These days it's a very rare occasion for us to eat in Chinatown. The Chinese food in the San Gabriel Valley is so much superior, and unless you're traveling during rush hour, it isn't that much further away. But there was a time when Chinatown was the place to go for Chinese food, and I don't just mean the time period before the Chinese started moving to the San Gabriel Valley. As I previously discussed, the first noticeable movement of Chinese residents into Monterey Park occurred in the early to mid-1960s. The Chinese population in the Los Angeles area began to swell in the late 1960s as the change in U.S. immigration policies took effect. Yet, it wasn't until the mid to late 1980s that the San Gabriel Valley overtook Chinatown as the preferred locale for Chinese food.
As discussed before, the first traces of Hong Kong style Chinese food landed in Los Angeles Chinatown in the 1960s, shortly after the new Chinese immigrants started to arrive from Hong Kong. In contrast, my recollection is that modern authentic Chinese food did not come to the San Gabriel Valley until the 1976 opening of Kin Kwok on Garvey Ave. in Monterey Park. Other notable San Gabriel Valley openings in the late 1970s included Nam Tin, in Monterey Park, probably the first banquet sized restaurant to open, and House of Louie, also in Monterey Park.
Meanwhile, things were hopping in Chinatown. 1979 marked a significant step forward with the opening of the Food Center, the street to street, all food mall that opened between North Broadway and Hill St. Patterned after "Sihk Gaai" in Hong Kong, the Food Center was stuffed top to bottom, end to end with new restaurants offering the best Chinese food in the metropolitan area. And these weren't Hong Kong Low or Lime House restaurants. These were brand new restaurants, with the large anchor spaces taken by Szechwan Palace and Great Shanghai, pioneering restaurants for their genre in Los Angeles.
This is not to say that the San Gabriel Valley wasn't evolving. The first Hong Kong style seafood restaurants opened up around 1980. Sea Palace, which opened up in Monterey Park in 1980 may have been the first in the San Gabriel Valley. Other Hong Kong style seafood restaurants followed in Monterey Park, such as Sea Dragon, Champagne Restaurant and Fortuna Seafood. But these were matched in Chinatown's Food Center by Hong Kong Jade Garden and Manning Seafood, later followed by Diamond Seafood, and Regent Seafood on Main St.
But it was Chinatown which brought us the first superior Hong Kong style seafood restaurant in 1984 with the opening of A B C Seafood. Replacing the venerable but boring Lime House, this was the first knock your socks off Chinese restaurant in Los Angeles. This was the quality of Chinese restaurant that Angelenos used to drive to San Francisco to find, or even fly to New York City, only better. For more than a decade, Chinatown's ABC Seafood would represent the best Chinese food in Los Angeles, if not the entire United States. And in the ultimate ascendancy of Los Angeles to claim the title of having best Chinese food in the U.S., the opening of A B C Seafood was the initial round.
Ironically, the success of A B C Seafood in Chinatown also ultimately led to the San Gabriel Valley eclipsing Chinatown as the locus of Chinese food in the Los Angeles area. A B C Seafood was a rollicking success but its fewer than 30 table capacity limited its potential Consequently, a sister restaurant christened N B C Seafood opened up in palatial sized premises in Monterey Park just two years later in 1986 in the space formerly occupied by the Golden Shark buffet, likely providing the tipping point for the San Gabriel Valley to become the premiere Chinese dining area in Los Angeles. This was followed by the opening in the late 1980s of several shopping centers housing dozens of Chinese restaurants on Valley Blvd. in San Gabriel, including large numbers of non-Cantonese style restaurants, which would turn the city of San Gabriel into the epicenter of Chinese food (amazingly until around 1983 there were no authentic Chinese restaurants in the city of San Gabriel); the opening of the first large Chinese mega shopping center in Rowland Heights in 1990, setting the eastern San Gabriel Valley up as a major player in the world of SGV Chinese food; the opening of Ocean Star Seafood in 1992 amidst unbelievable hype as the ultimate Hong Kong style food palace; the mid-1990s ascent of the SGV as the locus of the best Chinese food in the US, as Angelenos completely stopped driving to the Bay Area on weekends to get better Chinese food, and Bay Area eaters started coming down here to get their Chinese food fix; and the 2002 opening of Vancouver's Sea Harbour restaurant in Rosemead, marking the start of high level Chinese dining and widening the gap between Los Angeles area Chinese food and the rest of the country.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Why Aren't There Great Chinese Restaurants In New York (Reprint of My Menuism Article)
I was commissioned recently to write an article detailing my choices for the 10 Best Chinese Restaurants in the United States, when I quickly realized I had a problem. No, it wasn’t that I felt unqualified to draft such a list, since I have eaten at thousands of Chinese restaurants in Los Angeles and San Francisco, hundreds of Chinese restaurants in New York City, and a representative sampling of the best Chinese restaurants in Chicago, Boston, Houston, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Honolulu, Dallas, and any other city having a decent sized Chinese community. The problem was that when I compiled my list, all 10 restaurants were in California — seven in Los Angeles and three in San Francisco, which didn’t look like the national list it was supposed to be. The article ran anyway, with the editor spinning the title to ask if all of the best Chinese restaurants were in California.
