On Chinese Restaurants in America

Being a wealthy nation of immigrants, U.S. has a wide range of choices of food, ranging from authentic ethnic ones from all over the world to industrialized original fast food like McDonald hamburgers and Kentucky Fried Chickens. For someone like me who enjoys food and varieties, it is simply great. However, just like mother tongue, it is hard for me to forget or not to have Chinese food for any sustained period of time.

Luckily, I have never lived too far from major communities of Chinese Americans where stores and markets are stocked with supplies including unique Chinese vegetables. It is now also fairly easy to find Chinese restaurants. Indeed, Chinese food in U.S. has become so popular and achieved practically the status of comfort food for many. One indication is you would see scenes in TV series and movies where actors and actress gobbled up unrecognizable pieces from small wax paper takeout boxes using chopsticks (it is so American that my nephew when visiting us from Taiwan requested it as a "must do"). To give you a sense, there are an estimated 40,000 Chinese restaurants in America, compared to about 70,000 pizzerias and 14,000 McDonalds. At one end of the spectrum, there are many serving fast food like for mostly takeouts in stripped malls with excellent value, speed, and amazingly similar flavors. At the other end of the spectrum, you can find elegant dining in places like midtown Manhattan at prices approaching some French restaurants.

30 years ago when we moved to central Jersey from San Francisco area, it was a significant adjustment when it comes down to convenience and provisions of Chinese food. One often ended up driving an hour to NYC Chinatown to get serious supplies. To eat out or takeout, the only Chinese restaurant in the neighborhood was an Americanized Cantonese restaurant serving unfamiliar dishes including the famous Chop Suey 雜碎. While one might find curious about the history and different stories of its origin (one story credited it to Li HungZhang 李鴻章, a controversial statesman and diplomat in late Qing dynasty as his chef’s desperate act when Li visited U.S. in 1896), the dish is simply uninteresting, unimaginative, and tastes, to be honest, downright awful. Of course, at the end, one would still get rewarded with fortune cookie, another uniquely American invention that are supposedly more connected with Japanese than Chinese. Well, I guess as long as the words inside sooth you and the numbers win you lottery. Who cares if it is non-Chinese!

If you turn the clock back another 20 years, you can imagine what it might be like even in streets of San Francisco Chinatown. That is the era Cecilia Chiang 江孫芸 found when she first landed in San Francisco in 1961 to visit her sister.

At age 88, Cecilia Chiang is a legend who is well-known probably more in American culinary and high society circles than among Chinese Americans. Her Mandarin Restaurant (1961-1991) 福祿壽 of San Francisco has certainly influenced and changed forever the perception of Chinese restaurants in America. Interweaved with 75 recipes of hers, Cecilia Chiang’s fascinating autobiography The Seventh Daughter: My Culinary Journey from Beijing to San Francisco was published in 2007 and detailed her life stories in a creative arrangement that is only fitting with such a famous accidental restauranteur.

There are always many contributing factors in one’s success. There is no exception in Cecilia Chiang’s story. Born into a wealthy family of Wu-Xi (a city near Shanghai) and grew up in Beijing with a privileged life in a house of 52 rooms and six bathrooms with 2 chefs - one specialized in northern and one in Shanghai style food, she had the opportunity to experience major styles and tastes of traditional Chinese cuisines. However without her curiosity, interest and discerning palate like her mom, she would probably never got deep into food ventures.

From the book, you can tell that she is a confident, determined, and risk taking as she and one of her sisters traveled several months mostly by foot during WWII from Japan occupied Beijing to Free China territory in HeNan河南 province. Granted she had a higher probability of success with the financial resource and people connections of the family, it did take a lot of nerve and perseverance to make such a journey without protection. One of the rewards that contributed to her career later as she made it to ChongQing重慶 was the wonderful Szechuan cuisines. That completed the development and exposure of her taste buds in premiere Chinese regional foods. Only one missing was Cantonese that is abundantly available and accessible in America especially in places like San Francisco since early immigrants were mostly from that region. As she landed in San Francisco almost 50 years ago, Cecilia Chiang’s first impression was there wasn’t any authentic Chinese food in San Francisco beyond Cantonese food. That is a sufficient motivation and opening for an entrepreneur and pioneer in any business.

Another critical factor shaped and defined Cecilia Chiang’s career was that, I would guess, she must be very active, outgoing with excellent social and interpersonal skills. To her, there is more than just good food when eating. She obviously appreciates and enjoys the services and company. That is what high end and more sophisticated culinary culture and experience demands: ambience and service are as important as food. Her instinct and guts eventually transformed her vision into a grand hot spot in the famous Ghiradelli Square near Fisherman Wharf in June 1968. For 20+ years, it was the place of choice of high society dining for Chinese food in SF! I actually did dine there once in 80s’. Frankly, I don’t recall I was that impressed by the food and only vaguely remember the deco and view was beautiful. Of course, I value food and price of a meal a lot more than ambience and service.

