Yan and Ying Today

Abstract

The author, an instructor in nutrition in the home economics department of Queens College of the City University of New York, visited China in the summer of 1980. She took advantage of the opportunity to question various kinds of people about current Chinese attitudes to the principles of Yin and Yang (the two opposing forces which, according to the Tao philosophy, must be balanced in the diet to maintain good health). The responses varied from surprise that anyone should still see any significance in an such an old-fashioned concept to assurances that it goes without saying that the balance between yin and yang must constantly be maintained. Rather bewildering. But this informal questioning took place against the background of a systematic study, conducted by means of carefully composed written questionnaires, directed at Chinese people in China, in Hong Kong and in the United States, which produced a reasonably coherent pattern. In this essay, based on a paper recently delivered to a conference on Asian studies in New York, Elaine Kris explains her findings on a subject which seems still to be fundamental to an understanding of the cuisines of China and of the overseas Chinese.