Chinese food has become a big part of the American culture. According to Chinese Restaurant News there are three times more Chinese restaurants than there are McDonald’s. Next time you are driving or walking on the street pay attention to how many Chinese restaurants you pass by. On my 15 minutes drive home from work I see four Chinese restaurants and one McDonald’s. Greasy Pu Pu Platter, general Tao’s chicken and pork fried rice is a part of the American diet and American life as well. How often do you and your friend stay in on a Friday night to watch a Blockbuster movie and ordered Chinese food take out. Many Americans know how tasty the food is but do they have any clues about the lives and stories of the people behind the food?
As much as 80% of Chinese family are somehow directly or indirectly related to Chinese restaurant work and life. Almost every single members of my family had one time or another waitress, bartend, packed orders, cooked or washed dishes in a Chinese restaurant. Personally I started in the kitchen taking phone calls and packing orders. By the time I left I had waitress and bartend. Working at a Chinese restaurant was temporary for my family and I, we were there until something better comes along. For my sisters and I it was a place where we can make some spending money for ourselves during our weekends home or summer off from school. After graduation from college my sisters and I never went back there. When we first came to the U.S. my father worked a second job washing dishes at a Chinese restaurant to make some additional money to raise a family of four children. He quit about five years into the job because we were settled in the U.S. and financially stable by that time. For many middle age or older Chinese immigrants who does not have any professional skills and who can’t speak enough English to interact with society they are stuck in the restaurant industry until old age.
Chinese restaurant is also a wide form of networking and connection for Chinese immigrants. Workers can introduce their friends or family members to their boss and get them a job that way. That’s how I got mine. Some workers in the suburbia are recruited from big city Chinatowns. Managers and owners would find waitress and cook through the temporary work agency postings in Chinese newspaper. I met a woman who was recruited to a Western MA Chineserestaurant from New York City. She came from Malaysia to the U.S. trying to find a job and hoping to make a bundle of money and then return to herhome country. The owner provides housing for workers like her who aren’t from the area.
In my next blog I will go into details on the lives of individual and family working in this industry.
April 4, 2007 at 1:46 pm
This is great! Look forward to the next one.
January 18, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Lets not forget that Chinese people who have immigarted to America legally are Americans too.