#Diaspora Chinese food

[ramyeongif]

So we went for Korean Chinese food

[betweenthetimeandsound]

A pretty interesting video! Though at the same time, I'm pretty amused when I see the menus of Chinese restaurants, because there's more specialized Chinese food in the Seattle area.

[panicinthestudio]

Chinatown staple Diamond Bakery closes as owner retires, July 2, 2023

'Diamond Bakery has been a Calgary favourite and certainly a Chinatown go-to for BBQ pork buns, egg tarts and deep-fried pork dumplings,' said Ward 7 Coun. Terry Wong

A decades-long fixture in Calgary’s Chinatown is closing shop, as its owner celebrates moving into retirement. In a social media post, the Chinatown Business Improvement Area commended owner Henry Chan for his 30 years running the bakery. “Henry Chan is one of the kindest and most hard-working merchants you will find in Chinatown and we wish him all the best in his retirement,” they wrote. Ward 7 Coun. Terry Wong is a former executive director of the Chinatown BIA. He said Diamond Bakery will be missed, but that there will be an opportunity for a new business to make its home in Chinatown. “Diamond Bakery has been a Calgary favourite and certainly a Chinatown go-to for BBQ pork buns, egg tarts and deep-fried pork dumplings that we’re going to miss,” Wong said. “We wish the owner a great retirement and look forward to another great Chinatown cultural offering.” City council recently approved a plan that aims to grow the historic Chinatown while preserving the downtown area’s cultural heritage. That plan will involve new infrastructure development, including mixed-use residential-commercial buildings and public spaces, with developers needing to meet certain Asian esthetic requirements in their designs. Jason Herring for the Calgary Herald

Further reading:

My go-to for Hong Kong bakery staples like pineapple buns, coconut and egg tarts, and cocktail buns. They had an even wider selection of when I was a kid: 缽仔糕, 白糖糕, fried curry beef bun, wedding pastries, and until the pandemic their selection of mooncakes. The original must-have was their large palmiers--the kind a kid should probably split in two but didn't because there was always the promise you'd have another next week.

"Staple" doesn't quite illustrate the institutional position, it was the oldest independent Chinese bakery in the city and provided a very specific sense of home for so many of us. 老板, his staff, and Diamond Bakery are an integral part of the story Calgary's Chinatown. We were all so lucky to have shared in their warmth.

[sixohsixoheightfourtwo]

just re the british chinese food discourse - the british library has this great audio clip and transcript from Woon Wing Yip who came to the UK from Hong Kong in the 1950s - he started out in restaurants & later started a chain of supermarkets. here's their transcript -

Wing Yip discusses Chinese restaurants:

The Chinese restaurant - we came the right time, in the right place and do it right. That's why so many Chinese. Up to the middle sixties, after nine o'clock or in the evening, you go out for a meal, there are two places you go - either you buy fish and chips which closes at ten o'clock, half past ten, or you go into a hotel where the last order is half past nine. Or you could go to Wimpey cafeteria. The Chinese came along, opened a restaurant and we put a carpet down, we put a tablecloth down. Before that restaurant, you only got a carpet and a tablecloth and a waiter service only in hotels, which were beyond ordinary means, ordinary people's means and they close half past nine. And other than that, Wimpey, cup of tea, a bun or fish and chips. The Chinese bring the tablecloth, carpet, lower it and bring the fish restaurant up above it, right hit the niche market. Open eleven o'clock - the pub close half past ten, eleven. The last order in the pub is eleven, we open half past eleven so we hit it. At the right time, doing the right thing and do it right. And for the first time, the British had more money to spend, from middle sixties on. Right hit it on the nail.

...

In Yorkshire bread and butter - everyone come in and wanted bread and butter as well. They wanted curry chicken and rice and with bread and butter. Curry, something, bread and butter, mixed grill bread and butter, everything bread and butter. We had a little department attached to the tea and coffee side, got two English ladies that every day for two, three hours, doing bread and butters. You know, for two hours for lunchtime - everybody bread and butter. When the menu, we say 'curry chicken and chips, or rice'. To begin with a lot of people were like 'curry chicken, and chips', not rice - and bread and butter. The chef made the curry sauce, the chef buy the curry powders, and with the other few powders, get together spices, put the onions, orange peel everything, they boiled it for hours, mixed them. Very good.

What other things were on the menu?