The response was immediate: Californians, particularly those who were familiar with New York Chinese food, in complete agreement, while many New Yorkers gave me the Bronx cheer and accused me of being biased towards my hometown food. That accusation is easily refuted by the fact that if I were to do a 10 Best list for Chinese food in North America, all my choices would come from Canada, either Vancouver or Toronto, and none would come from California. Note that many New Yorkers who had actually eaten the Chinese food in Los Angeles and San Francisco agree on California’s superiority, with most New York naysayers admitting they had not eaten in the San Gabriel Valley in suburban Los Angeles, home to the best Chinese food in California (and the country). A prominent food blogger for one of New York City’s newspapers referred to New York Chinese food as “crappy” compared to Los Angeles. So I believe the premise that New York clearly trails Los Angeles and San Francisco in the quality of Chinese food is a reasonable one.
So what is the reason for this gulf between California and New York Chinese food? After all, New York Chinese food did surpass San Francisco as America’s Chinese food mecca back in the mid-1980s, while we in Los Angeles would actually talk about specific Chinese restaurants we would like to try in New York. And the Chinese population in the New York area is comparable to, if not larger than, the Chinese populations in Los Angeles or San Francisco, so community size doesn’t seem to be the difference.
The real reason for the chasm between New York and California Chinese food is demographics. I have often said that New York Chinese food is stuck in the 1990s. Make no mistake — 1990s Chinese food was very good and there are many, many very good Chinese restaurants today in Flushing, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. But Chinese food has evolved significantly in the past decade and that evolution has largely bypassed New York. One major demographic difference can be seen in comparing the Chinese populations in New York and Los Angeles. As first brought to my attention in a Business Week article two decades ago and reinforced by a book and New York Times articles written by Jennifer 8 Lee, Chinese immigration to New York for over two decades has in large part originated from Fujian province. The Fujianese are largely working-class people, and many of them are undocumented. Check out Manhattan’s Chinatown, particularly the portion off East Broadway, and you can see this densely packed area is largely minimum wage territory. Obviously, the entire New York Chinese community isn’t working-class, but there is a heavier weighting in that direction.
In contrast, the Chinese population in Los Angeles skews more to the upper-middle class. Not to say there aren’t working class Chinese here, and indeed there are plenty. But there hasn’t been the large working-class immigration from China to California like there has been in New York. (There are virtually no Fujianese immigrants here). Rather, for over 30 years the San Gabriel Valley near Los Angeles has been marketed in Asia as the “Chinese Beverly Hills.” Wealthy Chinese investors would buy houses in the San Gabriel Valley and send their families to reside while themselves continuing to live abroad. Meanwhile, a heavily professional technical upper-middle class Chinese community has spread across the San Gabriel Valley. Indeed the economic strength of the Chinese community is shown by the fact that there has been little residential real estate price erosion here during the great recession, and prices in the most expensive San Gabriel Valley city of San Marino are at historic highs. This is a community that demands and can afford the best Chinese food.
Furthermore, the San Gabriel Valley has spawned what the press has dubbed the “626 Generation”, referring to the San Gabriel Valley’s telephone area code. These are the upper-middle class twenty- and thirtysomething Asians who have developed a food-centric culture. For this generation weaned on the Food Network, good eating is king. They dine out a dozen or more times a week in local Chinese restaurants, and then head to the local boba shop for drinks and dessert.
One other demographic factor distinguishes California Chinese food from New York. If one takes what are often considered to be the best Chinese food centers in North America — Vancouver, Toronto, Los Angeles and San Francisco — and compares them to New York, there is one stark reality. The Chinese food in all four of these cities has a heavy Hong Kong influence, while New York does not. Chinese food continues to evolve and improve, and a major hotbed of this evolution is Hong Kong. While eating in Hong Kong knocks the pants off any Chinese food on this continent, there is enough of a presence to continually raise the bar in these Canadian and California Chinese communities.
The response was immediate: Californians, particularly those who were familiar with New York Chinese food, in complete agreement, while many New Yorkers gave me the Bronx cheer and accused me of being biased towards my hometown food. That accusation is easily refuted by the fact that if I were to do a 10 Best list for Chinese food in North America, all my choices would come from Canada, either Vancouver or Toronto, and none would come from California. Note that many New Yorkers who had actually eaten the Chinese food in Los Angeles and San Francisco agree on California’s superiority, with most New York naysayers admitting they had not eaten in the San Gabriel Valley in suburban Los Angeles, home to the best Chinese food in California (and the country). A prominent food blogger for one of New York City’s newspapers referred to New York Chinese food as “crappy” compared to Los Angeles. So I believe the premise that New York clearly trails Los Angeles and San Francisco in the quality of Chinese food is a reasonable one.
So what is the reason for this gulf between California and New York Chinese food? After all, New York Chinese food did surpass San Francisco as America’s Chinese food mecca back in the mid-1980s, while we in Los Angeles would actually talk about specific Chinese restaurants we would like to try in New York. And the Chinese population in the New York area is comparable to, if not larger than, the Chinese populations in Los Angeles or San Francisco, so community size doesn’t seem to be the difference.
