By Runtian Zhu
Keywords: Fusion, Chinese Cuisine, Authenticity, Immigration, Food Culture, Fujianese, Restaurants, Interview
I bet the majority of people in the US have patronized Chinese restaurants, but what people probably don’t know is that more than half of the Chinese restaurants in the United States are owned by people from a specific region of China. This region is my hometown and the topic of my exhibition, Fuzhou, Fujian. On the other hand, even though Fujianese dominate the Chinese and Asian restaurant market in the U.S, authentic Fujian cuisine is actually very rare and most Americans even do not know it existed.
The background of the story is that beginning around the 1980s, due to the poor economy and the lifting of emigration restrictions, a large number of Fujianese began to migrate to the US. [1] “Gradually, they revitalized and expanded New York’s Chinatown in Manhattan. Fujianese entrepreneurs have transformed the ethnic enclave economy of Chinatown into the staging platform for a dynamic national ethnic restaurant economy”. [2] Therefore, “inheriting the Chinese restaurant from the family that immigrated to the U.S. in the early years is why the restaurant owners are now all Fujianese.” In addition, from a documentary about a Fujianese immigrant working for Chinese restaurant in America, it discloses the dark side of the Fujianese community. As it said, Fujianese immigrants have their own community which will help new Fujianese immigrant open restaurants and united to exclude Chinese from other regions, forcing them out of the Chinese restaurant business by vicious competition.[3]
I mainly discuss three primary sources in depth. My first source is Yelp’s review and comments of two of the most popular Fujian cuisine restaurants in New York. After analyzing their comments, I gained American diners’ perspectives of these foods and whether they have awareness about the origin of Fujianese cuisine. From my second source, which is a documentary TV program, I tried to figure out the reason why Fujianese immigrants tend to open American Chinese restaurants instead of making authentic Fujian cuisine. Ultimately, I conducted an in-person interview with my friend Danny Wang whose family immigrated from Fuzhou, and owned two Chinese restaurants in Charlotte. I asked him several questions about the story behind immigration, experience of operating a Chinese restaurant, and why they don’t make traditional Fujianese cuisine.
In this exhibition, I mainly focus on leading readers to explore the reason for it from a deeper and more profound perspective. At the same time, readers will be exposed to the history of Fujianese immigrants and their arduous journey to open a restaurant in the U.S. More importantly, I hope that through Exhibition as a promotion, more people can be aware of the traditional Fujian cuisine.
References
[1].Guest, K. J. (2003). God in Chinatown: Religion and Survival in New York’s Evolving Immigrant Community. United Kingdom: NYU Press. https://www.google.com/books/edition/God_in_Chinatown/QvnNUWymj38Chl=en&gbpv=1&dq=kenneth+guest&pg=PR7&printsec=frontcover
[2].Guest, K. J. (2011). From Mott Street to East Broadway: Fuzhounese Immigrants and the Revitalization of New York’s Chinatown. Journal of Chinese Overseas, 7(1), 24–44. https://doi.org/10.1163/179325411X565399
[3].“The American Dream” (2013) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJh0Nq2ovxY
