10.30.07
Fuzhou People Everywhere! 到处都有福州人
It’s 1:30 on a sunny afternoon in Midtown Kansas City. After a walk around familiar environs, I stop for a bite to eat at the “Northern China Restaurant Buffet” on Main Street. While living in China for 3 years has utterly destroyed any affinity I had for American Chinese food, I still try to stop by a Chinese restaurant at least once a week, if anything, just to keep up my language skills.
After a brief conversation with the waitress in Mandarin, I return to my booth to begin my meal. Halfway though a bite of General Tso’s chicken, a familiar sound comes from the back of the restaurant. It’s definitely not Mandarin, and the excessive barrage of garbled nasal sounds don’t sound anything like Cantonese.
The waitress returns to refill my water and I decide to confirm whether or not my suspicious were accurate.
“Where are you from?” I ask her in Mandarin
“Fujian province.” she replies, assuming most people have heard of Fujian, but haven’t heard of any of its cities.
“Where in Fujian?” I reply.
“Fuzhou,” she replies, a little surprised I am continuing my interrogation.
“Where in Fuzhou?” I ask.
 |
| It is small towns near Fuzhou like Fuqing (pictured here) which are the leading source of Chinese restaurant employees throughout the world. |
At this point she gives me a look that I read as “There is no way this gringo could possibly have heard of the little rural town in Fujian where I grew up.”
That would be assuming this gringo didn’t happen to have lived just an hour away from that little rural town which I was guessing I knew the name of before she even told me.
“Changle.” she replied to answer my question.
No, nobody would have ever heard of Changle had it not been quite possibly the single largest source of Chinese commissary employees in the United States. And no doubt the sounds I had been hearing were those of the Fuzhou dialect.
Changle is a county-level city (县级市) just outside of Fuzhou, the provincial capital, and largest city in Fujian province. Fujian province is widely renowned for its mass quantities of migrants who move (often through questionable methods) to other countries, usually in search of amassing great fortunes by washing dishes in Chinese restaurants.
Most Fujianese immigrants come from smaller towns, like Changle, outside of the major cities. Once they go abroad, they often meet up with friends or family members from their hometowns, and establish their own small enclaves overseas. Because of these migration patterns, small towns in Fujian often have corresponding countries where their people migrate. For people in Fuqing (the town where I lived for 1.5 years before moving to Fuzhou), they gravitate towards Japan. For people from Changle the country of choice is the USA.
My return to the USA is beginning to confirm one of my suspicions I have developed over the past few years, and that is that there are quite possibly more Changle natives living in the US than there are in Changle itself. In fact during my time in Kansas City, I ate at 3 different Chinese restaurants, and at each one, my waiter was from Changle. For me this works out great, as when having my weekly Chinese language refreshment course at the local buffet, I can not only reminisce about the country I used to live in, but can tell people exactly where I lived down to the building, discuss Fuzhou area restaurants and shopping districts, and get updates on the latest trends in the city where I lived for 3 years. And hey, maybe those bits and pieces of the Fuzhou dialect I learned over there won’t go to waste afterall.
Jason
said,
October 30, 2007 at 10:54 am
I’m from Grand Rapids, MI and I’m pretty chummy with my local Chinese restaurant. (Szechuan Garden…and no it’s not Sichuan food by any stretch)
Last year when I was in town I got around to asking where one of the waitresses was from.
Although I didn’t ask from which part, whe was, you guessed it, from Fuzhou.
intotherain
said,
October 30, 2007 at 12:07 pm
as a chinese, I am skilled at Putonghua, but if someone speaks his/her local language, I won’t be able to tell out where he/she comes from, congratulations, you did it. haha and you can practise your chinese from time to time to keep up your language skill, that’s so good.
jill0001
said,
October 30, 2007 at 1:47 pm
JIANGSU people everywhere too,haha
shamu
said,
October 30, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Another nice post! I’m sure the waitresses are much more thrilled to converse in their local dialect with a laowai *in the US* than you are practicing a foreign language.
Your suspicion that there are more Changle natives living in the US is not far off. According to this article, 200,000 of the 680,000 Changle natives are living overseas.
“…discuss Fuzhou area restaurants and shopping districts, and get updates on the latest trends in the city where I lived for 3 years.”
I’m not sure they can help you with that–they must have left Fujian for a while, given their usual route to the US (probably via central America, to NYC then to KC). In fact, I’m almost positive that they may ask YOU for updates.
Let me know how your next visit goes!
Shamu
wylly
said,
October 30, 2007 at 9:15 pm
So what are the details of this specific migration from Fujian? I live in Savannah, Ga. and am aquainted with the workers in several Chinese restaurants in town and they are ALL from Fujian. I haven’t gotten around to asking them what’s up with that (I figured some of the details might not be forthcoming anyway…) but what is up with that? I’m betting it is not very easy to emigrate from the People’s Republic.
Alan
said,
October 30, 2007 at 10:53 pm
Next time please ask those Changle waiters or waitresses that now that they had known what their life is like in America, would they still have spent $50,000 to $70,000 to pay a snakehead to get them into this country if they could do it all over again. I didn’t know they were dubbed “the Jew of Chinese” as described in the article referenced above. Fuzhou-ren are definitely different from other Chinese. I should know. That is an interesting article.