The real reason for the chasm between New York and California Chinese food is demographics. I have often said that New York Chinese food is stuck in the 1990s. Make no mistake — 1990s Chinese food was very good and there are many, many very good Chinese restaurants today in Flushing, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. But Chinese food has evolved significantly in the past decade and that evolution has largely bypassed New York. One major demographic difference can be seen in comparing the Chinese populations in New York and Los Angeles. As first brought to my attention in a Business Week article two decades ago and reinforced by a book and New York Times articles written by Jennifer 8 Lee, Chinese immigration to New York for over two decades has in large part originated from Fujian province. The Fujianese are largely working-class people, and many of them are undocumented. Check out Manhattan’s Chinatown, particularly the portion off East Broadway, and you can see this densely packed area is largely minimum wage territory. Obviously, the entire New York Chinese community isn’t working-class, but there is a heavier weighting in that direction.
In contrast, the Chinese population in Los Angeles skews more to the upper-middle class. Not to say there aren’t working class Chinese here, and indeed there are plenty. But there hasn’t been the large working-class immigration from China to California like there has been in New York. (There are virtually no Fujianese immigrants here). Rather, for over 30 years the San Gabriel Valley near Los Angeles has been marketed in Asia as the “Chinese Beverly Hills.” Wealthy Chinese investors would buy houses in the San Gabriel Valley and send their families to reside while themselves continuing to live abroad. Meanwhile, a heavily professional technical upper-middle class Chinese community has spread across the San Gabriel Valley. Indeed the economic strength of the Chinese community is shown by the fact that there has been little residential real estate price erosion here during the great recession, and prices in the most expensive San Gabriel Valley city of San Marino are at historic highs. This is a community that demands and can afford the best Chinese food.
Furthermore, the San Gabriel Valley has spawned what the press has dubbed the “626 Generation”, referring to the San Gabriel Valley’s telephone area code. These are the upper-middle class twenty- and thirtysomething Asians who have developed a food-centric culture. For this generation weaned on the Food Network, good eating is king. They dine out a dozen or more times a week in local Chinese restaurants, and then head to the local boba shop for drinks and dessert.
One other demographic factor distinguishes California Chinese food from New York. If one takes what are often considered to be the best Chinese food centers in North America — Vancouver, Toronto, Los Angeles and San Francisco — and compares them to New York, there is one stark reality. The Chinese food in all four of these cities has a heavy Hong Kong influence, while New York does not. Chinese food continues to evolve and improve, and a major hotbed of this evolution is Hong Kong. While eating in Hong Kong knocks the pants off any Chinese food on this continent, there is enough of a presence to continually raise the bar in these Canadian and California Chinese communities.
Beyond The "X's" and "O's"--Why Stanford Beat UCLA in the Pac-12 Football Championship Game
Last night, Stanford beat UCLA 27-24 in a nailbiting conference football championship game that went down to the wire. This was just six days after the same two teams met at the Rose Bowl, with Stanford prevailing 35-17. While few people gave UCLA a chance to win the rematch, the oddsmakers favoring the Cardinal by 8 points (after opening as a 10 point favorite), I thought UCLA would win due to factors other than the physical matchup, which one might refer to as psychological or behavioral factors. However, as things turned out, Stanford won the game, and again for reasons beyond the X's and O's of game analysis, I fully accept the outcome.
There were two main reasons why I thought the Bruins would win. First of all, UCLA had played an atypically bad game against Stanford the week before. UCLA quarterback Brett Hundley failed to scramble as he usually does when pressured in the pocket, his throwing accuracy was off, his receivers had uncharacteristic dropped balls, and the defense missed tackles. To me this was easily explainable. UCLA had just beaten crosstown rival USC the week before, for the first time in six years (and as statisticians point out only the second time in 13 years, though as most statisticians ignored, also the tenth time in 21 years), and I was sure that the team was still savoring that win. I know I was, and for the first time in memory I was sitting in the stands at the Rose Bowl, not particularly enthusiastic about the game unfolding in front of me. Plus Stanford really needed the win. Consequently I expected UCLA to play much better in the rematch.
The second reason was that Stanford had played three emotional, must win games in a row against Oregon State, Oregon, and then UCLA. It is my strong belief that no team can bring its "A" game four weeks in a row--it just isn't humanly possible. Just go back to UCLA's stunning 13-9 win over USC in 2006. Even though most observers had mailed in a USC win even before the game, USC had won three straight games against tough, ranked opponents, Cal, Oregon and Notre Dame, and was bound to have the letdown that they did. While the Bruins played a gutty game that night, SC's off night was also a major factor in the loss that knocked them out of the BCS championship game. As such, I did not expect Stanford to play their best game last night.
As things turned out, I was right on both counts. Where UCLA was unable to run the football the week before, this week they shredded Stanford's seemingly impenetrable rushing defense. And UCLA's defense really stepped up its overall performance against Stanford. Yet, in the end, Stanford won again despite a performance which upset Stanford coach Shaw throughout the game. Bruin fans lament the nearly "Pick 6" thrown by Hundley early in the game with UCLA leading by 14-7 and threatening to score again. UCLA fans also point to the Bruins' statistical advantage and declared that despite the score, UCLA was the better team that day. But while I was certainly extremely disappointed by the loss, I don't look at the "what if's" or think that UCLA should have won, though I agree that they could have pulled it out.
