Chop Suey Nation: Road trip uncovers the lives behind Chinese-Canadian food(theglobeandmail.com)
theglobeandmail.com
Chop Suey Nation: Road trip uncovers the lives behind Chinese-Canadian food
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/chop-suey-nation/article30539419/
11 comments
For those interested in more, here is a revealing, hard-to-put-down story in the New Yorker on a similar topic:
The Kitchen Network: America's underground Chinese restaurant workers.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/cooka%C2%80%C2%...
The Kitchen Network: America's underground Chinese restaurant workers.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/cooka%C2%80%C2%...
What an extraordinary work ethic:
Like any other day, she said, she’d work [on her 55th birthday]. In 15 years, the restaurant has only been closed five times: Once when she was sick and the other times to visit her children. Otherwise, it’s open 365 days a year. Like any other day, she’d close around midnight, prepare her own dinner, watch some television and go to bed.
Like any other day, she said, she’d work [on her 55th birthday]. In 15 years, the restaurant has only been closed five times: Once when she was sick and the other times to visit her children. Otherwise, it’s open 365 days a year. Like any other day, she’d close around midnight, prepare her own dinner, watch some television and go to bed.
Here in Sydney (Australia) I've heard there are quite a few online WeChat-based food delivery businesses catering to Chinese urbanites. Once you have their WeChat you can order stuff, they deliver, and you pay via WeChat or in cash. No need for expensive local government licensing, good food, longer hours, cheaper prices.
Interesting, and not altogether a big surprise given how much WeChat allows you to do the same over in China (in addition to a ton of other things). It's no big surprise that tech moves with the movement of people who use it.
Being from Amsterdam (Where the Chinese formed one of the largest overseas Chinese populations in continental Europe) I grew up with Chinese food on Friday. Every Friday, and even on particular festive days.
For my job I travel a lot and in every place I get to stay longer then a day or two I search for a Chinese food place. What it has thought me, is that 1: there is Chinese food -everywhere- 2: Every country has its "own Chinese food". Besides the names there is often very little the same.
Since I did a stint for a large Chinese tech company that has no stock market listing, I think I have seen the entrepreneurial spirit makes all these restaurants possible as hinted by in the article with the "Restaurants are just a vehicle for the family".
Back to the food: not McDonalds represents a global food chain for me, it's the "Huang Feng Zhu" group that does. And an impressively creative job to boot.
If you'd like to hear more on this, they had a long talk with the author of this piece in episode 7 (titled "The Only One") of Colour Code, a podcast also from the Globe and Mail:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/colour-code-pod...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/colour-code-pod...
http://www.thesearchforgeneraltso.com