The Significance of the Apple-Pear to Korean-Chinese Cultural Identity

• In Event: 89. A Lot on Korea’s Plate: Food and Collective Identity in the Korean World

Abstract

My paper will focus on the ways in which the apple-pear tree has been used in representations of Korean-Chinese identity. I will show how the narrative appeared in the 1950s for the purpose of establishing the Korean-Chinese as a model minority within Chinese society and as a way to give a tangible expression to their identity. The apple-pear symbol has changed throughout time. The inhospitable environment in which the apple-pear could come to fruition is nowadays stressed to show the hardships that the Korean-Chinese endured within Chinese society, for example, which is at odds with the original meaning that was given to it. Recently one can also see that the apple-pear tree has shifted its meaning towards being a symbol for the insecurity that the new generation of Korean-Chinese feel, especially when they come in direct contact with the Korean peninsula. In my analysis I make use of Roland Barthes’ essay “Towards a Psychosociology of Food Consumption”, where he shows how communication (of the cultural system of a group) often goes by way of food. He argues that by “widening the very notion of food” one can ascertain “a system of communication, a body of images, and a protocol of usages, situations, and behaviour.” It is my purpose to give an overview of the shifting representations of the apple-pear and show how this cultural symbol is a tool for the Korean-Chinese minority to consistently reinvent Korean-Chinese identity.

Author

• Aihua Li, Leiden University