Half Chinese, half English. Mixed grill, fillet steak, pork chop, omelettes. No Chinese restaurant outside London would not have English menu because they're still in the process of changing. That's why the Chinese do it right - we can not say in 50s, 60s and 70s, say you had had Chinese food. Say 4 people come in, if 3 of them want Chinese, 1 do Chinese, the second has omelette or salad or something. We do it right, we don't insist to say you have to have Chinese. Food is a culture, food is a culture - you cannot change people in one year. In those days, in those days in the 50s, I think a lot of people never had Chinese food before. They go in the Chinese restaurant because the other English restaurant close at half past nine, their last order, so they came out after half past nine they go to Chinese restaurant and they ask for mixed grill - in Yorkshire mixed grill is very popular.

Did people ever make negative comments about Chinese food at that time?

Oh yes, they say a lot of things, they say a lot - the main thing, we're standing outside, there's a menu, they say 'sweet and sour pork', everybody think, 'sweet and sour pork? Sweet and sour?' They are very sarcastic. They couldn't understand how can a thing be sweet and sour at the same time. Until they taste it - it is.

[kefnut-the-gweilologist]

we're starting to get tiktoks of british ppl unboxing their chinese takeaway orders on american tiktok and im so excited

[gerritcole-coded]

No but really there's something about the immigrant experience that makes food better

[wangxianficrecs]

Hello, since you have the option of boosting fandom events, I thought that I could ask you whether you know of any writing events that I could sign up for. Maybe there is something coming up in the future that I can keep track of and sign up when it opens? I was following a fandom tracker but they haven’t updated in a year and I don’t follow any other accounts aside from yours. Thank you for your help!

Hi!

I took a look at MDZS Events over on BlueSky and also at @mdzs-fandom-events (who have a very neat up-to-date calender) to see what's currently happening and here are some upcoming events/sign-ups:

Qin Su Week 2024: April 29 - May 5 (no sign-ups needed)

ZhanChengXian Interest Check: March 11 - April 1

MXTX Chinese Diaspora Event May 2024 Sign-Ups: March 17 - April 9

MXTX Monsterfucker Week: March 24 - March 30 (no sign-ups needed)

Sweet & Spicy Wen Ning Day: April 1 - April 11 (no sign-ups needed)

MDZS Reverse Big Bang Writer's Sign-Ups: March 17 - March 24.

The MXTX Food Zine also still accepts submissions. Reach out to @mxtxfoodzine for more information!

MDZS Gotcha for Gaza: March 24 - March 30

If anyone else is aware of any events that are currently happening/which have their sign-ups open soon, make sure to comment! I hope you'll find something that interests you, dear nonny.

~Mod Kay

[max1461]

My opinion on French food:

Very slimy. The French love their slimes. Every dish has to have a goopy slime sauce. Not a fan of this.

Foie gras: I used to like it, but then I ate some really bad foie gras that made sick and I don't like it anymore. Bad memories.

Crepes: good.

Galettes: very good. Galette with ham, emmental and an egg is like the classic lunch thing at a crêperie and it's pretty based.

Lots of red meat, not a fan.

Too much steak, I hate stake. Every french guy just eats stakes.

My sister had a French boyfriend who called himself vegetarian because he only bought "one ham per week" have I mentioned this on here?

Paradoxically I do like beef tartare. But bad beef tartare is really bad so be careful.

France does actually consistently have really good french fries. Like almost any restaurant will have fries and you should get them.

Underrated French regional cuisine: Lyonnaise.

Not French food proper but Paris has many good spicy noodle places. I guess there is a big-ish southern Chinese diaspora population there? Many good spicy noodle places. Maybe it's cause Louis XIV was a sinophile.

[ammg-old2]

How do you protect a culture that is being wiped out?

For Uighurs, this is more than just a hypothetical. Repressive measures against the ethnic minority have progressively worsened: The Chinese government has corralled more than 1 million of them into internment camps, where they have been subjected to political indoctrination, forced sterilization, and torture.

The targeting of the Uighurs isn’t limited to the camps. Since 2016, dozens of graveyards and religious sites have been destroyed. The Uighur language has been banned in Xinjiang schools in favor of Mandarin Chinese. Practicing Islam, the predominant Uighur faith, has been discouraged as a “sign of extremism.”

Beijing frames these moves as its way of rooting out terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism. But the aim of China’s actions in Xinjiang is clear: to homogenize Uighurs into the country’s Han Chinese majority, even if that means erasing their cultural and religious identity for good. What is taking place is a cultural genocide.

The repercussions bear heavily even on Uighurs living outside the country. Their burden is more than just raising awareness about what is taking place in their homeland—a task many have taken up at great cost to themselves and their families. It’s also about preserving and promoting their identity in countries where few people might know who the Uighurs are, let alone what the world stands to lose should their language, food, art, and traditions be eradicated.

