Chinatown is changing its tune

[animal world]

Here's an article in today's New York Times about Mandarin supplanting Cantonese as the lingua franca in New York's Chinatown. Presumably, this trend is similar in other Chinatowns throughout the US. Before Cantonese was the spoken language in Chinatown, it used to be Taishanese as until the mid-Sixties most Chinese immigrants to the US and Canada came from the Taishan District in the Pearl River Delta.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/nyregion/22chinese.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&em

[adrianlondon]

Similar thing happening in London's Chinatown. Originally started (in Limehouse in east London) by Hong Kongers, the staff have been changing for a few years. The original staff are slowly being replaced by (cheaper?) employees from Malaysia and mainland China.

The customers are changing too. Due to the high number of Chinese now studying in London, having staff able to speak Mandarin is an asset for the restaurant/cafe.

[msittig]

Similar theme in this article from the LA Times:

Schools a battleground over dueling Chinese scripts

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-chinese18-2009oct18,0,2673140.story

When Chinese classes were introduced at Arcadia in the mid-1990s, Taiwanese parents pushed administrators to adopt the use of traditional script used in Taiwan and pre-communist China. The traditional form is distinguished by a series of complex and intersecting strokes.

But with the large influx of Chinese immigrants into the San Gabriel Valley over the last decade, there is increasing demand to adopt the simplified form, which Taiwanese parents and others see as a threat to an ancient tradition. The change is occurring at private and public schools in California and across the country.

[bhchao]

Most new immigrants to New York's Chinatown are Fujianese. Many of these Fujianese arrivals to Chinatown are illegals who came by boat via the smuggling trade. Some of these arrivals have to pay a sum to a third party (黑社會 in some instances) in exchange for having the privilege to emigrate there.

Flushing in Queens has become the mecca of the Chinese melting pot. Most well-to-do mainland immigrants, and immigrants from Taiwan, settle in Flushing. Flushing resembles a suburban middle-class Chinese community. A Korean community coexists in Flushing.

[adrianlondon]

Is the Chinatown in Queens bigger/better than the one in lower Manhattan? I've been to that one and it has more variety than London's Chinatown.

[bhchao]

Flushing is more representative of the different cuisines, dialects, and socioeconomic backgrounds you would find of an immigrant community from China. The regional cuisines found in Flushing is more authentic, and is catered more to the Chinese community living there. Flushing is cleaner too.

Chinatown in lower Manhattan is catered more as a tourist mecca, with very few middle class immigrants from China and Taiwan settling there. With money comes talent, and Flushing has been a recipient of that. You won't find the typical sweet and sour chicken, or beef and broccoli dish in Flushing.

I found the dim sum in Flushing to be much better than lower Manhattan, with more variety. The Shanghainese and Taiwanese restaurants in Flushing are excellent too. Lots of Shanghainese and Taiwanese Mandarin speakers in Flushing, along with Cantonese. When I visit Flushing, I usually order 雪菜肉絲麵, 紅燒獅子頭, or 小籠包. The Taiwanese beef noodle soups are very good. You can also find many stalls selling a greasy breakfast meal like 油條, 山東燒餅, and 豆漿.

Flushing has the quality, variety, and cleanliness. Lower Manhattan's Chinatown is bigger in size.

Edited October 22, 2009 at 09:04 PM by bhchao

[adrianlondon]

London's is trying. It used to be solely Cantonese food but now some other styles are available. What London Chinatown does have going for it is dimsum, which can be fantastic.

There's also a really good Chengdu restaurant which opened around a year ago, but that's not in Chinatown (luckily, it's walking distance from where I live).

So that's another change - rather than Chinese restaurants outside of Chinatown and Bayswater all being rubbish (sweet & sour pork balls and chicken with cashew nuts please, with prawn crackers) there are now some authentic places opening. Usually catering to a new and growing Chinese student population.

[atitarev]

In Australia, by statistics, the number of Cantonese and Mandarin speakers have become almost equal in 2006. I am sure Mandarin has overtaken Cantonese by now (annual numbers of immigrants from China and Taiwan is much higher than from Hong Kong; and Malaysian and Indonesian Chinese are mixed). Besides, because of students, tourists and the fact Mandarin speakers are less anglicised and are younger in Australia, it feels that Mandarin has more than just overtaken.