With regard to the apparently game changing interception, I don't think that changed the ultimate outcome. Through 50 years of watching football and other sports, I have concluded that some games are meant to come down to the wire, and that the details of the game coming up to crunch time are nearly irrelevant. Yes, if Hundley didn't throw the interception UCLA might have gone up 21-7 or 17-7, but under those circumstances I believe the game would have unfolded differently. Athletic contests are interactive events, and when one team does something, the other team responds. You can't assume that if you change the outcome of one play in a game that everything else would be the same. And in a what turns out to be a close game there is just going to be an ebb and flow.
My other behavioral observation from years of watching sports is that the "better" team is the one which performs when it counts. Statistically and aesthetically, UCLA did look like the better football team. But the important thing is who came through at crunch time. Last night, despite having the better offensive performance, UCLA did not score in the fourth quarter, when the game was on the line, while Stanford scored 10 points, which was sufficient to give them a 3 point win.
So while I was terribly disappointed in the outcome of the game, I was pretty much over the loss fairly quickly. In hindsight, Stanford is a great team, significantly better than UCLA, and UCLA was fortunate in being in a position to possibly win the game at the end. It was a game that UCLA could have won if everything went right, but not one which they should have won.
There were two main reasons why I thought the Bruins would win. First of all, UCLA had played an atypically bad game against Stanford the week before. UCLA quarterback Brett Hundley failed to scramble as he usually does when pressured in the pocket, his throwing accuracy was off, his receivers had uncharacteristic dropped balls, and the defense missed tackles. To me this was easily explainable. UCLA had just beaten crosstown rival USC the week before, for the first time in six years (and as statisticians point out only the second time in 13 years, though as most statisticians ignored, also the tenth time in 21 years), and I was sure that the team was still savoring that win. I know I was, and for the first time in memory I was sitting in the stands at the Rose Bowl, not particularly enthusiastic about the game unfolding in front of me. Plus Stanford really needed the win. Consequently I expected UCLA to play much better in the rematch.
The second reason was that Stanford had played three emotional, must win games in a row against Oregon State, Oregon, and then UCLA. It is my strong belief that no team can bring its "A" game four weeks in a row--it just isn't humanly possible. Just go back to UCLA's stunning 13-9 win over USC in 2006. Even though most observers had mailed in a USC win even before the game, USC had won three straight games against tough, ranked opponents, Cal, Oregon and Notre Dame, and was bound to have the letdown that they did. While the Bruins played a gutty game that night, SC's off night was also a major factor in the loss that knocked them out of the BCS championship game. As such, I did not expect Stanford to play their best game last night.
As things turned out, I was right on both counts. Where UCLA was unable to run the football the week before, this week they shredded Stanford's seemingly impenetrable rushing defense. And UCLA's defense really stepped up its overall performance against Stanford. Yet, in the end, Stanford won again despite a performance which upset Stanford coach Shaw throughout the game. Bruin fans lament the nearly "Pick 6" thrown by Hundley early in the game with UCLA leading by 14-7 and threatening to score again. UCLA fans also point to the Bruins' statistical advantage and declared that despite the score, UCLA was the better team that day. But while I was certainly extremely disappointed by the loss, I don't look at the "what if's" or think that UCLA should have won, though I agree that they could have pulled it out.
With regard to the apparently game changing interception, I don't think that changed the ultimate outcome. Through 50 years of watching football and other sports, I have concluded that some games are meant to come down to the wire, and that the details of the game coming up to crunch time are nearly irrelevant. Yes, if Hundley didn't throw the interception UCLA might have gone up 21-7 or 17-7, but under those circumstances I believe the game would have unfolded differently. Athletic contests are interactive events, and when one team does something, the other team responds. You can't assume that if you change the outcome of one play in a game that everything else would be the same. And in a what turns out to be a close game there is just going to be an ebb and flow.
My other behavioral observation from years of watching sports is that the "better" team is the one which performs when it counts. Statistically and aesthetically, UCLA did look like the better football team. But the important thing is who came through at crunch time. Last night, despite having the better offensive performance, UCLA did not score in the fourth quarter, when the game was on the line, while Stanford scored 10 points, which was sufficient to give them a 3 point win.
So while I was terribly disappointed in the outcome of the game, I was pretty much over the loss fairly quickly. In hindsight, Stanford is a great team, significantly better than UCLA, and UCLA was fortunate in being in a position to possibly win the game at the end. It was a game that UCLA could have won if everything went right, but not one which they should have won.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Bowl Championship Series Chaos--Wooden's Rule Rules Again
Every college football season I laugh when a month before the end of the regular season there are still several undefeated teams and pundits worry about what will happen if three or more teams remain undefeated at the end of the year. Yet, time after time, there is typically only one undefeated team left by season's end, which lends to its own controversy about which one of several one loss teams deserves the berth in the BCS championship game. Because what happens is that in the final weeks of the season, most of the undefeated teams fall victim to upset, quite often in a stunning manner, such as last night's loss by Kansas State to unranked Baylor, Oregon's shocking home loss to Stanford, and Alabama's previous week's loss to Texas A & M. Or back in 2007, when a whole parade of unbeaten teams suffered stupefying losses while on an apparently clear path to the BCS title game.
