Vanessa blends, blands

[imomus]

Five years ago, when I lived on Orchard Street, down at the Chinatown end, I discovered a newly-opened dumpling shop at 118 Eldridge Street so incredibly cheap and tasty that it became an almost daily stop on my scooter-trails around the city (I was caught up in the Razor craze of 2000).

Vanessa Weng spoke just enough English to compliment me on the colour co-ordination of my eye-patches; the rest of her staff spoke none. Vanessa’s dumplings were Beijing style; it was here that I heard snatches of Beijing opera wafting from the back room, and, intrigued by the mannered vocal inflections, settled on the idea of making an oriental-sounding album (it was recorded in Tokyo and released as “Oskar Tennis Champion”; you can read about the moment I decided to make it in My muse has the right to children).

Dumpling House (site of so many of my happy New York memories, and also haunted by melancholy ghosts) is still there, still offering five dumplings for a dollar and ten for two. It still has its beautifully generic name, beautifully functional décor (zinc shelves, hot sauce, everything organized around the cauldrons where the dumplings are) and its non-English-speaking staff. The chef is a Buddhist; his favourite T-shirt, sky blue, sports a quotation from the Dalai Lama.

“And what dumplings they are!” exclaims the Tenement Museum’s website. “Fried to perfection in giant cast-iron skillets, their charred, crispy bottoms and perfectly cooked tops yield a treasure trove of succulent pork and scallions within. A smattering of soy sauce and a dash of hot sauce and a perfect snack awaits your gullet.

“If dumplings are not your preferred snack, order one of the sesame pancakes with beef. A sandwich made of the bread like sesame pancake, anise flavored beef, cilantro, carrots and various sauces, the taste is unlike anything you've ever tried- unless you've been to Beijing.”

Well, Vanessa Weng has expanded. She has a new place on 14th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. Vanessa’s Dumpling, it’s called. And I’m sad to report that it completely fails to capture the magic of the original Dumpling House.



I learned about Vanessa’s Dumpling from Vanessa herself. She was standing next to me in the Asian Convenient Store on 3rd, turned round and said “You my customer, right? Remember me? Now have new dumpling house on 14th Street!” She handed me a leaflet.

When I visited Vanessa’s Dumpling yesterday, Vanessa was stressed. The computerised tills were giving her young staff some headaches. She didn’t seem to notice me. I asked for five dumplings and a sesame pork pancake – or rather, P3 and D1, as they appeared on the ugly, computer-printed menu board. The dumplings were twice as expensive (five for $1.99 instead of five for a dollar) and only half as tasty. Perhaps they no longer recycle the cooking fat, or perhaps the skillets don’t yet have the necessary patina. Perhaps the Tibetan cook opted to stay in Chinatown. Worse still, the sesame pancake had turned into a hamburger! No longer a triangular slice of bread, it was literally a sesame-sprinkled hamburger bun! It still tasted better than any hamburger, though, but not quite as good as it tastes on Eldridge Street. And more expensive.

On 14th Street, Vanessa has expanded… and lost focus. She’s added sushi and hibachi, clunking up the décor with Japanese-style maneki nekko cats. She no longer sells soy milk. The handwritten, handmade, beautifully functional zinc style of the old place has gone, along with the old Cantonese-speaking clientele. The couple next to me were speaking Spanish.

As I chewed my hamburger bun, I wondered if Vanessa’s was “an American story”, a story of immigration and assimilation. You arrive, offering something like they do it back home, in an atmosphere which almost captures the old country. You make a fortune, your dumplings sell like hot cakes. Then you branch out, and bland out. Your new scale forces you to compromise, to lose the flavour you had, the flavour of elsewhere. You lose the rough edges, but with them goes the charm, the taste, the quirks, the personality. You rent a more expensive space, and your prices go up. What you gain in scalability you lose in personality.

