Chinese
幸运签饼纪事 (”Fortune Cookie Chronicles” in Chinese)
Friday, March 28th, 2008Another random Chinese article…from a few weeks back, forwarded to me by my classmate from Beijing University Charlene Wang. I chose Charlene as a name for her in college, because her original English name was Beryl, and I was like nononono. You sound like some British grandmother.
华裔女记者掀起正统中餐热
李竞的新书《幸运签饼纪事》出版后带起了美国人的正统中国菜文化热。
幸运签饼是由日本人发明、”左宗棠鸡”不关左宗棠事、两代布什总统有特别留座的防弹中餐台，还有中国以外全世界最好吃的中餐馆原来在温哥华……这些有部分你或许知道，不过，更多的是你闻所未闻，这都是美国《纽约时报》华裔女记者李竞（Jennifer 8 Lee)走遍全美、横跨六大洲的游历收获，写成新书《幸运签饼纪事》，美式中国菜大发现加上正统中国菜的寻根，在美国带起了新的中国菜文化热。
charlene wang, Chinese, Media & Interviews
Meat vs. Rice, American Manhood against Asiatic Coolieism, Which Shall survive?
Monday, March 17th, 2008So I spoke at the Library of Congress today. (Packed room! maybe 150 or so people, with people standing in the back. Sometimes I think, who are all these people and how did you hear about the book?) Anyway, Abby Yochelson, a librarian there, pulled some documents from my bibliography, including this one.
It is by […]
More Fortune Cookie Memoir: from Bill Stephens
Tuesday, February 26th, 2008I’ve become quite the magnet for fortune cookie tales both real and fictional. Bet you didn’t know there was a whole genre of fortune cookie writing, but there is.
Bill Stephens sent me an excerpt, chapter 25, for book proposal, ‘Uncorking & Forking: It’s Been a Good Life.’ www.billstephensbooks.com.”
Uncorking & Forking: It’s Been a […]
More on the Baghdad Chinese restaurant: no Sweet and Sour Pork
Friday, January 25th, 2008Media just loves the Chinese restaurant in Baghdad story. The Times of Lonndon also takes alook at the Chinese restaurant in Baghdad with a piece that is horribly headlined: “Chinese chefs take a wok on the wild side in world’s most dangerous city.”
Tidbits we learn
It is probably the only non-Iraqi restaurant — and possibly the […]
My galley, still on world tour, in Istanbul
Tuesday, December 11th, 2007My galleys continue their world tour, I guess. This is in front of the Istanbul’s Blue Mosque. I guess it goes to say that anyone who wants to send me a picture of my book in a weird place, please send it in.
Blue Mosque, Book Musings, book world tour, Fujianese, Galley, Istanbul
No justice! No noodles! Restaurant workers stand up for their rights
Wednesday, November 14th, 2007I did a blog post on City Room on Wednesday about Chinese restaurant workers organizing for City Room. With chants of “No Justice! No Noodles!” (you got to love that) Chinese restaurant workers called for a boycott of Ollie’s Noodle Shop and Grill restaurants yesterday, claiming that the president of the popular restaurant chain […]
Is this where fortune cookies go to die?
Wednesday, September 5th, 2007Hal Bergman, a local Los Angeles photographer, stumbled upon three dumpsters full of fortune cookies. LAist has an interview with him.
Here is the entire photoset on Flickr. I was looking at the cookies. The two largest manufacturers of fortune cookies in LA are Peking Noodle and Umeya. These don’t look at either.
China, Chinese, dumpster, […]
Stuck Elevator: The Super-Heroic Stationary Journey of Ming Kuang Chen (in Opera!)