Some have compared Cecilia Chiang’s contribution to Chinese cuisines in America as Julia Child’s with French cuisines. Perhaps sometime in the future, we will see her kitchen side-by-side with Julia Child’s in the Museum of American History in Washington D.C.?

You may or may not know there is a connection between Cecilia Chiang and the popular upscale casual dining Chinese chain restaurant called P.F. Chang's founded in 1993. P.F. stands for Paul Fleming, a mega restauranteur who is a friend of Cecilia and founded the chain with the help of her son Philip Chiang. The Chang in the name, according to a story, is modified from Chiang by dropping the “i” under a number of marketing considerations. If you go to the website of now publically traded holding company P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Inc, you will see that its 2008 revenues was close to 1.2 billion dollars with close to 200 bistros and another chain of over 150 Pei Wei Asian Diners across U.S. What you will not find is any Chinese names among their corporate top executives or board or exec chef.

That is how successful a Chinese restaurant business can be. Now you and I can own a piece of a Chinese restaurant in U.S. without even knowing what Chinese food tastes like! I suspect Cecilia Chiang would have never thought of her accidental venture would lead to something like it. On the other hand, if you want to impress your family and friends, you can actually prepare a home cooked meal using Cecilia’s recipes in her book without too much effort. Skipping those time-consuming ones, you can make a delicious 4-6 person feast served with steamed rice with a menu like:

Tofu and spinach soup

Bon-Bon Chicken

Lion’s Head

Eggplants in Garlic sauce

Steamed Black Bass with Ginger and Green Onions

And if you are daring and got sweet tooth, add Glaceed Bananas for desert.

Um… writing this blog makes me really hungry. Time to eat dinner prepared by my personal chef… Talk to you soon!

Lotus and Water-Lily 睡蓮非蓮

Just completed my 2^nd oil painting project. This time, I tried to paint flowers and hope eventually I will be able to do a series of unique flowers of different seasons. I thought I would start with lotus 荷花(也稱為蓮花) using a photo I took not long ago at the New York Botanical Garden. What I did not realize till late in the project was that I was actually painting water-lilies, a completely distinct family of aquatic plants although their flowers look similar! What I also found out was that the Chinese common name for water-lily is 睡蓮or literally “sleeping lotus”. Unfortunately “sleeping lotus” is not lotus (and of course, water-lily is not lily either)! Their scientific names are Nymphaeaceae and Nelumbo, respectively, with many distinct characteristics.

You may argue who cares. You may also argue that in arts and literature, one needs to stretch and trade precision and logical consistency for imagination and creativity. The fact of the matter though is that significant ventures in arts/literature and sciences both begin with acute and detailed observations, although their subjects and processes could be quite different. Have you ever seen origin sketches and records of some biologists?

Indeed, classification, following observations, is a basic method that both children and adults use to summarize their experiences and formulate concepts. In natural sciences, seemingly mundane and tedious taxonomy plays important roles that articulates and reflects the understandings and sometimes, extrapolates and anticipates newly encountered animals and plants which are too numerous to count. Curiously, as far as I know, Chinese had not done a whole lot in this regard despite its fantastic accomplishments in science and technology in history. The last major and original contribution of taxonomy by Chinese was probably the celebrated Compendium of Materia Medica 本草綱目 published in 1578 by Li Shizhen 李時珍 that focused on medicine and included 1892 distinct herbs.

That reminds me of the famous "Needham's Grand Question" posted by Joseph Needham 李約瑟,a trained British biochemist turned into a historian who became a leading expert of the accomplishments in science and technology in ancient China. The Needham Question essentially asks why was China overtaken by the West in Science and Technology despite its earlier successes. While there have been many speculations and suggestions by various scholars, Needham’s own works attribute significant weight to the impact of Confucianism and Taoism but I do seriously question his conclusions that may have confused correlation with causality.

In any case, it is impossible to know exactly why and how with complex interacting factors, and to de-correlate (thus blame easily) Confucianism from anything happened in China. It is however much easier to look at and agree on what Chinese civilization has exhibited. For one, it appear to have been much more preoccupied with practical applications and solutions. The inventions have been more about technology than fundamental science and were often experimental and statistical based. Insufficient resource and attention paid to methodology and theory ultimately limited the advances and breakthroughs, in my opinion.

Another significant factor, I believe, is the lack of competition, challenge, and exchange of ideas as China enjoyed being a single dominant power in Asia for a very long time. As a result, it became complacent and stagnant that even periodic purges and changes of dynasty could not have overcome. It was not an accident that modern science and scientific revolution took off first in Europe in early Modern Period around 16^th-18^th century. Prior to it in late Middle Ages, theocracy was weakened, Nation States started to form in Europe, intellectual pursuits began to flourish and culture movements of Renaissance had begun to blossom. No longer dominated by church, people began to explore all possibilities, recognizing church was also fallible. Brilliant minds gathered and challenge each other the old notion and beliefs that eventually laid the foundation of the new discovery and modern science, not to mention the tremendous economic and trade incentives by merchants and interested political forces. Most importantly, philosophical and theoretical aspects of the whole scientific methods and approach were also developed in parallel that laid the foundations for further advancement.

