The Chinese in Toronto from 1878 - Arlene Chan

Скачать книгу

most popular Chinese dish was chop suey, meaning “mixed bits.” It consists of a hodgepodge of meat and vegetables in a starchy sauce. Food lore has it that chop suey was likely introduced to North America in 1849 during the gold rush, which attracted thousands of Chinese fortune-hunters to California.81 According to Andrew Coe in his book, Chop Suey, that this dish was invented in American restaurants or by Americanized chefs for the visits of a Chinese diplomat named. Li Hongzhang in 1896 is urban legend.82 Another version of its origin is that a Chinese restaurant didn’t know what to feed an important American dignitary, so the cooks tossed odds and ends into a pot and called it chop suey.83 Other stories link the origins of chop suey to the early Chinese settlers, who brought this dish as an Chinese local specialty from the Guangdong province. The dish was a stir-fry of chicken giblets, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, tripe, dried seafood, and whatever else was at hand.

      Regardless of its origins, non-Chinese diners asked for this chop suey dish and a dedicated following blossomed. Restaurant owners adapted by replacing all the foreign and unfamiliar ingredients with ones that were common in North American households. Already a hit in New York City by the 1880s, it was further popularized when Sinclair Lewis wrote in his 1920 novel, Main Street, that “the Babbitts and Rieslings went festively to the movies and had chop suey at a Chinese restaurant.”

      Chop suey eventually made its way north to Canada and grew in popularity. Harry Lem, owner of Lichee Garden, recalled his early days as a waiter in Oshawa, where American engineers from the General Motors plant insisted on ordering chop suey.84 Due to the dish’s popularity, many Chinese restaurants, like International Chop Suey House, named their eateries accordingly.

      Chow mein, literally translated as “fried noodles,” was another dish that looked Chinese and appealed to the Canadian palate. Chow mein consists of boiled noodles that are stir-fried with an assortment of meat and vegetables; however, the Westernized version bears little more than faint resemblance to the original. Legend has it that a Chinese cook accidentally dropped some Chinese noodles into a pot of hot oil and turned them into crispy, brittle noodles. The deep fried noodles of the Western-style chow mein are not considered Chinese cuisine. But the ever-growing popularity of chop suey and chow mein gained these dishes permanent places on menus as Chinese Canadian cuisine. Soon, other items were added, like sweet and sour chicken balls, egg rolls, and egg foo young, all popular for Canadian diners but noticeably absent from menus catering to Chinese clientele.

      Another food item that became associated with Chinese restaurants was, and remains to this day, the fortune cookie. Contrary to popular belief, fortune cookies are not a Chinese dessert. It is true that, in the Yuan dynasty, rebels hid secret messages in cakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival, but this was a single occurrence. Some credit Japan as the country of origin because of references to generations-old family bakeries making fortune cookie-shaped crackers outside Kyoto, and Japanese literature and history mention them many years before the first reports of American fortune cookies.85 Makoto Hagiwara, a Japanese American, is considered to be the inventor, first serving fortune cookies at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, at the turn of the twentieth century.86 David Jung, founder of the Hong Kong Noodle Company in Los Angeles, claims it was he who invented the fortune cookie in 1918.

      Toronto joined the growing ranks of fortune cookie production in 1966, when Far East Products was opened by Edmond and Raymond Lee. Their factory produced 10,000 cookies an hour.87 Even the mayor of the City of North York, on a goodwill mission in China, took 400 giant fortune cookies that were stuffed with messages inviting everyone to come and make a fortune in North York.88 For the grand opening of The World of Suzie Wong at the Hollywood Theatre in 1961, Nanking Tavern supplied 2,000 fortune cookies, 25 of which had the extra fortune of winning a free meal. Regardless of their origin, fortune cookies remain a popular dessert at Chinese Canadian restaurants.

      For Chinese laundries and restaurants, hard work and long hours gained a toehold in Toronto, against all odds. These businesses flourished and, by 1923, reached a pinnacle of florescence in Toronto’s Chinatown. The number of restaurants and laundries was the greatest of any year in the history of the community.90

images

       When the house is set in order, the world is established on a firm course.

      — THE BOOK OF CHANGES, 9TH CENTURY BCE.

      The Chinese remained isolated socially and residentially from Canadian society and retreated into their own economic and social circles. Falling back on their own traditional systems, businesses and community organizations developed and flourished through a complex network of clan, regional, and political associations. The overseas Chinese were already accustomed to turning to such organizations for leadership and support.

      In China when rural farmers migrated to the cities in search of work, they were treated as outsiders. Accustomed to leaving their villages for extended periods of time, Chinese from the same village or district banded together into organizations for protection and mutual aid. These regional associations (hui guan) were dominated by wealthy merchants who took on a governing role, overseeing taxation, population registration, and political decision making.

      In Canada, merchant leaders organized similar associations. When the Chinese immigrants arrived, they knew where to turn for help. These associations were the lifelines for the bachelor phase of Toronto’s early community and havens in an alien and unwelcoming environment. Membership offered support, companionship, and a link with the cultural traditions of the homeland. The associations provided services, otherwise unavailable to the Chinese, in the way of settlement assistance, help with sending remittances to China, lodging, and employment.

      If they have any quarrels or conflict of interest, the family association will step in and try to solve their problems without going outside the big family association. One of our Chinese sayings is translated, “Don’t wash your dirty linen in public.” If you need help you can go to the family association.1

      A critical function of the associations was the banking system. Since Chinese were denied loans from Canadian banks, the only way of securing funds for opening a business, purchasing land, or other financial needs was through their associations. Operating like a credit union, groups of people pooled their financial resources to help others borrow money.

      If you wanted to borrow some money for an emergency or to buy a piece of new equipment like a washing machine, you could go to the association … Each association would have groups of about twenty-five men. Approximately every two weeks, money would be available to the highest bidder. Generally it was on a Sunday when it would open up.2

      This money-lending system, called the “three benefits societies,” worked well in a small community where everyone was known and affiliated with a clan or district association. The three beneficiaries of the “three benefits societies” were the borrowers, the shareholders, and the association. Although defaults in payment were rare, a guarantor, usually a close kinsman, was required as a safeguard. This credit union system remained as a significant function of the associations until western bank services were made available to the Chinese in the 1960s.

      The period from 1900 to 1923 saw the rapid development of traditional associations. The four types were clan or surname associations (kung so or tong), district associations (hui guan), community organizations, and political associations.

      Clan and District Associations

      Surname and home territory were used as eligibility for membership in the clan and district associations. The early immigrants, who came to Canada in the 1880s, were predominantly (87 percent) from Si Yi, meaning Four Counties or Districts, and San Yi, meaning Three Counties or Districts, all southwest of the capital city of Guangzhou in the Guangdong province (see Table 7).3 The four counties in Si Yi are Taishan, Kaiping, Xinhua, and Enping, the homebase for 64 percent of the immigrants. Nearly one quarter of all Chinese immigrants came from the Taishan county alone, a mountainous coastal region where the agricultural output could only support

Скачать книгу