Chicken Toe Nails, Anyone?

618 Words3 Pages
“Chicken Toenails, Anyone?” By David Sedaris expresses a large amount of ideas concerning the substantial contrast between cultures (including Japan, Western Civilization, China and Thailand), though it is quite evident that he is insulting and offering a harsh, judgmental perspective of China. His main topic is food, though he includes quite a few comments concerning behavior, hygiene, as well as values. He uses a humorous/disgusted (satire) tone to explain his trip to China. It’s quite difficult to detect if he is being truthful, or exaggerating since many things are possible in China. Personally I’m not very fond of Sedaris’s tone. I understand this is for a humorous purpose, though I find some of his opinions and observations quite rude, as well as not analyzed. When he says that we won’t eat Chinese food unless it means starving, I find it quite ungrateful and uneducated. Of course it is an opinion, though not a very thought out one. Each culture offers a large amount of different meals, Sedaris has not mentioned dim sum. That spectrum of Chinese cuisine is not quite as “adventurous” as the rest of the cuisine he emphasizes on. There is ought to be at least one Chinese meal that he can stand. A few Chinese meals actually resemble Western style meals, such as Jiao Zi (resemble dumplings) and Chinese noodles (resemble pasta). Sedaris is clearly not a very adventurous or open-minded man (based on his story). On page 3 he quotes his friend, “This country may have it’s ups and downs, but a bad meal is virtually impossible.” He reacts quite negatively and judgmental to this comment. He also tends to emphasize the content of the food, and how crazy it may sound, rather than the actual taste. There are many things that could sound disgusting, but are in fact delicious to eat. E.g, frog legs. This is an extremely bizarre body part to eat, but the taste is quite

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