What?

This blog is part of a larger project of our anthropology class. While others pay particular attention to public communication, sex and sexuality, and body language, our focus here is the performance of race. We look at the many ways in which people or things become of an ethnic background. This can include how a person references, whether through physical attributes, speech patterns, or surroundings, another ethnicity. It can include the ways in which a person makes their own ethnicity apparent (or render them invisible). Even within one ethnic diaspora, we meticulously capture the events in which they separate themselves through even narrower ethnic classifications. Every entry displays a reenactment of a racialized characteristic in the context of American life -- and a profound sense of the meaning of culture.

Why?

We participate in the mass observation movement because we believe that it has much to contribute to the field of anthropology. We capture the "thick description" described by Geertz without the consequences of our participation. In each moment, we are able to catch power structures, cultural flows, functions, structures, an individual's or community's relationship to its environment, human agency, symbols and symbolic meaning, the difference differences make, and/or how history is played out in one simple incident.

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

At The China Garden

The outside of China Garden, a Chinese dim sum restaurant in Georgetown, shows itself royally with an entryway reminiscent of the walls and pillars in Chinatown across the United States that let you know that you're in Chinatown territory. Above it is the Chinese dragon that is supposed to represent fortune. Next to the pillars are wooden slabs with Chinese characters painted on it. The architecture around this restaurant reminds me of architecture of ancient China.

Inside, I feel blasted by red color everywhere. The whole wall is painted with a dark reddish tone. A Chinese woman, costumed in the Mandarin chi pao, greets me in Chinese, probably because I look Chinese. Except, I tell her, "For two, please." She understands that I only speak English, and leads me to a free table.

I order hot tea, and comes a traditional tea set. The waiter also hands me a pair of chopsticks. I hear the couple in the next table say, "I love this place. It makes me feel like I'm in China."

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