Mcdonald's in Hong Kong
CHAPTER 2
McDonald's in Hong Kong: Consumerism, Dietary Change, and the Rise of a Children's Culture
James L. Watson
On a cold winter afternoon in 1969 my neighbor, Man Tsochuen, was happy to talk about something other than the weather. Over tea, Mr. Man continued the saga of his lineage ancestors who had settled in San Tin village, Hong Kong New Territories, over six centuries earlier. Local history was our regular topic of conversation that winter and the story had already filled several notebooks. Suddenly he stopped, leaned back in his chair, and began to describe a meal he had eaten. He recounted—in exacting detail—the flavor and texture of each dish, the sequence of spices, and the order of presentation:
Blue crab and bean curd soup, laced with ginger and served in porcelain steam pots; red snapper braised in soy sauce with green onions; crackling roast piglet; pop-eyed delta shrimp, scalded for 15 seconds in boiling water; dim sam (steamed dumplings) shaped and colored like goldfish; stuffed whole chicken plastered with star anise and baked for a full day in clay; newly harvested, first-crop Panyu county rice served with fresh bak choi (vegetable), stir-fried in chicken fat.
78 James L. Watson Food for the g ods. Mr. Man's account was so vivid I assumed he was referring to a wedding banquet he had attended a few days earlier in the nearby town of Yuen Long. Only later did I learn from his wife that fifty years had elapsed since he had enjoyed that meal—as a 16-year-old—in the city of Guangzhou (Canton); his father had taken him along on a business trip, and they had been invited to a banquet in one of South China's premier restaurants. My neighbor's preoccupation with food was by no means unusual. Meals like the one described above are signal experiences in the lives of nearly everyone I have encountered during my 28 years of fieldwork in Hong Kong and the adjoining province of Guangdong. Whatever their station in life, hawker or billionaire
McDonald's in Hong Kong: Consumerism, Dietary Change, and the Rise of a Children's Culture
James L. Watson
On a cold winter afternoon in 1969 my neighbor, Man Tsochuen, was happy to talk about something other than the weather. Over tea, Mr. Man continued the saga of his lineage ancestors who had settled in San Tin village, Hong Kong New Territories, over six centuries earlier. Local history was our regular topic of conversation that winter and the story had already filled several notebooks. Suddenly he stopped, leaned back in his chair, and began to describe a meal he had eaten. He recounted—in exacting detail—the flavor and texture of each dish, the sequence of spices, and the order of presentation:
Blue crab and bean curd soup, laced with ginger and served in porcelain steam pots; red snapper braised in soy sauce with green onions; crackling roast piglet; pop-eyed delta shrimp, scalded for 15 seconds in boiling water; dim sam (steamed dumplings) shaped and colored like goldfish; stuffed whole chicken plastered with star anise and baked for a full day in clay; newly harvested, first-crop Panyu county rice served with fresh bak choi (vegetable), stir-fried in chicken fat.
78 James L. Watson Food for the g ods. Mr. Man's account was so vivid I assumed he was referring to a wedding banquet he had attended a few days earlier in the nearby town of Yuen Long. Only later did I learn from his wife that fifty years had elapsed since he had enjoyed that meal—as a 16-year-old—in the city of Guangzhou (Canton); his father had taken him along on a business trip, and they had been invited to a banquet in one of South China's premier restaurants. My neighbor's preoccupation with food was by no means unusual. Meals like the one described above are signal experiences in the lives of nearly everyone I have encountered during my 28 years of fieldwork in Hong Kong and the adjoining province of Guangdong. Whatever their station in life, hawker or billionaire