These stunning year end losses occur every year, and as I pointed out before, are easily explained by John Wooden's simple, yet not widely recognized observation, that being on a winning streak creates pressures that lead to the streak's demise. It is not clear why such is a case. Is is conscious or subconscious in nature? Do teams start playing not to lose instead of to win? I don't know, but it happens pretty much like clockwork all the time, in all sports. Now there are refinements that have to be made to the rule. A team that is vastly superior to all of its opposition can continue to win for an extended period of time, like the classic UCLA basketball and Oklahoma football teams. In contrast, a team that is not clearly superior, particularly when marked by a series of close wins, and particularly against mediocre oppostion, is much more susceptible to an unexpected winning streak ending loss.
However, there is one element to this rule which befuddles me. A lot of these streak breaking losses are inflicted by teams that on paper are quite inferior to the teams that they beat. Why do these teams rise to the occasion at the right time? Even if the streaking team concededly doesn't play its best game, the other team needs to play near its peak performance How does an average Baylor team rise up and dominate the #1 rated Kansas State team? Or do the same thing to Oklahoma State last year? How did a Miami team that had been stomped the week before come back in the last game of 1998 and knock UCLA out of the BCS championship game? Why did so many underdogs bite back at the end of the 2007season to derail teams headed to the BCS championship? It happens too often to be a coincidence, but I really have no good explanation why.
These stunning year end losses occur every year, and as I pointed out before, are easily explained by John Wooden's simple, yet not widely recognized observation, that being on a winning streak creates pressures that lead to the streak's demise. It is not clear why such is a case. Is is conscious or subconscious in nature? Do teams start playing not to lose instead of to win? I don't know, but it happens pretty much like clockwork all the time, in all sports. Now there are refinements that have to be made to the rule. A team that is vastly superior to all of its opposition can continue to win for an extended period of time, like the classic UCLA basketball and Oklahoma football teams. In contrast, a team that is not clearly superior, particularly when marked by a series of close wins, and particularly against mediocre oppostion, is much more susceptible to an unexpected winning streak ending loss.
However, there is one element to this rule which befuddles me. A lot of these streak breaking losses are inflicted by teams that on paper are quite inferior to the teams that they beat. Why do these teams rise to the occasion at the right time? Even if the streaking team concededly doesn't play its best game, the other team needs to play near its peak performance How does an average Baylor team rise up and dominate the #1 rated Kansas State team? Or do the same thing to Oklahoma State last year? How did a Miami team that had been stomped the week before come back in the last game of 1998 and knock UCLA out of the BCS championship game? Why did so many underdogs bite back at the end of the 2007season to derail teams headed to the BCS championship? It happens too often to be a coincidence, but I really have no good explanation why.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Spending The Night At JFK Airport
We've all see the news reports of passengers stranded at a closed airport, forced to sleep on the floor or on uncomfortable chairs until they could catch a flight out of town. Sometimes I would wonder why they don't just get a hotel room someplace, or perhaps they didn't budget for another night's hotel stay. So it was stunning last week when I found myself forced to stay overnight in Terminal 5 at JFK airport.
A couple of months previously we were booked to fly to New Orleans from Dallas on what turned out to be the day before Hurricane Issac hit that city, but properly warned, we instead flew home to Los Angeles from Dallas. When we flew out of Burbank last Wednesday morning to New York, and then connecting to Washington D.C., we were aware that a Nor'easter might strike the east coast, but the last reports the night before were that the storm was starting to veer away from the Atlantic Coast and the effects would not be serious. And when our flight boarded as scheduled at 7 am, I figured everything would be manageable. Now flying on Jet Blue, we had the advantage of watching TV while flying cross country, and the reports were worrisome. The storm had been given a name, Winter Storm Athena, and we saw that some carriers were canceling operations at JFK, prior to our scheduled landing time. However, we did continue on and landed on time at JFK, where it was raining with snow flurries. We waited for our flight to DC and even boarded the plane but it started snowing heavily. We were on the plane for a couple of hours, watching the snow blow horizontally and cover much of the window, before they eventually canceled the flight, due more to the winds that the snow. When we got to the front of the customer service line after an hour wait, it turned out the best alternative was to fly to Boston at 6:30 am, then from there to Reagan, rather than Dulles. However by the time that was settled, there were no hotel rooms by the airport so we had to stay overnight at the airport, essentially homeless. (I would have considered staying in Manhattan if we weren't booked for such an early departure in the morning.)
We really didn't sleep much at all overnight, since the seats in the terminal weren't made for sleeping, plus they didn't lower the lights, even though there were no flights after midnight. Also for some reason they kept running a general announcement about the pet walking zones once or twice every hour. And it seemed like a lot of the other stranded passengers didn't even try going to sleep, preferring to engage in animated conversation. So by 4:30 am we were up and walking around. And the airport at 4:30 am was a real revelation, seeing how busy it was with shops opening up and passengers (aside from those who were stuck in the terminal overnight) arriving for the flights. There was an incredibly long line of people buying coffee at the Dunkin Donuts and at the Cibo checkout.
