Abstract

The documentary “A Bite Of China” made a great representation of modern Chinese food and has spread far and wide. However, this documentary contains some official ideologies belong to the Chinese government. In this thesis, I will analyze the community’s images produced by “A Bite of China”. Benedict Anderson once argued that the widely-circulated newspapers and fictions build people’s national identity. Through my analysis, we should see some specific narrative components “A Bite Of China” contain that make the audience think that they belong to a nation. From people to nation: people’s daily lives transform to the daily life of a nation. In the name of “The Rise of China”, the narrative responds to the official ideology. In other words, this kind of “food shows” is not only cultural but also political. The documentary director once said that “between the difference of nations and culture, food can play a force that helps people to understand each other” in the book “A Bite of China” published in Taiwan. However, in the thesis, I argue that there is another possible statement: in the documentary, food also plays a role that caused misunderstanding and partition.