I very much enjoyed it. I can't quite remember what I ordered, but I do know that it was a bit different than what I was used to. To start off, they gave us an appetizer called Kimchi - something I'm not even entirely sure what it was. It looked strange and was extremely cold! It surprised me because the red color fooled me into thinking it would be cold.

Afterwards, our plates came and my friend had ordered some type of noodles. They were a bit spicy and had a side of fried rice, much like Chinese restaurants. My meal was some sort of meat, a bit spicy as well but not too much as my friend's noodles were. I think my meal was far better than hers and I also got a side of fried rice - which was a huge amount actually. I couldn't finish it myself.

During our meal, my friend's boss came over to talk to us. Her English was not fluent enough to have a full-blown conversation but she asked us if the meal was alright and we nodded our heads as a yes. She seemed pleased and urged us to eat more. At the end of our trip, we ended up talking to her a bit more and thanking her for the lovely meal. She rewarded us with a free bottle for each of us of an Aloe drink. All in all, it was a very enjoyable experience and my stomach was satisfied.