Questioning Authenticity

Several people have raised questions about this issue of authenticity. For me, the word authentic conjures the idea that there is a true or real thing (or way) vs. ones that are false or imitations. There is an implicit value judgment, a presumed hierarchy of real-ness, that seems a bit dangerous because it pre-supposes that cultural expressions, such as foodways, are static and unchanging--even in their places of origin--and that adaptations made by choice or necessity are somehow inferior or wrong. Also, without knowing the deep history of a particular food it can be easy to presume something is authentic simply because it is the way we, our parents, and maybe even our grandparents remember it to be. Therefore, some foods or phenomena that we view as authentic might themselves be “fusions” created in earlier moments of exchange and adaptation.

An example might be the Chow Mein sandwich that Professor Lee has mentioned became popular in the Fall River, MA area. Here’s a description from an article in the Providence Journal:

“What is a chow mein sandwich? The chow mein -- a mixture of minced meat, celery, onions, and bean sprouts in gravy over deep fried noodles -- is placed between a hamburger bun and covered with brown gravy.”

And that’s only one version of the sandwich. Others in the region will claim their variation is the most authentic. For Asian Americans and non-Asian Americans who don’t come from the region the very idea of this concoction represents a violation of boundaries that Manalansan argues are markers of ethnic identity, i.e., acculturated ideas about what tastes, textures, ingredients, etc., do and do not belong together. So, is this food item “authentic”? For some people it is an “authentic” regional food and a unique marker of local identity that they remember from childhood. Yet, its history only spans a few generations.

So, in viewing the “Chinese Restaurants” series I didn’t think too much about what was or was not authentic. Rather, I was amazed at the ability of Chinese chefs and cooks to adapt their cuisine to a wide array of circumstances. Some restaurateurs seemed more concerned than others about compromising traditional foodways (I like that term better than authentic). For example, one of the people associated with Restaurant Huang in Brazil listed the popular dishes and said something to the effect of, “We say these are not authentic; they’re just to fool the Brazilians.” In contrast, some chefs like Collette of Chez Manuel in Mauritius were more excited about the creative possibilities of blending different traditions together. I thought it was interesting that she went to Hong Kong in order to learn more about traditional Chinese cooking. Did what she learn there reflect the traditions of the Hakka who had settled in Mauritius or would it have been reflective of other regional foodways within China?

Rye-Ji Kim and Melissa both raised good questions about the restaurants selected for the programs and whether it is a representative sampling of the Chinese diasporic experience with restaurant work. The series focuses primarily on places that are known as having really good food. As a result, there might be a tendency to focus more on restaurant owners who really love cooking and see it as an expression of their creativity, personality, etc. In other words, despite all the hard work, it’s more than a job to many of them. It’s a passion. The exceptions to this model were poignant, as in the case of Maria and the Little Buddha owners. For them, economic circumstance and barriers to other opportunities have trapped them in a profession that only seems to increase their marginalization within the dominant culture.

Behind the Scenes of Chinese Restaurants

Cheuk Kwan's documentary "Chinese Restaurants" offers great insight into the stories of Chinese restauranteurs across the globe.  Aside from topics of acculturation, assimilation, cooking methods and personal histories of the restaurant owners, Kwan was able to focus, albeit somewhat briefly, on the wait and kitchen staff in various Chinese establishments from Brazil to Norway.

    

I found that the opinions of restaurant owners towards the local staff regularly appeared condescending, regardless of location.  Many non-Chinese restaurant workers in the kitchens, with the exclusion of chefs, tend to hold menial or mundane tasks.  In Madagascar, the female restaurant owner clearly stated that the local staff (with the exception of "one or two skilled workers") were simply unable to learn how to properly prepare authentic Chinese dishes. However, a contradiction exists in her reasoning since many Chinese restaurants throughout the world prepare inauthentic Chinese food in order to please local tastes and preferences.  If the Chinese food produced by restaurants is "fake", then how will locals such as the aforementioned workers in the kitchen experience the true tastes of Chinese food?  If ignorance is shed through education, why disregard non-Chinese and non-Asian kitchen staff as simply "not skilled"?  While I acknowledge that many issues factor into the situation, ranging from issues of socioeconomic status to potential racism, such questions cannot be overlooked when discussing workers in Chinese restaurants. 

"Chinese Restaurants" revealed the various hardships restaurant employees face in modern times.  Many kitchen staff have similar immigration stories, fleeing their home country in search of a better life and greater economic opportunities.  While the restaurant owners received a majority of the camera's attention, many immigrant workers can easily relate to the difficult journeys the Chinese restauranteurs and their predecessors faced in order to survive.  Immigrant employees continue to face such hardships, particularly those that entered a country illegally.  Waiters and waitresses in Chinese restaurants, if not locals from the region, encounter comparable difficulties.

