What on earth is General Tso's chicken?

[sqbr]

I keep meaning to post about cultural appropriation since I think it's a really important and interesting issue, but since I'm still figuring it out my ideas never quite coalesce. But in the meantime White American culture is General Tso’s Chicken and Chop Suey.

The video (by Jennifer 8. Lee) is definitely worth watching, about the way that "chinese american" food is as american as beer and pizza and the history of it's invention and misrepresentation.
It's interesting as someone from a different non-chinese country, with it's own different "chinese" food. It took me years to figure out what "egg rolls" and "pot stickers" were :)

The article (by Restructure) is more interested in why this is bad.

Something Restructure brings up in the comments which really pinged for me is that people go on about "authenticity" and it gets this social cache (ie "authentically exotic" food/clothes/music etc as a sign of being cosmopolitan) when what we should worry about is if something is representative.

My thoughts, disclaimer 3b applies. The many Authentic Chinese People on my flist are welcome to thwap me for spouting crap :)

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with people outside China eating "Chinese" food which has little similarity to anything eaten in China. As long as people are aware that it's not "Chinese food", it's a new cuisine which owes as much to the country it's made in as the country it's "from" (like tex-mex compared to actual mexican food, a distinction which in my experience gets lost outside america)

I'm still figuring out what we as (white) individuals can do about this though, beyond just becoming aware of and admitting our own ignorance. Also our own subjectivity: chinese food as eaten in China may seem odd and unappetising to western palettes, but that doesn't make it bad, it just makes us products of a different culture with its own tastes. EDIT: and as both the video and stephiepenguin point out, being aware of the specific racist history behind a lot of this stuff. It's not just benign cultural exchange.

Some people might argue that we should try to only eat representative/"authentic" food, but I'm not sure that's helpful or even possible. Cultures don't divide up neatly like that(*), and if white people eat chinese food we're always going to tend to support business which cater to more western tastes, and if we don't then we're costing chinese restauranteurs business.
EDIT (thanks to commenters): Also there is no one "authentic" way of cooking anything: cultures are complicated and blurry and have lots of subtle subdivisions, and within that you have all the individual cooks who have their own tastes and restrictions. I think the idea of "authenticity" ties into the tendency for people to homogenise the "Other". This is particularly bad when done to "chinese", an adjective which applies to a huge range of subcultures and peoples both inside China and out.

I don't know. I always feel a bit overwhelmed when I consider these situations where the individual actions of rich/white/western people, all made from rational matters of taste/self interest(**), add up to negative social patterns. Because usually it's the case that simplistically moving in the opposite direction causes a different problem, like gentrification vs segregation or white flight. I think I need to gain some levels in anti-racist thinking before I can get my head around it :)

I have such a craving for "chinese" food now...

(*)Note the way that much "chinese" food in Australia is not only chinese-australian food, but chinese-malaysian-australian etc. And why should asian chefs be forced to stick with "authentic" dishes if they want to create something different?
(**)Plus a hefty dose of racism in many cases. But even if not, the racist/classist etc culture they're made in twists the effects

Comments

[stephiepenguin.livejournal.com]

Everybody is talking about this before I have a chance! ;oP

I have for some time now really really wanted to read Jennifer 8.Lee's book. I recently finished reading another book, China to Chinatown: Chinese Food in the West, which was very emphatic about the fact that there exists Chinese-XYZ styles.

I agree with your thoughts on there not being anything wrong with people eating "Chinese" food. Experimentation with food and food styles creates deliciousness, and although I've often scoffed at the idea of fusion food, being Chinese-Malaysian means that a lot of the food I think of as home food is already fusion food. It's Chinese food with all these changes, extra spices due to the Indian influence and changes in noodle styles thanks to Malay influence and it's all grand, and so the fact that there exists Chinese-Australian (or Chinese-American or Chinese-French) food isn't inherantly bad, so long as we can recognise these things for what they are. In some instances of course they are demonstrations of cultural imperialism - the China to Chinatown book suggests that the creation of Chinese-American food like chop suey was to make people like Chinese food better, and therefore like Chinese people better.

[alias_sqbr]

In some instances of course they are demonstrations of cultural imperialism - the China to Chinatown book suggests that the creation of Chinese-American food like chop suey was to make people like Chinese food better, and therefore like Chinese people better.

Yes, and I should have mentioned that too *edits*.

Did you read the comments? There's all these people saying "Well, it's chinese people's fault for selling that sort of food!". With the implication that if they'd just stuck to "authentic" dishes when they came over americans would have cheerfully acclimatised, or at worst shrugged their shoulders and gone "Oh well, different strokes I guess".

EDUT: Oh and with fusion food for me at least the problem is the implication (as with so much cultural appropriation) that the bastardised version is "inventive" and "hip" in a way the original isn't.

[capnoblivious.livejournal.com]

Oh and with fusion food for me at least the problem is the implication (as with so much cultural appropriation) that the bastardised version is "inventive" and "hip" in a way the original isn't.

Can you unpack this for me? My reaction is basically "...isn't it, though?" I mean, almost by definition blending cuisine styles is going to come up with something different than either parent, and if it's original and any good why wouldn't you call it inventive? Why shouldn't it be hip?

[alias_sqbr]

*flails vaguely*

I think it is sometimes very inventive, but a lot of the time it's just a more pretentious version of "Beef and kai-lan made with broccoli instead". Repackaging other culture's stuff with a few minor changes and a giant mark-up is this big Thing people from a dominant culture do, and rubs me the wrong way, but I agree it's not 100% clear-cut here.

[capnoblivious.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I see what you're getting at. Cheers.

[stephiepenguin.livejournal.com]

I have not yet read the comments, but there are still three hours of work left in which I can get VERY ANGRY at people on the internet.

[alias_sqbr]

Glad to oblige :D