I know; I’ve been a small business myself, and when I wanted to expand, I planned to get bland; to work with session musicians, to adopt the prevalent commercial style, to use standard marketing agents and presentation formats…

When is diversification not diversification? When you abandon what made you diverse in the first place. When is enrichment impoverishment? When you abandon the virtues that poverty brought with it, virtues that are one part luck, one part inverse snobbery in the eye of the beholder, virtues that reveal the secret generosity of meanness: the re-used cooking oil, the high-density space, the dirty old Chinatown street with its view nevertheless framing the Chrysler Building in the distance.

I read somewhere that something like 25% of all American immigrants passed through the Lower East Side during the 20th century, passed through and moved on, blanded out, merged in. Is Vanessa Weng doing the same? Is hers “an American story”?

Comments

[wingedwhale.livejournal.com]

I agree with you; ethnic enclaves are a natural part of immmigration, as long as there is the group moving is large enough. Also, these enclaves often become important parts of US culture (I mean, look at San Francisco's Chinatown. Just look at San Francisco.)

Though I must say our country does risk some cultural conflict.

[cheapsurrealist.livejournal.com]

ethnic enclaves are a natural part of immmigration

Exactly, Chinatowns, Japantowns, Little Italys ...

I grew up in Pittsburgh in the 60's. Plenty of enclaves. Polish, Russian , Jewish. I had Italian friends who's grandparents didn't speak a word of english. They didn't have to. They grew grapes and made wine. Yes Pittsburgh Chianti. I don't understand the idea of instant assimilation. I don't think it's possible or neccessary. What's the rush?

[(Anonymous)]

No one suggested "instant assimilation". My landlord is Chinese, and has lived in the US since the early '60s, but he can barely speak English. Who does that benefit, and who does it hold back? How can he vote intelligently if he can't understand the issues? How can he serve on a jury or do any one of the hundreds of other things that Americans need to do? And he's hardly alone; there are countless others like him in Chinatown.

I think you may be confusing an aesthetic/exotic appreciation of places like American Chinatowns with the need for Chinese immigrants to equally contribute to creating America. Or would you rather have had the Italian, Irish, German and other waves of immigrants over the past 200 or so years still living in their own isolated communities, speaking only their native tongues? Cause that's what you find in Chinatown.

[cheapsurrealist.livejournal.com]

No one suggested "instant assimilation"

No one in this thread perhaps but it is quite a common theme in current the immigration invasion scare.

How can he vote intelligently if he can't understand the issues?

Ballots printed in his native language. Television, radio, newspapers and websites again in his native language. He could be excused from jury duty and as for "the hundreds of other things" you might have to enumerate them. But please don't.

...aesthetic/exotic appreciation of places like American Chinatowns

"American Chinatowns" and other like communities are vibrant and essential parts of American life. I do not view them as novelties as you seen to imply.

Or would you rather have had the Italian, Irish, German and other waves of immigrants over the past 200 or so years still living in their own isolated communities, speaking only their native tongues?

As I have already explained I grew up in places like this and continue to live in a multilingual multiracial area.

No, these things do not frighten me.

[(Anonymous)]

They don't frighten me either.

But I do think it's really ironic that the same Americans who think that it's hunky-dory for there to be ethnic enclaves in the US are the very same people who would jump to criticize the Americans who even visit France or Japan or wherever and expect the natives to accomodate their English-only skills, or who decry the Americanization of the rest of the world (i.e., McDonalds in Tibet). But I guess that American liberal political correctness only applies against other WASPS, huh?

[cheapsurrealist.livejournal.com]

Goodnight. Don't let the foreigners bite.

[beverlyhillscop.livejournal.com]

Comparing enclaves of foreign migrants with tourists in foreign countries is a ridiculous argument. If you're a guest in a country, of course you should make an effort to communicate in the local language and observe local customs of politeness. Migrants aren't guests, though. America is a supposedly free country, and these lawful citizens should be free to speak whatever language they choose.