Term Paper on "China Star (Fast Food?) Restaurant Advertising Buffet"
Term Paper 4 pages (1547 words) Sources: 1
[EXCERPT] . . . .
China Star (Fast Food?) Restaurant advertising "buffet, all you can eat at 12:30 P.M.Environment: Entering the restaurant, greeted by neat and clean appearing man with glasses who asks, "Just one?" I respond, "Yes, and I would like a booth, please." I feel like "booths" are more conducive to the assignment, provide a sense of closeness of one. Greeter, host, guides me into one of three sections of the restaurant, this center section appears to the "lunch" hour section. I slide into the booth. On the wall above me is a large poster in glass of the Great Wall of China, I always liked this photograph, have seen it elsewhere in books. On the table are condiments, napkins - that's it? Nothing advertising desert, wow! Too used to eating at Olive Garden where they're pushing food, especially desert at you.
Response: I look around, take out my notebook, immediately begin to write the above observations/thoughts. A waitress approaches, very slim, dressed in black and white attire, Asian, hair must be long, it's tied back, "Drink" she asks in heavily accented voice. Iced tea, no sugar, I reply. She waves towards the buffet area. I'm still writing what I observe, her facial expression; it suggests that she thinks I'm strange? "I'd like to order off the menu," I respond. Her eyes widen (I'm still writing), "Yes," she smiles and brings me a menu, then disappears. I scan the menu, look up, people are looking at me as they eat their meals. I have a sense that they're suspicious of me, since they're all buffet connoisseurs, I decide by their piled plates. Most of the individuals seated in the lunch area are obese, at least four individuals suffering morbid obesity. Looking around, there are
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All You Can Eat Buffet Observation Study
Introduction
Choosing an "all you can eat" buffet as the environment for my observation study arises out of recent attention drawn to those types of eating places when two men, both morbidly obese, were allegedly treated badly by the restaurant's owner and staff for eating too much (WWLTV.com, 2008, found online at: http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl010208tpbuffetfight__.1c12476.html, retrieved 29 January 2008). What, the question in this case arises, is the customer protocol or rules for eating in an "all you can eat" buffet? How would the staff or manager of such a place convey those rules; would they use verbal instructions, body language of approval or disapproval? In the case that had originally drawn the public's attention to the subject, the two gentlemen, regular patrons of the restaurant, claimed a verbal exchange had occurred, and that the restaurant staff had been verbally insulting, abusive, in their remarks to the customers (WWLTV.com, 2008). The observation exercise assignment here provided the opportunity to conduct a brief study of "all you can eat" buffets, and to perhaps answer these questions by observing behaviors.
The Study of Observation in All You Can Eat Buffet Environment
The first thing that must be noted when conducting an observation study where one is writing continuously, making observations, writing notes; is that the observer quickly becomes the observed. In this "all you can eat" environment, an observer is the social deviant, because individuals whom, as observed on this occasion, suffer maladies manifesting in eating disorders, gather to accommodate the malady through overeating. By the responses of individuals, who expressed their disapproval with physical facial expressions of annoyance, perhaps even anger; observing the behavior of overeating is not acceptable in this social setting. Thus, in this setting, where individuals are perhaps hyper-sensitive about being observed as obese individuals overeating, the observer is demonstrating a socially deviant behavior.
In this setting, the restaurant staff persons, who actually are observers of a different sort, wait staff, refilling drinks, but taking orders off the menu is the exception, and not the rule; are largely ignored by the customers. The staff does not engage the patrons, responding only to visual signs of an empty glass. The staff also responds to customer behaviors in eating, delivering non-verbal messages of approval or disapproval of eating behavior. For instance, in those cases where the customer's first trip to the buffet results in excessive eating patterns of overloading a plate, and multiple plates on the first trip to the buffet. In these instances, perhaps because the customer has already used two plates, the wait staff will very casually walk by the customer's table and place a customer bill on the table, smile, ask if they would like another drink, then walk away. The wait staff, although delivering the non-verbal message by way of the bill, is courteous and ignores the customer's overeating malady.
Unfortunately, in most cases, the customers fail to adhere to the subtle suggestion of the restaurant staff that the customer might have eaten enough, because most disregard the suggestive bill, and make another trip, in less than an hour, to the buffet where they, once again, pile a plate with food stuff. In these instances, the restaurant staff does not approach or offer reprimand. However, in observing the wait staff, their facial expressions would suggest a sense of amazement, rather than disgust, at the ability of some of the morbidly obese customers to overeat. The wait staff is very good at masking their disapproval, if any of them had a sense of disapproval.
Individual Table Focus
It was difficult not to focus on the table where there was a mother, grandmother, and a child eating. The grandmother, relatively young, estimated by this observer to be mid to late forties; her daughter (in-law), estimated by this observer to be early to mid twenties; and a female toddler, about two years old whose physique was quite robust. The child had a plate in front of her, with a varied selection of food stuff, and the appearance of the food indicated that the child had tasted several choices on the plate, leaving the vegetables untouched. The mother, apparently not satisfied with the child's inattention to the remaining food, and who was herself eating, was forcing the child to eat more food, selected from the mother's plate, and from food groups other than vegetable. The child resisted the mother's efforts, and the mother physically held the child's face and forced her eat. All the while, the grandmother was remarking, "She needs to eat more."