I think in Canada, the proportion of Cantonese speakers is higher 1 to 3 to Mandarin but that's the western country with the largest Chinese immigration after the US and proportionally, the highest.

[tooironic]

Yeah, plus I find most Cantonese native speakers in Melbourne tend to speak Mandarin as a second/third language adequately enough (and usually with a cute accent too hehe).

[anonymoose]

London's Chinatown is tiny compared with the likes of Flushing, NY. London's Chinatown is more like a tourist attraction than an authentic Chinese community.

[flywhc]

I remember when I first time visited London Chinatown in 2002, all waiter/waitress even calling card sellers ignored my queries because I couldn't speak Cantonese. I had to speak English to them.

Today, sometimes they answer Mandarin even ask them in Cantonese.

Apart from new immigrants and students, large number of tourists from mainland china become the biggest group of customers.

London's is trying. It used to be solely Cantonese food but now some other styles are available. What London Chinatown does have going for it is dimsum, which can be fantastic.

There's also a really good Chengdu restaurant which opened around a year ago, but that's not in Chinatown (luckily, it's walking distance from where I live).

So that's another change - rather than Chinese restaurants outside of Chinatown and Bayswater all being rubbish (sweet & sour pork balls and chicken with cashew nuts please, with prawn crackers) there are now some authentic places opening. Usually catering to a new and growing Chinese student population.

One of the reason that Chinatown in London doesn't have good Chengdu (should be Sichuan or Szichuan style) or other style restaurants, is that place is mainly controlled by Chinese/Vietnamese gangdom. I heard many stories that investors from mainland china was threaten to leave Chinatown when they propose to open a mainland style restaurant. I have seen a couple of good restaurants closed or changed their style in central London.

Another reason is competition and expensive lease - none of properties in London China town is owned by a Chinese. They are managed by a Jewish company, which offer shops to whoever pay the highest rent.

In fact, even dim sum they cooked is very different from Guangdong or Hong Kong (my friend from Guangdong told me). 丹桂轩 was my favorite DimSum restaurant but they only cook cheap junk food now - the manager told me local people love junks. I can't agree with those food are Chinese food.

Should know that Crispy Aromatic Duck, mini spring rolls and Foo Yong dishes are English food, not Chinese food (search on WIKI).

London Chinatown and Soho area still have a few nice Sichuan/Beijing style restaurants but expensive and quality is not stable. It is worth to try 巴山水月 and 鼎轩, or 伦敦人民公社 for a lunch.

There is a Lanzhou style noodle bar on Oxford street, close to Tottam Court road station. Also has a branch in Bayswater. The chief uses traditional magic way to make noodles, worth to watch. However they don't cook traditional Lanzhou style beef noodle soup anymore because the boss of the restaurant is a Malaysia, who hate beef soup.

They also cook Shanghai style dumplings (小笼包). And this probably is the only Halal Chinese restaurant in London.

川渝食府 close to Euston station serves good Chengdu style food (37 chalton street, london nw1 1jd) and wasn't expensive when I tried last time.

I feel all good mainland Chinese restaurants in London are in east London, because most Chinese students are living there and rent is cheaper.

老地方 was the best North-East style (东北菜) Chinese food I tried in London.

(88-90 Middlesex Street, London E1 7EZ). However you may have to wait in a long queue and receive poor service due to its popularity. I heard that food quality was not as good as before.

I visited a few good Sichuan restaurants in midland and north England, such as 川香阁 in Nottingham, 红辣椒 in Leeds, a few in Manchester.

Edited October 23, 2009 at 04:37 PM by flywhc

[WilsonFong]

Here in Toronto we have a fairly big Chinese population (about 400 000, approximately 10% of the city's population) and I still hear from Chinese international students that the food here isn't very authentic, even though I find the food here more or less the same as the food I've had in Hong Kong and Guangzhou.