In an effort to understand what this kind of cultural preservation looks like in practice, I spoke with seven Uighurs residing in Britain, France, Turkey, and the United States. As chefs, poets, singers, filmmakers, language teachers, and musicians, each of them is contributing to this work in different ways. All of them are passionate about ensuring that their heritage will be passed on to future generations. None of them is under any illusions about what’s at stake if they fail.

“Every Uighur now is under very big psychological pressure,” Omer Kanat, the director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, a Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit, told me. “We cannot sleep at night.”

[irenydraws]

sorry for bothering you, but i was curious about the culture behind lion dancers themselves as i wanted to write a story about lion dancers, but since i'm not chinese, i was wondering if there were any resources out there you could link?

hi there! my advice to you, i think, if you're interested in writing a story about lion dancers, is to find a troupe in your area if you can, and spend some time immersing yourself in the culture. i don't mean in an ethnic sense necessarily—you certainly don't need to be chinese to lion dance—i mean in the sense of learning how any martial arts or performing group feels and interacts with each other. the culture of every troupe is different: some care a great deal about the religious symbolism; some do it to hone their martial arts skills; some are a bunch of homesick diaspora college students who are in it for the community and the free chinese food. (that last one is a bit of personal experience but also a bit of a reference to zen cho's lion dance short stories.)

on top of all that, you'll learn how lion dancing actually feels, and how it can vary based on style and tradition. the powerpoint i made all those years ago was honestly very basic and didn't get into the specific stances and routines (e.g. seven stars around the moon, drunken lion, and many more) that a fut san lion dancer would be expected to know.

alternatively, if you don't live in an area where that's possible, you can always ask around online! i haven't been really involved in lion dance since college so haven't really kept in touch with the community, but i know it exists. sorry if that's not much help. good luck!

[ace-hell]

Something very frustrating about the whole i/p is how people view this place

The MENA is the only place in the WORLD where ppl try to rewrite its history and force indigenous-ity over its colonizers just bc the colonizers aren't "white European". instead of accepting the place was colonized and moving on and try to learn the native cultures and stuff

The brits know they colonized america and a big part of the world

The germans know they caused the holocaust

The mongols know about chinggis khan horrible rein and the massacre of millions

The american know they are not natives to america

We all know about the greek, roman and ottoman empire were conquering and colonizing land

So why can't arabs accept that they are also colonizers? Its ok, every nationality did horrible shit throughout history but instead of accepting it they just force themselves into nativity- ofc with time they mingled with the natives and most of them are mixed- but it doesn't cancel anything. Now the west and practically the whole world CHOSES to ignore history. As if the fact that you are not light skinned/white/european means that you can NEVER oppress or do something horrible.

Altho arabic is fund by different native languages it still originated in arabia peninsula(saudi arabia) just like islam and the arab identity. But bc it happened almost 1500 years ago and sound so far in the past people just choose to ignore it and in the end, with the israel-palestine conflict it hurts jews and our history bc no arabic is not indigenous. Its not nablus, its sh'hem and was called that name even BEFORE abraham was even born. Even islam isn't indigenous the canaan- Christianity and judaism are.

Im not shaming or anything but self awareness is important.

Bc we all from the same area then ofc there will be A LOT of similarity with the clothes, food, music etc just like there are a lot of similarities between Japanese and chinese culture altho they all are different its just NORMAL. The problem is that bc jews were colonized so much, everyone destroyed everything we have, bc of the diaspora jews gathered the cultures they grew up in from different countries and brought it with them to israel that's why "israeli culture" is made of a lot of different cultures worldwide, not bc "they stole it"

Israel is the ONLY place in the world that got successfully decolonised and rebuild and the world has never been angrier about that. Just mind blowing

[panicinthestudio]

How a Popular NYC Restaurant is Reimagining Cantonese American Food, August 4, 2023

Meet Cory Ng and Zhan Chen, two young New York City natives on a mission to redefine Cantonese American cuisine. Their restaurant, Potluck Club, opened in the summer of 2022 on Chrystie Street on the Lower East Side, outside the old boundaries of Chinatown. It’s the perfect location for a restaurant that aims to infuse tradition with a modern twist, reflecting their personal stories through food. NYT Cooking

[curly-fried]

Ngl i find it kinda racist and disrespectful when people call diaspora Chinese cuisine fake Chinese food. Like why cant it just be accepted as regional variations of Chinese food, as the cuisines are developed by Chinese people?

[sweet-potatah-pie]

Hi I’ve been meaning to ask you this for a while and finally got the nerve to write it down.

I love how you’re exploring Maldonia in your latest writing. I can recognize the South Asian influence in the architectural, food, and fashion details, which I love! I guess I was wondering on what lore or cultural guidelines have you created for Maldonia.