The mother and grandmother chose to ignore the child's protests in being forced to eat more, and continued to force the child to eat. The mother and daughter were transferring their own eating disorders to the child, and this was nothing short of child abuse going on in a public setting, but was overlooked because of the environment comprised of individuals who for the most part manifested a like-kind of malady that drove the mother and… READ MORE
Quoted Instructions for "China Star (Fast Food?) Restaurant Advertising Buffet" Assignment:
There are two parts for this paper. I want one page for part one, and three pages for part two.
These are the directions:
PART ONE:
Your first step is to actually observe. Follow the directions listed.
1. Go to a public place (like McDonalds/Burger King, park, concert, sporting event, mall) and sit down for a minimum of one hour. Make sure to pick a place that you have either never been or is a version of a place you frequent but is in a different geographic area than you usually frequent. (If you want to observe community college students, don*****t do your observation at Citrus College. You can go to Mt. San Antonio College, or a different college, and observe the quad areas during lunch time, for example.). You can be adventurous with this; go somewhere really different from where you would normally go (please note, however, safety is an issue. Do not go somewhere that either obviously puts you in danger or even makes you feel like you are in danger).
2. As you sit there for at least an hour, observe what the people around you are doing (so obviously you must pick a spot that has a lot of people).
3. Take notes. I expect you to be constantly scribbling while you are there. You can take a few minutes to orient yourself in the beginning, but otherwise you should be always writing something down. Notice I*****m not telling you what to write, just write what you observe. You should have at least 2 full written pages of notes. If you have less than 2 pages I would say that you did not gather enough information from your observation to write part 2.
4. Rewrite your notes when you come back home (it*****s best to do this immediately; otherwise cryptic notes that you wrote yourself may become incomprehensible when it comes time to write your paper).
5. Type your notes up into a sequence form. The form is your choice; it can be either chronological (i.e., at 12:04 pm this happened) or sectional (all of this kind of behavior, then a section about another kind of behavior). Once you have it all nicely typed up MAKE SURE your name is on it at the top. Post by clicking on Turn in assignments link under the Observation Part One heading. This part is worth 10 of the 60 points.
PART TWO:
Here is where the sociology comes in. Now you are actually going to label what you observed with actual sociological terms.
1. Reread your original observation notes and your original observation part one.
2. You are now going to retype your original assignment, but this time you are going to apply your sociological knowledge that you have been learning. This part must be written in complete sentences, in paragraph form (not in bullet points), and you will expand on course ideas as they apply to what you observed.
3. I expect you to use SPECIFIC sociological terms and theoretical concepts. By the time this assignment is due you will have read many chapters and have had lectures on them. I expect that you will be able to section out specific examples of different sociological phenomena and label it appropriately.
4. At the end of the paper do a couple of paragraphs comparing and contrasting your first draft with this draft. What are the differences (besides the obvious I didn*****t know sociology in the beginning) between the two? Do you think your attitude is different? If you had done part one after all of your sociology lessons instead of before, do you think it would have turned out differently, or the same? Why?
5. This part of the assignment is worth 50 points.
Completed papers (not including part 1) should be 3-4 pages, typed, double-spaced, 12-point (Times New Roman font in black ink) with 1***** margins.
· Grammar, spelling, and format are important. Be sure to use your spell/grammar check and proof read your work. Proper spelling & grammar are important indicators of a well-prepared paper. Excessive errors will result in a reduction of points.
This is an academic paper, therefore the explanations must be written in formal language (no slang, limit contractions, such as can*****t, don*****t, won*****t).
Late papers will not be accepted. No exceptions.
You can find all the sociological terms in this book "Essentials of Sociology A Down to Earth Approach by James M. Henslin 7th Edition". However, I have an online version one if you want to use. Go to [ http://www.ablongman.com/mysoclab/ ] and then click the button "MySocLab" under Returning Users. Type in the account " honghoward@hotmail.com " and the passwords is " w020542515 "
OBSERVATION SUGGESTIONS
Fast food restaurant
Coffee house
Bar
Concert
Sporting event
College
Public library
Grocery store
Shopping mall
Cafeteria or food court
Bus station
Church service
Tattoo parlor
Hospital
Airport
A gym
Restaurant
Night club
Casino (bicycle club)
Beach
Santa Monica peer
Venice Beach
How to Reference "China Star (Fast Food?) Restaurant Advertising Buffet" Term Paper in a Bibliography
“China Star (Fast Food?) Restaurant Advertising Buffet.” A1-TermPaper.com, 2008, https://www.a1-termpaper.com/topics/essay/china-star-fast-food-restaurant/569143. Accessed 28 Sep 2024.
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