Overall, "Chinese Restaurants" provides much more than simple critiques of Chinese food, but a glimpse into the complex history and world of the Chinese diaspora in relation to the numerous Chinese restaurants open for business worldwide.

Language/Assimilation/Success

An observation/disclaimer: Ironically, Cheuk Kwan's documentary series "Chinese Restaurants" is less interested with Chinese restaurants and more interested in what such establishments can tell us about the Chinese diaspora. Kwan focuses on the bigger picture and often neglects to do, what I would call, a true study of "food culture" to get to the more dramatic diasporic personal stories of struggle, alienation, and regret.

Thus, my post (and I believe most of our posts) will have less to do with food itself. (Any observations regarding this?)

In Kwan's 4th installment of the "Chinese Restaurants" series Latin Passions, Kwan visits Peru and documents two very different stories by two very different Chinese Peruvians. On one hand, we have the owner of San Joy Lao, Luis, a very successful restaurateur who hosts his own Chinese cuisine cooking show in Lima. On the other hand, we have the owner of Chifa San Luis, Maria, a recent immigrant who feels stuck in her job and in her surroundings.

Luis is much more assimilated/intergrated into Peruvian culture than Maria, who still feels like a stranger in Peru. Most interestingly, Maria speaks Cantonese while being interviewed and Luis speaks in Spanish. The level of assimilation and, to an extent, sucess in the restaurant business corresponds directly to language proficiency.

With this in mind, what do we make of Chiang Fu Ching, the bi-lingual Spring Roll King of Buenos Aires, Argentina? How do his abilities to speak both Spanish and Mandarin affect what we think about him as a member of the Chinese diaspora?

Also, a tangentially related topic: The etymology of the Peruvian word "chifa." It's really quite interesting and may help us digest/understand the relationship between language and assimilation.

Peru is the only place where Chinese restaurants are known as chifas. Chifa is a Peruvian word. My grandparents would say "let's cook" which in Cantonese is chui fan. "To eat" in the Hakka dialect--my grandparents were Hakka--is chi fan. Our Peruvian brothers in Calle Capon would hear thousands of Chinese, around 11 in the morning, say chui fan, "let's cook," or at noon, chi fan, "let's eat." Hearing a chi fan and chui fan, they combined into a single word achifa, "let's eat Chinese." That's why chifa refers to Chinese restaurants.

thoughts on eating Asian and global food culture

Ming Tsai and his fusion ways
I remember watching Ming Tsai in high school on Food Network. My mom loved Ming Tsai and was thrilled to see an Asian American chef on TV next to figures like Emeril Lagasse and Bobby Flay...plus my mom found him really attractive.
On that note, it was interesting in the Manalalasan's reading in Alien Encounters about how Ming Tsai's body and image was read as a central piece of his show East Meets West. Participants commented on his tall, athletic body, speech and body movements. One participant even characterized Tsai as a "white jock". Several participants noted the “whitening” of his voice. To me this was implying that the audience saw a level of assimilation (along with his fusion cooking) to white-dominate American culture and a "disconnect" along class lines--many, if not, all the audience participants were immigrant working/lower middle-class--as Ming gives off an educated, wealthy class sensibility, which appeals to his audience base.

Gender in the audience participation is something that can be explored just on its own. Most of the female participants were not surprised the guests on the show were male. Cooking in public for pay and in public both in "back home" in China and in America, one participant claimed, is still the domain of men.
I feel like there are several shows now on Food Network (and other cooking shows) that exotify and objectify the female chef/hosts. Giada on Everyday Italiananyone? How would East Meets West be framed differently if the chef/host was a woman?

Chinese Restaurants
After watching this documentary series by Cheuk Kwan, I saw a lot of common threads within all of the countries . I'll just list them cause there's kinda a lot:

>Food service as a mode of survival: "When Chinese open restaurants abroad it's basically for survival" (restaurant owner in Brazil)
>Generational issues: many of the parents wouldn't want to pass on the business to younger generations. The work being tiring came up a lot and most parents wanted their children to pursue an education
>Government repression: In almost every country from Bombay, India to Cuba to Mauritius to Canada. How did the government exclude Chinese immigrants, force them out of the country, etc.
>Race and nationality: How do people identify and how does that change/shift based on generation? immigration? This was extremely profound for me and really made me question my own understanding of race in the U.S. versus abroad and the similarities (experiencing racism as an Asian American and many others) and the differences. How is racial identity constructed here in the U.S. versus in India? Trinidad and Tobago? Norway?
>Racial mixing in almost every country (this really stood out to me in Cuba and India).
>Feelings of connectedness to the "homeland" - immigrant versus later generation.

I apologize for not putting this into paragraph form! This documentary series especially raised a lot of questions for me that I hope we will explore on the blog and in class.