In contrast, strong totalitarian monarchs remained in China during Ming and Qing dynasties (and for the matter, in India and some Islamic empires as well). While shinning civilizations and discoveries from mathematics to technology had thrived earlier in those societies, Western civilizations had surpassed them and continue to dominate in science and technology till this day. There are signs that the gap is shrinking and the balance of powers is changing as we are speaking. However it is not obvious that any other civilizations will rise again anytime soon to lead in science and technology.

Well, back to water-lily and a final note: the most famous western painter of water-lily is probably the French impressionist master Claude Monet. He had painted about 250 Water-lilies in his life, housed in a number of major art museums across the world. Short of traveling to Giverny outside Paris for the scenery and atmosphere of his residence, you can find a light attempt to create a miniature setting of it including his famous flower garden with a water-lily pond and bridge at the Grounds for Sculpture in New Jersey.

Talk to you soon!

Faith-Based Organizations and Community Services

On Thursday, February 05, 2009, President Obama announced the establishment of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships which is an expansion of the Faith-Based and Community Initiatives that former President G.W. Bush created back on Jan 29, 2001 with an executive order. While I have been impressed and agreed strongly with the judgment and directions of candidate and now President Obama, I believe this is a bad decision and more a political move to appease religious-political organizations and leaders; the term “Faith-Based” in the title says it all. By the way, for all intents and purposes, you can equate faith-based to religious organization although strictly speaking the term faith is a broader term than religion.

Don’t get me wrong; I am not against religion. There is no doubt that religion is a significant and often a natural and necessary part of civilized societies. However it is not the only way to establish and maintain morals and ethics as clearly demonstrated by e.g. Confucianism. I am not against religious organizations engaging in community services either. There is no doubt that many religious organizations in U.S. and regions across the world (and in some places the only organizations) have done great services for communities and people, especially those in needs, with or without government funding. There is no doubt that organized religious groups are often a part of the ‘first responders” to such social services needs.

I do however disagree on having government give yours and my tax dollars to advance or disadvantage any religious organizations. I strongly believe that we must abide by the principle of “Separation of Church and State” of the First Amendment. We must examine and debate rigorously the reasons and ways for religious organizations to receive and utilize public funds on top of their tax-exempted status.

The press coverage and discussions has mostly been focused on if and when President Obama will fulfill his campaign pledge to rescind Bush’s executive order that allows religious organizations to receive federal dollars for providing social services employing only those who subscribe to their beliefs.

There are a lot of familiar and repeating arguments. One justification has been the reach that I don’t disagree. Another is efficiency. However if efficiency is important (and it is), it seems odd that we don’t address it head-on but instead delegate services to religious organizations. Aren’t we, by doing so, shy away from our serious obligations in exchange for some convenience? There are many ways to fix the efficiency problem without involving religious organizations; this is just a lousy excuse.

If we look further, the issue is much deeper and pre-dates Bush’s presidency. Historically, religious groups have been given tax dollars for providing social services as long as they abide by rules such as not to discriminate against their employees (that Bush’s executive order had removed!), not to use government fund for religious event, and not to have services at the same room and time. Isn’t this rather degrading? How could religious organizations be compared to and treated exactly like other government contractors that create and sell commercial goods and services?

Further, like what we have learned in the current economic crisis about the use of government bailout money by financial institutions that receive aids, how do we know the money did not support indirectly for religious activities? After all, a dollar is a dollar regardless where it comes from. There ought to be equivalent resources that are freed up by the government funds for the community services and that are now available and used for religious services.

I am not advocating disallowing religious organizations to provide social services. But we do need to install proper firewall to insure tax dollars for social services are strictly and exclusively used for the services. The basic solution is pretty straightforward and has been widely used in business when there is a potential of conflict of interest. For religious organization which would like to provide such services, they can simply set up a separate subsidiary with its own independent board, management and mission. I can’t think of any good reasons that religious leaders would be against such a rule unless their primary goal is not in providing the services to help the poor and needy.

TheocracyWatch had called those Bush administration’s actions “transformation from a secular to a religious government”. It is simply wrong and unconstitutional to use tax money to advance religious causes. It is not too late for President Obama and his administration to find enough wisdom and courage to change course and reverse those policies. After all, this is the president who is clearly well aware of the traps; he himself had said in April 2008 during his campaign that, “people suffering economically… get bitter, cling to guns or religion or … as a way to explain their frustrations”.

Talk to you soon!