Food as a Catalyst for Social Change

Story appeared in the 2017 issue of QMS Connections Magazine.

BY HAYLEY PICARD, COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER

By definition, social disruptors are people who take bold actions that break the status quo to create positive change in a world where common approaches are viewed as inadequate.

Jelly Pei cooking at Florida U

Jelly grew up in China and was raised with rigid ideologies. She arrived at QMS with a narrow vision, but quite quickly met girls who were nothing like what she expected. That first year at QMS shook her world view.

For Jelly, food and its meanings in her life are complex. It has helped her engage with issues around individual belonging, group relations, gender, class and ethnicity from her perspective as a Chinese woman studying in North America. It gave her a voice when language failed her, and has provided inspiration for her future.

Jelly Pei (‘16) would love to combine her love of food and finance to become a social entrepreneur. She wants to found a group which can take her passion for food to low income and starving children, yet her vison for attaining this dream is a little unconventional.
Left: Halloween 2015 Lisako and Jelly Pei

Yet some view these same individuals as troublemakers, bent on changing the world and not necessarily for the betterment of society. The political climate, dominant religion, culture, and social norms of the time can alter how these questioning voices are perceived by those around them. The fluidity of how these individuals are viewed by society is shaped by the filters we each have for the world, but how does the world look from the viewpoint of an identified disruptor? What shaped their world lens and how do they shake the dust off old ways of thinking to disrupt the way business has always been done?

Cola Chicken Wings

When told that she is seen by some as a social disruptor, Ruochen “Jelly” Pei (’16), laughs and says, “Thank you!” For Jelly, being seen as a leader of social change is a compliment of the highest order.

“I love challenging social stereo-types, it’s thrilling to me,” she explains. “I’m in an observation stage of my life right now, but in high school I questioned the status quo a lot. It became a habit to question the motives of everyone and everything I encountered. The reason for this was how I identified as an international student at Queen Margaret’s School.” This QMS alumna is now studying finance at the University of Florida, and as she is still an international student, she continually reflects, assesses and considers who she is and who she is not. Jelly smiles as she shares how she feels this behaviour started. “I grew up in China and we were raised with rigid ideologies. These ideals formed how I interacted with and saw other cultures. I arrived at QMS with these biases, a narrow vision and honestly, a little hate in my heart,” she shakes her head a little. “Quite quickly, I met girls who were nothing like what I had been told about. That first year at QMS shook my world view, causing me to begin questioning everything.”

Jelly’s experience in the boarding residence program inspired her to continue learning and to broaden her views through knowledge. She studied subjects such as History 12 to deliberately learn history from a Canadian perspective, studied our political system, deconstructed our forms of communication, and made efforts to break stereotypes at the school level with the end goal of discovering how we can live harmoniously with each other. While she threw herself into all of the opportunities QMS had to offer, the most monumental discovery for Jelly during this time was that the language of food is universal.

Jelly knows first-hand that communicating effectively is hard through verbal language. “We have hatred in the world because we don’t understand each other. We cannot communicate properly. We cannot transfer our thoughts easily,” Jelly explains. “But, if we are provided the opportunity to inter-act with people of different cultures and languages through food, it could change everything.”

Her love for the culinary arts surprised even her parents. “I never touched the stove in China. The closest I ever got to making a culinary creation was chicken ramen noodles,” she laughs. Jelly shares that her enjoyment of being in the kitchen bloomed in the QMS residence Violet Café. “The first dish I ever made was Coca-Cola chicken wings and after that, I was the go-to person for food in residence because, well, every-one loves food. Language barriers simply disappear.”

Jelly took her method of using food as a way of breaking cultural walls with her to Florida, where she was named to the executive board of the Culinary Arts Student Union (CASU). Founded by a Canadian student from Vancouver, Jelly felt an affinity for the social dynamic of the group and saw potential. “The group wasn’t designed to be a social mechanism for creating cross-cultural connections, but that is where I want to propel it,” Jelly outlines. “Cultural boundaries aren’t the priority, but often our meals are created by an anonymous chef. There are no pre-defined mental cultural parameters. You simply taste the food, consider the flavours, and identify the ingredients as a way to discern the historical narrative woven into the meal by the chef. For some people, this kind of experience can start them on a journey of questioning negative stereotypes. Food is a powerful social disruptor.”

For Jelly, food and its meanings in her life are complex. It has helped her engage with issues around individual belonging, group relations, gender, class and ethnicity from her perspective as a Chinese woman studying in North America. It gave her a voice when language failed her, and has provided inspiration for her future.

This QMS alumna would love to combine her love of food and finance to become a social entrepreneur. She wants to found a group which can take her passion for food to low income children, yet her vison for attaining this dream is a little unconventional. “A finance degree will aid me in knowing how to run a profitable company so we would have the resources to provide food to starving communities around the world,” shares Jelly in an excited voice. “I’ll find a way.”

For this Millennial social disruptor, striving to build ways to fight social ills, foster opportunities and improve our society, it is not a question of “Can I?”; it is a statement of, “I must.”