I know you’re big on historical research, so would love to know you’re process on basically creating a cultural landscape. (Which is not easy so I’m in awe of your writing and dedication).

🤍

Aww thank you! 💖💖💖 Maldonia has been challenging for me. I think that’s why I avoided writing it for so long 😅

I liked that Disney posted that article saying that Maldonia would be inspired by many places. So I’ve been toying with that. You’re spot on that many elements come from researching South Asian architecture, food, and clothing. But I’m also pulling from Brazilian culture for names, food and music (in my upcoming chapter!), Italian and Portuguese languages to base Maldonian words on, and even cultures where Black and South Asian diasporas have long mixed like Habesha cultures, Suriname, and Guyana.

Remembering the movie and how Naveen’s original valet Lawrence was British, I liked the idea of making Tiana’s lady’s maid an English speaking immigrant as well. I felt like there could be comfort in fully understanding the person working most closely with you, so I did that for Tiana’s comfort. I tapped into the long history of colonization/immigration that led to there being sizeable Chinese and Jamaican populations in England to create my mixed race OC Ines from.

Every time I open my work in progress doc, I research somewhere or something different, too. I’m definitely still writing. I wanna know how The People’s Princess ends as much as anybody else 🤣 and hopefully little by little I’ll get there.

Thank you for sticking with me! It hasn’t been an easy year for me, so readers staying by me means a lot 🙏🏾

[risingpilots]

Real Chinese food made from the diaspora for all you british folk out there

[adamsandlermealplan]

Every Meal is Shared With You Now and Forever

Bún Bò Huế at Tương Lai (Cabramatta) | 1 August

It's nothing new under the sun to write about how love and food are entwined. How preparing a meal, the deliberate act of taking someone to a restaurant that you enjoy, the times when the scent of a familiar flavour sends you into a wave of emotions... A humanity that has been forever. It's what really made me want to start writing more, although I fear reproducing half-baked diaspora musings. But maybe that's why I do want to record it, precisely because of its eternal and intrinsic nature that transcends time and fuses communities together.

My grandma passed away on Sunday, and food has not tasted the same since. She was my third parent, and my constant. Until the last day that she could stand she would cook lunch and dinner for everyone. After school and work, the first thing that she would ask is whether I was having dinner. Almost without missing a day, she would cook for us. My gut wrenches from remembering the times when I declined and said I would eat later. The times that I've told her I was going out for dinner and her subsequent dejected mood. More than anything, I had declined her act of love. I deserve to feel this terrible, brokenhearted remorse.

She grew up learning to cook with her eyes and her nose. Being the fourth daughter of a Chinese immigrant in British occupied Malaysia, she was prohibited from getting an education by her father. She was basically illiterate, bar the few Chinese characters and basic English words she had to teach herself. I had always considered myself fortunate to be able to indulge in a cuisine many had only later been introduced to. A cuisine that was an almagation of Indian immigrants, Malay locals, many generations of Chinese-Malays and even the influence of British and Portuguese colonisers. She would pound her own spices for curries, cook herbal soups when we came into flu season. So much knowledge through simply absorbing the world around her. Learning the only way she really knew how. I loved her sambal which she would use on a variety of dishes. Nasi lemak. Fried okra. Fried fish. She really loved golden, deep fried delicacies. She introduced me to what Westerners would consider more "challenging" foods. Liver, blood jelly, tripe. I feel so lucky to be able to appreciate these foods. When I had a 2 year vegetarian stint, she would take the effort to cook me a separate dish with no meat. I'm honestly glad I started to eat meat again so I could taste her original cooking before it was too late. I should have known that through her cooking and her hours of preparation, her commitment to make sure we were fed were all intrinsic acts of love. I will never be able to taste it again. I will never be able to repay it.

I ate this bún bò huế after visiting the temple where my family and I have now decided to place her ashes. I had been crying until my eyes had become swollen, and looked bee-stung. I was weepy, still, when they brought this soup noodle out. While it was delicious with its spicy tang and careful notes of fermented seafood, like most of the meals I've had since, it was dampened by the flavour of grief. The thought of being unable to share this with her dulled the usual melody of aromas I would get from that first taste of the soup. If she were with me, I would have asked for a separate little bowl for her to try the silky noodles and bits of Vietnamese ham. Now and until forever, I thought, I could not ever return those acts of care to her. So from that day I promised that every meal is shared with her. I will think of her in every bowl of noodle soup, every bite of curry, even whatever bland work lunch I may have. Tonight is the 7th day since her death, so I poured us a glass of her favourite beer (Guiness) and we served her a little plate of our dinner on the makeshift altar in her room and I feel a little better about it all.