LESSON 1: CULTURAL TIES TO FOOD
SECTION 2
Activities in this section were written for grades 4–9.
Use Chapter 2 from the 2012 NIE Asian New Year article series with this lesson.
In Chapter 2, students learn about celebrating New Year’s through the eyes of Jay J. Koh, who was born in Korea and
moved with his family to America when he was a child.
This chapter focuses on food and how it’s strongly connected to family and cultural celebrations. Food can be seen as a
“family tree” of delicious cuisine, an important legacy of food that can be passed down from one generation to the next,
connecting the past and present.
Pre-Reading Discussion
Please create a worksheet with the following questions and appropriate space for student answers. Have students take
10–15 minutes to write a journal entry for the following questions:
1. In your own family traditions, when are special meals prepared for close family and friends? What do you remember
about the meal(s) you had during these events? What made them extra special?
2. Food is powerful. It brings people together, connects cultures, ethnic identities and good memories. What are the
smells in your family’s kitchen that bring back the most memories? Why?
3. Write a list of “All-American” foods? Why are they connected to being American (for example, hot dogs at a
baseball game)?
4. Why are family and food connected?
5. What are your favorite family foods? Are they made frequently, or are they prepared only on special occasions?
Are they connected to your culture?
6. Are there any special recipes that have been passed down from elders in your family? What are they?
7. Interview a family member about what they remember about the special foods they ate when they were young.
• What smells can they still remember?
• What were their favorite foods that were prepared?
• Did they bring that tradition to their own family and continue to have these same foods in their home now?
Why or why not?
Compare and Contrast Activity
Please make a worksheet with a graph labeled:
New Year’s Cultural Cuisine Comparison Chart
with separate graphs for
Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Cambodian and
My Own Cultural Foods
—with space to list the different foods and what
traditions and symbols the food has, if any.
Review the three articles from 2012 posted at
seattletimes.com/nie
so that you will be able to fill out the graph for the
different ethnic groups.
*This information references the 2012 series of Friday, Jan 13: Chinese/Japanese New Year story; Friday, Jan 20: Korean
New Year story; and Monday, Jan 23: Cambodian New Year story.
Chinese
Children are given pieces of candy as soon as they wake up on New Year’s Day (so they have sweet things to say in
the New Year).
Chinese pastries and jai are also among the traditional foods of New Year’s.
Other traditional foods are:
• Mustard greens for long life
• Whole chicken symbolizing wealth for the whole family
• Fish balls, shrimp balls and meat balls for success in educational pursuits
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