A major issue in all this was our luggage. When they rebooked us for the New York to Boston to Washington Reagan circuit, I asked about our luggage. The agent told me it would stay on the original plane and be delivered to Dulles airport in the morning, where our cancelled flight had been scheduled to land, and that indeed it would be there before we landed at Reagan. I really didn't relish the thought of driving out to Dulles just to pick up our luggage, but it would be much better than losing your luggage completely. However during the chaos I heard a voice shout out of a speaker phone something like that there would be no rerouting of cancelled flights "except for the DC flight". At first I didn't understand what that meant. However later in the evening while perusing the flight departures board looking for an update of the morning's Boston flights, plus looking for clues or patterns from Thursday flights already cancelled, I saw that the Thursday morning Jet Blue flight from JFK to Dulles had been cancelled. Well if that flight was cancelled, how would would our luggage get to Dulles? Did the reference to "not re-routing except for the DC flight" refer to luggage, and were they going to track the replacement flights of the passengers on our plane and send those luggage along because there was no follow up flight to Dulles? So when we arrived at Reagan, I went to baggage claim and asked them if our baggage might be there. The agent replied that another passenger from our cancelled flight had already found his luggage so it could well be there. And by the time I caught up to Mrs. Chandavkl, she had grabbed our bags and I was happy that I pieced things together and didn't believe what Jet Blue had told us.
At the time all this transpired, it was certainly aggravating, tiring, and trying set of circumstances. But in hindsight, this turned out to be a very interesting adventure that was almost worthwhile.
A couple of months previously we were booked to fly to New Orleans from Dallas on what turned out to be the day before Hurricane Issac hit that city, but properly warned, we instead flew home to Los Angeles from Dallas. When we flew out of Burbank last Wednesday morning to New York, and then connecting to Washington D.C., we were aware that a Nor'easter might strike the east coast, but the last reports the night before were that the storm was starting to veer away from the Atlantic Coast and the effects would not be serious. And when our flight boarded as scheduled at 7 am, I figured everything would be manageable. Now flying on Jet Blue, we had the advantage of watching TV while flying cross country, and the reports were worrisome. The storm had been given a name, Winter Storm Athena, and we saw that some carriers were canceling operations at JFK, prior to our scheduled landing time. However, we did continue on and landed on time at JFK, where it was raining with snow flurries. We waited for our flight to DC and even boarded the plane but it started snowing heavily. We were on the plane for a couple of hours, watching the snow blow horizontally and cover much of the window, before they eventually canceled the flight, due more to the winds that the snow. When we got to the front of the customer service line after an hour wait, it turned out the best alternative was to fly to Boston at 6:30 am, then from there to Reagan, rather than Dulles. However by the time that was settled, there were no hotel rooms by the airport so we had to stay overnight at the airport, essentially homeless. (I would have considered staying in Manhattan if we weren't booked for such an early departure in the morning.)
We really didn't sleep much at all overnight, since the seats in the terminal weren't made for sleeping, plus they didn't lower the lights, even though there were no flights after midnight. Also for some reason they kept running a general announcement about the pet walking zones once or twice every hour. And it seemed like a lot of the other stranded passengers didn't even try going to sleep, preferring to engage in animated conversation. So by 4:30 am we were up and walking around. And the airport at 4:30 am was a real revelation, seeing how busy it was with shops opening up and passengers (aside from those who were stuck in the terminal overnight) arriving for the flights. There was an incredibly long line of people buying coffee at the Dunkin Donuts and at the Cibo checkout.
A major issue in all this was our luggage. When they rebooked us for the New York to Boston to Washington Reagan circuit, I asked about our luggage. The agent told me it would stay on the original plane and be delivered to Dulles airport in the morning, where our cancelled flight had been scheduled to land, and that indeed it would be there before we landed at Reagan. I really didn't relish the thought of driving out to Dulles just to pick up our luggage, but it would be much better than losing your luggage completely. However during the chaos I heard a voice shout out of a speaker phone something like that there would be no rerouting of cancelled flights "except for the DC flight". At first I didn't understand what that meant. However later in the evening while perusing the flight departures board looking for an update of the morning's Boston flights, plus looking for clues or patterns from Thursday flights already cancelled, I saw that the Thursday morning Jet Blue flight from JFK to Dulles had been cancelled. Well if that flight was cancelled, how would would our luggage get to Dulles? Did the reference to "not re-routing except for the DC flight" refer to luggage, and were they going to track the replacement flights of the passengers on our plane and send those luggage along because there was no follow up flight to Dulles? So when we arrived at Reagan, I went to baggage claim and asked them if our baggage might be there. The agent replied that another passenger from our cancelled flight had already found his luggage so it could well be there. And by the time I caught up to Mrs. Chandavkl, she had grabbed our bags and I was happy that I pieced things together and didn't believe what Jet Blue had told us.
At the time all this transpired, it was certainly aggravating, tiring, and trying set of circumstances. But in hindsight, this turned out to be a very interesting adventure that was almost worthwhile.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
How Americanized Food Came To Be (My Huffington Post Article)
If you visit any of today's modern Chinese American communities, such as the San Gabriel Valley outside of Los Angeles, Flushing in New York, or numerous areas around San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and even Houston, you will find an interesting array of wonderful and delicious Chinese food. Yet when you compare that to what most 20th century Americans believed to be Chinese food, (and what still passes as Chinese food in many parts of the country to this day), there's absolutely no comparison. So what happened?