Tuesday, August 7th, 2007Ming Kuang Chen — the Chinese deliveryman who was stuck in an elevator for more than three days in 2005 — has apparently become quite the muse for creative artists. A movie script is in development, I’ve heard. I have a whole chapter in my book wrapped around him. And he also has been the […]
The leading cause of death in the Chinese restaurant industry is homicide
Monday, August 6th, 2007Peggy Lim of The News and Observer in North Carolina has put together a touching profile of Song Ni, 34, a Chinese restaurant owner who was fatally shot at the end of July in Stantonsburg, N.C. (population 800) during a robbery in his home. His wife and two daughters were in the other room. In […]
Chinese food for Chinese vs. Chinese food for Americans
Sunday, August 5th, 2007Nicole Mones writes about the duality of Chinese food for Chinese people and Chinese food for Americans in The New York Times Magazine. What’s the difference? According to Mones, “American taste” means Chinese-style dishes prepared with a limited range of pre-mixed sauces, usually no more than 5 to 7 per restaurant (These sauces — sweet and […]
And when they came with their torches and nooses, the Chinese fled to restaurants
Tuesday, July 31st, 2007
Denver Riot of 1880
Jean Pfaezer’s new book: Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans is thoughtfully reviewed this Sunday in The New York Times. The book chronicles the waves of anti-Chinese violence that hit the West in the late 1800s, which culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act, passed in stages from 1882 to 1902, […]
Wow. The cardboard in porkbun story was a media hoax to get ratings?
Thursday, July 26th, 2007So a few weeks ago there was a huge ruckus about a Chinese television report that showed a vendor mixing cardboard into his bun filling in Beijing. It ran around the world — picked up by CNN and Fox News — because it seemed so resonant with the dominant narrative at the time (food scandal […]
Imagine if America only had 100 restaurants today. That was China’s culinary scene in in 1976
Thursday, July 19th, 2007Oliver August’s new book was released yesterday — Inside the Red Mansion: On the Trail of China’s Most Wanted Man (Houghton Mifflin, 2007). It is the product of seven years of working, hunting for Lai Changxing, a country-boy turned billionaire fugitive and a fascinating tale of how China is wrestling with its new freewheeling […]
So why are Chinese restaurants all over the world? (Because the Chinese are all over the world)
Wednesday, July 18th, 2007Professor Peter Kwong, who studies Chinese immigration and labor issues, has an amazingly detailed piece about the Chinese diaspora on the Yale Global web site.
About 180 million people around the world have moved countries since the end of the Cold War, about one-tenth of them are Chinese. The Chinese have spread to 150 countries. He […]
WP: Culinary xenophobia? A Taste of Racism in the Chinese Food Scare?
Sunday, July 15th, 2007Jeff Yang discusses the China food scare in today’s Washington Post Outlook section — in a piece titled “A Taste of Racism in the Chinese Food Scare.” Culinary xenophobia is a fascinating topic, and long tied into the Chinese presence in America from its earliest days. (see my General Tso’s Kitty post from before).
Jeff […]
Long-awaited Wakiya is now taking reservations starting July 25th!
Friday, July 6th, 2007Eater informs us that Chinese-Japanese-French Wakiya at the Gramercy Park Hotel is now taking reservations: (212) 995-1330. It has taken more than a year and a half for Ian Schrager to get his upscale Chinese restaurant as Alan Yau of Hakkasan dropped Park Chinois (what is with all the French-Chinese?) earlier this year […]
Australia is (literally) a penniless society and other notes from the Chinese restaurant frontier
Thursday, July 5th, 2007The Australians eliminated their penny in 1991 — without too much of a fuss, so all cash transactions are rounded to the nearest five cents. Some Australians feel that Americans shouldn’t give up the penny without a fight (and indeed Americans for Common Cents seems to be holding the torch there). Other thoughts. Southern […]
Is Mitt Romney Sticky Rice? Well, Supposedly the Chinese Voters Might Think he Is
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007Frank Phillips of The Boston Globe has a piece discussing the seemingly awkward translations of candidates names into Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese) as required by law. According to the article, Mitt Romney could be read as Sticky or Uncooked Rice, Fred Thompson as Virtue Soup, and Tom Menino as Rainbow farmer — or worse.
The problem, […]
Wakiya Watch: Yuji’s Google count rising
Wednesday, June 20th, 2007Many of the “Japanese” restaurants in this country have Chinese chefs (those Asian guys behind the sushi counter? Chances are they have never been to Japan). Florence Fabricant profiles the hot new Chinese restaurant with a Japanese chef: Wayika, which will be opening up in Gramercy Park Hotel next month Yuji Wakiya, who is a […]
The chopsticks are no worse than a tattoo
Tuesday, June 19th, 2007My friend quickly threw together a temporary header for the blog (displacing boats, tomatoes and puppies that came with WordPress templates), asking “is it obvious that i had to mirror the chopsticks?”
Um, yes. If you look closely, you’ll see the Chinese characters on the chopsticks are backwards. But it doesn’t matter since most of the people […]