With many of its streets lined in fast food and drive-ins, America's food culture seems shallow. Looking closer in a city like New York, however, the vibrancy of culture surrounding food reveals itself. Food often accompanies traditions, stories, and meaning. Growing up half Korean and half Chinese, food has always held my family together. Going to my grandparents’ house, an oasis in the middle of suburban Maryland, often means a night of making dumplings with the whole family. Around a large table, wrinkled and unwrinkled hands press delicate folds into dumpling skins. My grandpa, who is from Wuxi in China, talks about Wuxi ribs, a tender and soy sauce-laden meat unique to his city. My grandma, who is from Suzhou in China, recalls the delicate food and lifestyle of her area. To explore the nuance in culture within communities, I looked to two of the three Chinatowns in New York City: Manhattan and Queens.
A market-worker in Manhattan's Chinatown checks her phone as she prepares for the day.
The culture around food is multifaceted; it is cooked, consumed, shared, sold, bought, and appreciated. Within food businesses, there are chefs, customers, sellers, and buyers. Walking through two different Chinatowns, however, I noticed solitude with many food experiences.
A chef in Grand Restaurant, a top-floor dim sum restaurant in New World Mall, eats his own lunch before cooking for others. New World Mall is a four-floor Chinatown mall in Flushing, Queens.
Markets in Chinatown, both in Manhattan and Flushing, are as prevalent as restaurants. Many of the Chinatown businesses are interconnected; restaurant owners stop at markets to buy ingredients, and market owners take lunch breaks at nearby restaurants. Crowds of customers and shoppers float through the streets, stopping at both restaurants and markets.
A man in Flushing, Queens, surveys the vegetables at an outdoor market.
A worker at an outdoor market takes a break from advertising the fruit.
A woman takes a moment to eat at a Chinese bakery in Manhattan.
Although there were many moments of solitude, there were also ones of conversation, laughter, and friendship.
Two chefs take a smoke break outside a Chinatown, Manhattan restaurant.
Because of the language barrier, trying to interview restaurant owners was difficult. In a food court of New World Mall in Flushing, three cheerful ladies rolled dumpling dough with their strong, floury hands. When I approached them, they smiled and welcomed my questions. They began responding to me in Mandarin, and when I told them I could not speak Chinese, they said “Sorry, good luck!” and resumed their kneading. The language barrier proved to be a significant problem, which was especially frustrating when the owners seemed eager to speak.
The women of Chinese Korean Dumplings and Noodles, a food court restaurant in Flushing, Queens, knead dumpling dough and laugh together.
Although most customers are local Chinese speakers, many tourists frequent Chinatown restaurants. Almost all of the employees and owners I tried to interview knew just enough English to serve customers. Even with the language barrier, the owners emphasized their restaurant's province and style of cooking.
A waiter in WK Restaurant in Chinatown, Manhattan paces the small dollar-covered space.
The only person I could interview was from Mingle Restaurant, where we stopped as a class to eat lunch. I asked the manager, Derek, about what food means to him and how he thinks it affects the community. He said, “This is a Chinese area, so we really care about different food for different Chinese. Chinese families really stay together to cook food. In the Flushing area, even though the people are from China, they come from different areas in China. People from different areas of China have their own styles of cooking their own foods." When I asked him about the impact of his restaurant, he said, "I wish our restaurant could be the best in the area, but there’s high competition. We opened almost a year ago. To me, food means life. We opened this restaurant mostly to make money, but I really like the cooking. It’s life because I carry food for the customers."
Derek, the manager of Mingle Restaurant, waits in the front to welcome customers. Mingle Restaurant opened one year ago in Flushing, Queens.
In the United States, Asians have historically faced discrimination and dehumanization, ranging from the Chinese Exclusion Act to Japanese Internment. Although Asian Americans have a relative degree of racial privilege, the common perception of the "model minority" harms Asians and other minority groups. One of the problems of the model minority myth is that it lumps together Asians into a unidimensional group, failing to recognize the incredible diversity of Asian cultures. Walking through any Chinatown shows the dynamic differences between Chinese cultures, especially revealed through food.
School of The New York Times, 2018