The first term is religion, which permeates the lives of all people. Religion is “the extension of human society and culture to include the supernatural” (González & Brown, 2018, p.301). Upon their discoveries in China, the protagonist learns from Qing that in this country, they “are free to practice religion as long as we never try to impose it on others,” which she classifies as “true religious freedom” (Levy, 2011, p.30). However, it was later shown that there are different attitude toward religion, with some Chinese people viewing it as a false concept and others perceiving it as freedom.
There is, however, another term, which can be observed as an example in the Levy book. Globalization is “the spread of people, their cultures and languages, products, money, ideas, and information around the world” (González & Brown, 2018, p.88). Globalization can usually be seen as the permeation of worldwide trends and the inclusion of international companies with their famous products. This can be observed in the book when the protagonist emphasizes that “the newest of Guiyang’s KFCs was attached to Beijing Hualian, a Chinese-owned chain of supermarkets working hard to compete with Walmart” (Levy, 2011, p.113). In this case, it is shown that the Chinese market is open to global trends.
Finally, the term language can additionally be viewed through the example in the book. Language is defined as “an idealized form of speech, usually referred to as the standard variety” (González & Brown, 2018, p.93). In … book, the protagonist struggles with Mandarin, emphasizing that after weeks of language training, the only phrases that were easy involved basic ones, like “I don’t understand,” which in Mandarin is “ting bu dong” (Levy, 2011, p.25). In this case, “Chinese was tough on [the] brain,” and it was the person’s “first tonal language.” This illustrates the variety of languages and how they are perceived differently.
References
González, L. T., & Brown, N. (2018). Perspectives: An open invitation to cultural anthropology. State University of New York Oer Services.
Levy, M. (2011). Kosher Chinese: Living, teaching, and eating with China’s other billion. Macmillan Publishers.