Of course, this is a complicated question with many factors at play. But the leading cause is the little known history of the immigration patterns from China to the United States. The Chinese first came to the United States during the Gold Rush, went on to build the railroads, then developed the agricultural industry. But few people realize that virtually all these Chinese came from one small part of China: the rural districts of Toishan outside of the city formerly known as Canton. The Toishanese came to America because of a combination of dire circumstances at home and easy access to the seaport of Canton.
Now everything else being equal, people from other parts of China would have eventually started coming to America. However, due to the racial enmity that built among the American populace, the United States passed a series of laws that made it illegal for most residents of China to come to the United States between 1882 and 1943. In 1943, China was given an annual quota of 105 legal immigrants. This is not to say that all of the Chinese who were in the U.S. were the descendents of pre-1882 immigrants. Rather, as the only nationality barred from coming to the United States, the Chinese resorted to various forms of illegal entry to come here anyway. But those who came surreptitiously were exclusively relatives or neighbors of Chinese already here, keeping the population homogenously Toishanese. Indeed, despite the Chinese exclusion laws, it was said that in many Toishanese villages, virtually all of the adult males were in the United States.
Suddenly, the difference between what Americans believed to be Chinese food, such as chop suey, chow mein, moo goo gai pan, won ton soup, and egg foo yung and what we know today as authentic Chinese food, becomes easy to explain. The Chinese who were resident in America until changes in American immigration policy in the 1960s were not geographically representative of the people of China, and furthermore, were rural, not urban, in origin. I like to make the analog that it's the same as if all of the Americans living in China came from someplace like Victorville, California. From this starting point, factor in the lack of availability of popular Chinese ingredients here in the United States, and on top of that throw in the need to adapt the food to make it palatable to Americans. Mix these all together and core 20th century Chinese food becomes understandable as a combination of authentic and modified food prepared by immigrants who came from a single small area of China.
Of course, not all Americanized Chinese food is traceable to Toishanese food and mutations thereof. A new wave of dishes destined to become Americanized Chinese standards arrived on the scene in the late 1960s with dishes such as kung pao chicken, mushu pork, General Tso's chicken, and hot and sour soup joining the pantheon. Once again, immigration was the key to these dishes, as America's doors opened up to more categories of Chinese immigrants beginning in 1965. The first wave of new Chinese immigrants came primarily from Hong Kong and Taiwan, as immigration from mainland China would be years away, not until after President Nixon's historic China visit in 1972. But many of the Taiwanese newcomers were Nationalists who fled from the mainland, bringing with them their penchant for a spicier Chinese cuisine than that of the Toishanese or the Hong Kong peoples. Branding this new, spicy regime as Hunan or Szechwan style, and significantly tweaking the food to suit the locals, Taiwanese chefs took New York by storm and captured the imagination of Manhattan. But this was faux Hunan- and faux Szechwan-style food adapted to New York tastes, as true Hunan and Szechwan food from immigrants from those regions bringing their native foods to America would not arrive on our shores for decades. So once again, even these new style Chinese dishes were not particularly representative of the food actually found in China, but that didn't stop it from sweeping across the entire United States.
So really, what America has come to know as Chinese food for 150 years is really a combination of historical accidents and adaptation to American tastes. In contrast, today's authentic Chinese food in the United States represents not only advances in culinary sophistication, but more importantly, reflects that Chinese and their food from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and all regions of mainland China are now represented in the United States. And that's quite a difference.
Of course, this is a complicated question with many factors at play. But the leading cause is the little known history of the immigration patterns from China to the United States. The Chinese first came to the United States during the Gold Rush, went on to build the railroads, then developed the agricultural industry. But few people realize that virtually all these Chinese came from one small part of China: the rural districts of Toishan outside of the city formerly known as Canton. The Toishanese came to America because of a combination of dire circumstances at home and easy access to the seaport of Canton.
Now everything else being equal, people from other parts of China would have eventually started coming to America. However, due to the racial enmity that built among the American populace, the United States passed a series of laws that made it illegal for most residents of China to come to the United States between 1882 and 1943. In 1943, China was given an annual quota of 105 legal immigrants. This is not to say that all of the Chinese who were in the U.S. were the descendents of pre-1882 immigrants. Rather, as the only nationality barred from coming to the United States, the Chinese resorted to various forms of illegal entry to come here anyway. But those who came surreptitiously were exclusively relatives or neighbors of Chinese already here, keeping the population homogenously Toishanese. Indeed, despite the Chinese exclusion laws, it was said that in many Toishanese villages, virtually all of the adult males were in the United States.
Suddenly, the difference between what Americans believed to be Chinese food, such as chop suey, chow mein, moo goo gai pan, won ton soup, and egg foo yung and what we know today as authentic Chinese food, becomes easy to explain. The Chinese who were resident in America until changes in American immigration policy in the 1960s were not geographically representative of the people of China, and furthermore, were rural, not urban, in origin. I like to make the analog that it's the same as if all of the Americans living in China came from someplace like Victorville, California. From this starting point, factor in the lack of availability of popular Chinese ingredients here in the United States, and on top of that throw in the need to adapt the food to make it palatable to Americans. Mix these all together and core 20th century Chinese food becomes understandable as a combination of authentic and modified food prepared by immigrants who came from a single small area of China.
