ON THE IMPORTANCE OF CHINATOWN’S BANQUET CULTURE.
San Franciscans of a certain generation have a specific vernacular to describe things of epic proportion: hella. (To emphasize the epicness, trill the “l” for added dramatic effect.)
For this San Francisco native, it’s the only word that comes to mind when I think of banquet dinners in Chinatown.
As in, hella loud. Hella, hella food.
And in the case of Chinatown’s New Asia restaurant, hella big. So for me, news of the city’s decision to convert Chinatown’s largest banquet hall into affordable housing brings mixed feelings. With gentrification sweeping through many parts of San Francisco, any effort to keep increasingly disadvantaged, longtime residents of any neighborhood — let alone, a historic district such as Chinatown — should be lauded.
But putting out the lights at an old-timey place like New Asia may also have the effect of diminishing the neighborhood. Chinatowners and out-oftowners flock to New Asia for many reasons. Let me clue you in on a secret: It ain’t always for the food. With shifting tastes due to fluctuating Chinese demographics, gone are the days when the size of a cha siu bao mattered more than its flavor. The fist-size har gow and overly greasy fritters of New Asia and its brethren no longer appeal. As Chinese families grow in affluence, they’re flocking to the ‘burbs for dim sum and weddings. Places like Tai Wu in Millbrae and the Koi Palace branches of Daly City, Dublin and Milpitas offer ample parking for that new Mercedes GLC, aesthetically pleasing interiors, spaciously placed round-tops and bathrooms that aren’t biohazards.
The real value proposition of a place like New Asia is the commensality and power display that it affords in a community that thrives on it. New Asia packed to its gills with 1,000 strong at 10-tops groaning with platters and elbows is a sight that puts Connie Corleone’s wedding to shame. It’s truly an incomparable Chinatown experience that locals treasure, even those who’ve shed their immigrant constraints and now enjoy the comforts of the Richmond or the Sunset.
I was last treated to such a sight in October. A number of local Chinese benevolent associations had sponsored a banquet in support of Mayor Ed Lee. Although the invitation tactfully omitted this point,
knew that the real agenda behind the evening was to counter Propositions D,H, L and M. That banquet felt like a zany night at a circus past its prime. The lights were much too bright and the napkins too cheap. The floors were slick with grease well before the first dish of chilled appetizers clattered onto our lazy Susan. Blaring on the decrepit sound system were the alternating voices of two emcees. One emcee, who sported an ’80s coif that looked suspiciously hairpiece-y, narrated the evening in Cantonese and English while his partner, an Ariana Grande look-alike encased in a gaudy pageant dress, struggled to follow in Mandarin.
The hallways flanking the restrooms were lined with carts of dirty dishes and half-gnawed carnivorous bits that you couldn’t unsee. Harried, uncombed waiters athletically zipped between tables through barely-there spaces. Women gossiped with their eyes and sized-up each other’s jewelry. (You can always tell when it’s banquet season by the hordes raiding their safety-deposit boxes at banks throughout the Sunset District.) Then-Senate candidate Scott Wiener was looking hella tall and lumbered his politician’s handshake from table to table like Gandalf amongst the hobbits. All the while, the honorary guest of the evening sat at the dais, graciously suffering through endless grip-and-grins, ear-splitting musical performances, impassioned rhetoric … basically doing everything but eating. Poor Ed.
But all this is not to say that the food isn’t important. It’s more like a tool to achieving the underlying social purpose behind the meal. Banquet culture is rife with symbolism and superstition. Much of that can be glimpsed in the menu, according to Wei Mian Hung, manager at Millbrae’s Tai Wu Restaurant. Having clocked in nine years at Tai Wu, 11 at Koi Palace in Daly City, two at R&G Lounge in San Francisco and a lifetime at various Hong Kong eateries, Hung is the kind of guy you want to have in your back pocket when you tell folks, “I know a guy at [insert restaurant here] …”
Drafting these menus takes a serious expertise that senseis pass to only the most dedicated of disciples. Banquet menus for joyous occasions must comprise an even number of dishes, usually not fewer than eight. Happy things always happen in pairs, goes the thinking. An odd number of dishes — usually seven — signifies a funeral or some other somber occasion. Because many Chinese characters are homophones, menus double as lyrical compositions that reflect the occasion to be celebrated. “Fish is never just fish and chicken is never just chicken,” Hung says. “The word for ‘fish’ is the same sound as the word for ‘abundance’ or ‘plentiful.’ So fish is always on the menu for happy occasions.”
A good maître d’ also considers the interplay among weather, the seasonality of local foods and the health of his customers, says Hung. “January through April, I always recommend watercress or amaranth greens for their warming properties,” he says. “July through August is squash season so I can afford to be lighter on leafy vegetables. Restorative and tonifying chicken consommés are best during the cold winter months.”
At its core, a banquet is a ritualized social event framed by the notion of relationships or guanxi. It’s the purposeful coming together that transforms an ordinary dinner into a banquet. Rituals, etiquette and foods consumed may differ across China regionally, but the dishes are always the crucial bit player to bread-breaking or recalibrating power imbalances. “It’s important to know why your client wants to fete his guests,” Hung says. “Weddings and birthdays are straightforward, but when you need to impress your guests or mollify a situation, you can express your generosity, gratitude or veiled ambitions through the extravagance and quality of the food.”
The significance of social gatherings means that the Chinese appetite for banquets will never abate. Thus, the growing extinction of Chinatown’s banquet halls is troubling because it signals a hyperlocal displacement of culture and community. That more modern, convenient and tastier venues exist elsewhere in the Bay Area is irrelevant. Sometimes you want the chaos and the cheap napkins because the sense of community they bring is that much more important. Banquets held at Chinatown banquet halls are quintessential, OG San Francisco experiences. The shuttering of Empress of China, Gold Mountain, Four Seas — let’s throw in Harbor Village at the Embarcadero for good measure — and now New Asia, encroaches on the sociological makeup that defines Chinatown. The trend means one less dim sum joint for elderly residents, one less perch from which family associations can flex their political might, one less stronghold for clandestine meetings with the Shrimp Boys of the underworld, one less landmark for the ritualized repartee of guanxi. Heck, I’m even hella worried about displacing the annual Kung Pao Kosher comedy show.
Chinatown’s many community events, fundraisers, beauty pageants and Lunar New Year celebrations will undoubtedly continue. But the weight of New Asia’s absence, however temporary, will be measured by how well the remaining banquetready venues handle the spillover. I’m looking at you, Cathay House, Far East Cafe, Imperial Palace.