You may be familiar with dim sum, China’s answer to the weekend brunch, but when it comes to the weekday morning or a quiet Sunday spent at home, what’s for breakfast? The classic Chinese breakfast consists of three things: a bowl of rice porridge, a fried cruller, and a tall glass of soy milk.
- Congee (粥; zhōu or juk in Chinese) is a type of porridge made by boiling rice in water over the course of several hours. It’s a popular breakfast dish throughout Asia and can be found in countries as diverse as Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Japan. In China, congee is often topped with salted duck eggs, minced pork, or picked vegetables–these salty flavors complement the mild, somewhat bland taste of the rice gruel. You might also call congee the “chicken soup” of Chinese cuisine as it goes down easy when you have a sore throat or are feeling under the weather. Read more…
No visitor to Chinatown should leave without sampling the Asian-inspired flavors at Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. This cheerful little shop has been family-owned and operated since the late 70s when ice cream experienced a renaissance of sorts–Ben & Jerrys and Haagan Dazs started selling scoops around the same time–and since then CICF has become an undeniable neighborhood fixture. A day without a line trailing out the door is rare, even during the winter months. Specialty flavors include green tea, red bean, lychee, black sesame (my personal fave), egg custard tart, almond cookie, taro, zen butter, pandan, durian, and ginger.
I caught up with Christina Seid, who has been helping out at the store since she was 12 and now runs the business full-time, to see what her Chinatown looks like. Read more…
hapa [haw-puh]: 1. From the Hawaiian word meaning half, part, fragment; to be partial, less. 2. A person of mixed heritage, usually part Asian or Pacific Islander. 3. Originating from the Hawaiian term hapa haole, which literally means “half white”; a person of mixed blood who is part Hawaiian, part white.
Identity is a slippery thing. There are many ways to explain who and what you are, yet words often fail to encompass the entirety of that identity in all its beauty and complexity. I am half Chinese, half Irish. The dictionary might offer up terms like: multiracial, mixed race, mutt, eurasian, amerasian, or 混血 (mixed-blood). I eschew all of them for hapa or, simply, mixed.
Hapa, like most words, has evolved over the years from its original Hawaiian meaning. If you’ve ever been to Hawaii you know that there is an obvious distinction between the locals and the tourists. Back in the day when Hawaiians were still the majority and whites the exception, hapa was most commonly used in the phrase hapa haole or half white. As more Asians have immigrated to the U.S. and become a part of American culture (especially in California where the largest population of Asian Americans resides), hapa has come to mean someone who is part Asian, part white, or more broadly, anyone of mixed heritage.
photo by Guney Cuceloglu
On an ordinary weekday night I woke up at 2 am with a start and sat bolt upright in the midnight haze. The word “haze” doesn’t do justice to the sooty particles hanging in the air, the thick scent of smoke permeating the apartment. My roommate and I flung open our doors at the same moment as if we had telepathically sounded the alarm: “Do you smell smoke?”
We pulled on sweatshirts and slippers and dutifully woke up our buddhist neighbor. Did she smell the smoke? She politely dismissed our concerns while blinking sleepily in the hallway’s harsh florescent light. We hesitated over what to do next, but by then it was too late to turn back; there was no way we were going back to the haze to sleep without an “all clear” signal. The Grand Street fire only a year and a half before had taught us that lesson.
If there’s something strange
in your neighborhood,
who you gonna call?
The Chinatown Dragon Fighters, of course. We walked down the block and around the corner with a sense of mission to the Engine 9, Ladder 6 fire station and rang the doorbell. Hardly a second later a groggy fireman appeared at the door. Our story tumbled out in spurts–smoke, tenement building, Eldridge Street, fire! Read more…
Produce deals in Chinatown are the best to be had in all of New York City. On any day of the week, thrifty shoppers and cooks in search of the freshest ingredients can head down to Forsyth Street and find a wealth of fruits and veggies. From afar, this makeshift farmer’s market looks like a caravan of nondescript moving trucks, but once you get close, a long line of sidewalk stalls comes into view. Simply follow the vibrant hues of tomatoes and turnips, eggplants and snap peas, ginger root and winter melon that wind down the side of the Manhattan Bridge. Read more…
SCENE
(Gray folding chairs have been arranged in a clumsy circle. Despite the chairs, the room is nearly empty. The white walls lie vacant except for one or two small framed photographs; in each picture a group of men looking festive in matching jackets are gathered together in several rows, a banner strewn across the bottom row that reads: Foochow Village Association No. 5. The hardwood floor has no finish and has been scuffed and scratched beyond recognition, even though the apartment is less than a year old. A group of Chinese men and women enter the room, followed by two young American girls in their twenties. The meeting, conducted almost entirely in Chinese, begins.)
MR. DENG
Hello everyone. Thank you for coming to the board meeting. We have several issues to discuss. Do you want to start?
(He motions to the young women sitting in the corner. Mr. Deng is dressed in a cheap pinstripe suit, probably made by a local knockoff tailor. A loose gold chain dangles around his wrist. He is the manager of a restaurant down on East Broadway.)
SHIRLEY
Yeah, basically we’re tired of strange people coming in and out of the building. They buzz our apartment at all hours. They leave trash in the hallway and smoke and spit in the elevator. It’s disgusting.
NEIGHBOR
I still find people smoking in there even though we have a sign in the elevator that says “No Smoking, No Spitting.” We should make the sign even bigger so that no one can miss it. Read more…