Of course, not all Americanized Chinese food is traceable to Toishanese food and mutations thereof. A new wave of dishes destined to become Americanized Chinese standards arrived on the scene in the late 1960s with dishes such as kung pao chicken, mushu pork, General Tso's chicken, and hot and sour soup joining the pantheon. Once again, immigration was the key to these dishes, as America's doors opened up to more categories of Chinese immigrants beginning in 1965. The first wave of new Chinese immigrants came primarily from Hong Kong and Taiwan, as immigration from mainland China would be years away, not until after President Nixon's historic China visit in 1972. But many of the Taiwanese newcomers were Nationalists who fled from the mainland, bringing with them their penchant for a spicier Chinese cuisine than that of the Toishanese or the Hong Kong peoples. Branding this new, spicy regime as Hunan or Szechwan style, and significantly tweaking the food to suit the locals, Taiwanese chefs took New York by storm and captured the imagination of Manhattan. But this was faux Hunan- and faux Szechwan-style food adapted to New York tastes, as true Hunan and Szechwan food from immigrants from those regions bringing their native foods to America would not arrive on our shores for decades. So once again, even these new style Chinese dishes were not particularly representative of the food actually found in China, but that didn't stop it from sweeping across the entire United States.
So really, what America has come to know as Chinese food for 150 years is really a combination of historical accidents and adaptation to American tastes. In contrast, today's authentic Chinese food in the United States represents not only advances in culinary sophistication, but more importantly, reflects that Chinese and their food from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and all regions of mainland China are now represented in the United States. And that's quite a difference.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Californians Are Special
As a proud Californian, I like to think we're ahead of the curve on a lot of things. This is the land of innovation where many national and international trends get started, so indeed we here in California are special. But not everything about being special is good. Last week I was in Las Vegas, where I paid about $3.60 for a gallon of gasoline. Then I come back to Los Angeles to find gasoline priced a dollar higher at $4.60 per gallon. Besides hearing rightfully outraged consumers being interviewed on the radio and television, the airwaves have also been full of politicians expressing their outrage and promising to get to the bottom of the mess, implying collusion, profiteering, and other dastardly behavior could be to blame.
However, there is no conspiracy theory to be proved. This is just a matter of California being special. Specifically, the problem is California special blend gasoline. California has mandated that only special blends of gasoline may be sold within the state to minimize air pollution. Indeed, there are two special blends, one for winter and one for summer use. Gasoline sold in most of the rest of the United States is unfit for use in California. What this means is that California gasoline is a specialty product, which is only manufactured by a small number of refiners. So if the regular source of gasoline sold in Nevada is knocked off line, it can be easily replaced by other gasoline on the market, with little disruption in supply or price. But when one California gasoline refinery goes off line, like the Chevron refinery in Richmond which has been closed for months by a fire, there is a measurable effect on supply and price. And when there is a second disruption like the Exxon plant power failure last week, the effect is magnified. So it's no mystery what caused the price spike in California gasoline--it's the mandatory special California gasoline requirements imposed by the state of California. The politicians all know this is what is going on, and they are just pandering to the public who is unaware of the economics involved.
Now given the precarious supply situation in California, the conspiracy theorists strongly suggest that California gasoline refinery problems are actually orchestrated to restrict supply and jack up prices. However, the fallacy in this assertion can be easily demonstrated by the fact that the producer whose facility goes off line does not benefit from the higher prices, since the producer doesn't have any gasoline to sell at the higher price. Does anybody really think Chevron is happy that their refinery is going to be closed for several months before reopening while everybody else's refinery is in full operation? [Update: Chevron's quarterly earnings were down 33 percent.} But everybody loves a conspiracy so this point is never raised.
However, there is no conspiracy theory to be proved. This is just a matter of California being special. Specifically, the problem is California special blend gasoline. California has mandated that only special blends of gasoline may be sold within the state to minimize air pollution. Indeed, there are two special blends, one for winter and one for summer use. Gasoline sold in most of the rest of the United States is unfit for use in California. What this means is that California gasoline is a specialty product, which is only manufactured by a small number of refiners. So if the regular source of gasoline sold in Nevada is knocked off line, it can be easily replaced by other gasoline on the market, with little disruption in supply or price. But when one California gasoline refinery goes off line, like the Chevron refinery in Richmond which has been closed for months by a fire, there is a measurable effect on supply and price. And when there is a second disruption like the Exxon plant power failure last week, the effect is magnified. So it's no mystery what caused the price spike in California gasoline--it's the mandatory special California gasoline requirements imposed by the state of California. The politicians all know this is what is going on, and they are just pandering to the public who is unaware of the economics involved.
Now given the precarious supply situation in California, the conspiracy theorists strongly suggest that California gasoline refinery problems are actually orchestrated to restrict supply and jack up prices. However, the fallacy in this assertion can be easily demonstrated by the fact that the producer whose facility goes off line does not benefit from the higher prices, since the producer doesn't have any gasoline to sell at the higher price. Does anybody really think Chevron is happy that their refinery is going to be closed for several months before reopening while everybody else's refinery is in full operation? [Update: Chevron's quarterly earnings were down 33 percent.} But everybody loves a conspiracy so this point is never raised.
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