On Feb 5, 10:36 pm, wrote:
Hi,

I am a graduate student of Tsinghua University and major in
Information System. Our team are trying to finish a project related to
Beijing Olympic Game 2008. The project's goal is to figure out and
show the differences for Chinese food between native China and western
counties. As you know, when in Rome do as Romans do, Chinese food does
the same in your country. For example, in Unite States, even though
the same dish, compare to the one in native China, they are different,
maybe totally different taste. There are some popular Chinese food
dishes in U.S. but you cannot find in China. And more interesting,
something maybe caused by custom and culture, as you know, almost in
every America Chinese restaurant, they will give you fortune cookie
after you had meal. But nobody knows such thing in China. Actually,
this is our project on research to know how many of them between our
Chinese food and yours.

Our mission is to help more and more people to know the culture of
China via Chinese food whatever they are coming to Beijing for Olympic
Game 2008 or not. And this is also a way to let our people learn the
world outside.

Why through the topic of Chinese food. As you know, there's old saying
in China -- To the people foodstuff is all-important.

After some research work, we came out this idea to contact Chinese
restaurant's owner (or Chef) in U.S.. We think they should know such
differences very well since they do business in the different world
market. And they still keep in traditional way to cook for them self.
So far, there are many problems needed to solve. Ex. We have almost 12
hours difference in time zone. So it's hard to phone those
restaurant's owner from Beijing China and cost is high too. We have
searched for their e-mail address from Internet. Unfortunately, 99% of
them don't have it or unavailable.

We hope we can collect 1000 samples to the date to finish done with
the project. So this is why I post here looking for help. Any
suggestion or information will be very appreciate.

Thanks in advance and happy Chinese New Year here!

BTW, you can contact via or
, Gmail is preferred since it's easier to manage.

Bread

Chinese restaurant owner are usually very busy. They do not really
have time to surf on the net.

My wife used to work in a few Chinese restaurant years ago. The owners
are always the hardest works - the first to arrive and the last to
leave.
At the end of business day, they need to do the accounting, and count
the money that they earned for that day after all the expenses.
The last restaurant owner my wife worked for said that he had to work
until 3am every day, as he also had a liquor store next door and he
needed to do accounting for both every day.

Those small business owners usually have no life - work well over 12
hours a day, 7 days a week. So do not count on them spending much time
with your phone surveying. Email survey is completely out of
question, unless you are referred by some one they personally know. Or
you are going to offer them business opportunities, like bring in a
Chinese official delegation that will eat at their restaurant every
day - just kidding.