The demographic changes here are more or less the same as other North American cities, from Taishanese, to Vietnamese Chinese, to Hong Kongers and now to Mainlanders. My grandpa, who has lived around east chinatown for the last 20+ years, has difficulty understanding a lot of the people there now. I find it strange how the people who cheer for the mandarinization of southern China and overseas chinatowns are probably the same people who decry the sinification of Xinjiang and Tibet:conf

[flywhc]

I find it strange how the people who cheer for the mandarinization of southern China and overseas chinatowns are probably the same people who decry the sinification of Xinjiang and Tibet

Mandarin represents more mainline Chinese culture, instead of refugee or stowaway culture.

To contrast with British/French/Japanese colonization, and American Hollywood culture's spread in global, China did much more efforts to preserve Tibetan and other minority's culture. Changes are not avoidable during globalization and civilization, such as Tibet can't go back to serf system as before 1950s.

[WilsonFong]

Mandarin represents more mainline Chinese culture, instead of refugee or stowaway culture.

To contrast with British/French/Japanese colonization, and American Hollywood culture's spread in global, China did much more efforts to preserve Tibetan and other minority's culture. Changes are not avoidable during globalization and civilization, such as Tibet can't go back to serf system as before 1950s.

I was writing about the responses of some of the people who post here, most of whom are westerners learning Chinese.

I think something needs to be done about some of the Chinese people on these forums who have difficulties with reading comprehension, and post responses that have nothing to do with the original topic or what anyone else is talking about. It happens way too often here.

[adrianlondon]

I find it strange how the people who cheer for the mandarinization of southern China and overseas chinatowns

I don't mind which language they speak, as long as they cook well. In fact, I think overseas communities can play a useful role of keeping traditions alive. Hearing Cantonese is what I expect in London's Chinatown, especially due to the UK's history with HK and the reason why we have many Hong Kongers here in the first place.

I have a feeling traditional characters and Cantonese might last longer in London than it will in HK ;)

[adrianlondon]

Mandarin represents more mainline Chinese culture, instead of refugee or stowaway culture.

Send them back where they came from!

[animal world]

I find it strange how the people who cheer for the mandarinization of southern China and overseas chinatowns are probably the same people who decry the sinification of Xinjiang and Tibet

and

I was writing about the responses of some of the people who post here, most of whom are westerners learning Chinese.

I think something needs to be done about some of the Chinese people on these forums who have difficulties with reading comprehension, and post responses that have nothing to do with the original topic or what anyone else is talking about. It happens way too often here.

Are your referring to your own reading comprehension? To my knowledge, no one here cheered for Mandarin become more and more popular in overseas Chinatowns. We were just commenting on a change in demographics in Chinatowns of various countries that has brought about a greater emphasis on Mandarin in such places.

[atitarev]

WilsonFong, these issues with the mandarinisation are also discussed on Sheik's Cantonese forums. Perhaps, it's not fair to Cantonese speakers, especially older ones but it's a fact. I found that low presence of standard Chinese (Mandarin) in the Chinese communities overseas wasn't fair. The linguistic situation in Chinese communities is becoming somewhat similar to that in China, which is a true representation of dialect ratio - Mandarin dialects make up 95% of Chinese in China and Mandarin is used for inter-dialectal communication. Why should another dialect be dominant? You should preserve your dialect but realise that Mandarin is also important.

[wushijiao]

When I was in London last month, I went to Chinatown for an hour or so (and talked with the FLG people, who were from Dongbei). I heard a lot of Putonghua on the streets, and it seemed like many people were either students or tourists. On the other hand, all the restaurants looked like they were right out of Hong Kong, (perhaps a bit like flywhc's experience, we looked for Dongbei, Sichuan, or other authentic Mainland food but didn't see anything).

I don't have too much knowledge about Chinatowns, but it seems to me that the eventual shift towards Putonghua should be unavoidable, due to demographics.

I saw daisann's take on this article, which is kind of interesting, although I can't say that I agree with the overall sentiment.

Edited October 29, 2009 at 05:22 PM by wushijiao

[adrianlondon]

There is more variety on Lisle Street than Gerrard Street (the pedestrianised one).