Benjamin Ross
said,
October 31, 2007 at 1:29 am
Alan-
This is exactly what I had wondered when I heard about so many people in Fujian spending so much money to sneak abroad. It just didn’t seem logical to spend $60,000 USD (the current rate) in order for the chance to wash dishes at $8 an hour. Apparently however, the first 2 or 3 years of work usually are enough to pay off the debts to the snake head, and then after that it’s all profits.
Matt Schiavenza
said,
October 31, 2007 at 11:15 am
Isn’t Changle where the airport is, if I recall?
Benjamin Ross
said,
October 31, 2007 at 1:39 pm
yeah, Changle is exactly where the Fuzhou airport is…and if you take the morning flight to Beijing, the entire cabin will be full of Fuzhou ren on their way to New York.
Another Ben R. from Kansas City living in China
said,
October 31, 2007 at 9:00 pm
This blog entry really reminds me of KC and brings back the memories. I have eaten at many Chinese restaurants in Midtown and Westport.
I am really interested in why you left China and why you want to work in Chicago. Do you hate nice weather?
BTW, I think you are like a mirror image of myself. It’s scary. We are
even nearly the same age.
Benjamin Ross
said,
October 31, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Ben R-
That is quite random another Ben R from Kansas City is in China. As for leaving China, the main reason was that I lived there for 3.5 years. As much as I enjoyed my time in China, I always knew I never wanted to live there permanently. I came to Chicago mainly because it is where most of my friends and family whom I have barely seen for the last 3.5 years live. As for the weather, I would gladly take the cold Chicago winters over the hot and sticky Fuzhou summers.
michael
said,
October 31, 2007 at 10:56 pm
People from Fujian/Fuzhou/Changle may be astute when it comes to business, but I’d have to disagree that they are “the Jews of China”. At countless business dinners, whenever I reveal my secret identity as a Jew someone invariably tells me that X sitting next to me is from Henan.
Usually it goes something like, “河南人是中国的犹太人; 犹太人是国外的河南人。” In translation, “The Henanese are the Jews of China; the Jews are the Henanese of the outside world.”
Of course, maybe there’s enough room in China for the populations of two provinces to aspire to Jewdom.
Alan
said,
November 1, 2007 at 2:00 am
@Michael,
I think you have brought up an interesting and thought-provoking point. To most Chinese, being Jewish has nothing to do with being religious. Rather, it’s more about being business savvy and financially successful, as has been noted by your comment as well. Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia have been called “the Jews of Asia” because they control the economy in the country of their residence. In Greater China, I think several “ethnic” Chinese groups have also been referred to as “the Jews of Chinese” for the same reason. These groups include Shandong ren or Korean Chinese who own most upscale Chinese restaurants in America, Hakka Cantonese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka) and sometimes Fuzhou ren. Two common things about these “ethnic” Chinese groups are, 1) they are all from coastal regions of China (hence there lies the opportunities to explore and work overseas) and 2) they were all dirt poor before they rose to the status of a Jew – I mean wealthy and successful.
I have also heard some Chinese referring Henan as the hometown of Jews in China. I don’t think that has anything to do with Henanese being business savvy. Henan was in fact the capital of a Jewish nation many centuries ago. Many Jews settled in Luoyang, Henan when China was once the world’s most prosperous nation.
There are so many similar sayings and cultural traits between Jews and Chinese, which make me wonder if these two groups of people at one point had a very close relationship.
Benjamin Ross
said,
November 1, 2007 at 4:52 am
Alan-
You are correct about Henan (Kaifeng to be exact) being home to an ancient community of Jews. From what I have gathered it started dwindling in the 1800’s and today there is barely anything left. I visited there a few years ago and was able to see the building which housed the old synagogue, as well as meet some old Chinese Jewish women. There isn’t much left, but it’s quite interesting for Jewish history buffs. My pics of my trip are here if anybody is interested.
水林雨
said,
November 1, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Many times i come here and learn english, i’m a chinese girl ,wish you happy !
Jeremy Yeh
said,
November 11, 2007 at 8:31 pm
ur post recalls me of a funny quote,“世界人怕美国，美国人怕长乐！”
Benjamin Ross
said,
November 11, 2007 at 11:50 pm
For those of you who don’t read Chinese, the quote Jeremy mentioned means “The people of the world fear the USA. The people of the USA fear Changle.”
Jet So
said,
November 23, 2007 at 10:01 am
@ Micheal & Alan: Usually it goes something like, “河南人是中国的犹太人; 犹太人是国外的河南人。” In translation, “The Henanese are the Jews of China; the Jews are the Henanese of the outside world.”
It’s pretty obvious to most China watchers in the U.S. that the recent waves of Chinese immigrants are from Fuzhou. Being poor in wealth but entrepeneurial in spirit at the start, they would naturally be building on their business acumen & risk-taking “ventures” and in time some may achieve their materialistic dreams. The same could be applied to the various people within China itself – namely, the Sichuanese (四川人) and the Hunanese (湖南人).
Over the past decade, both these pools of immigrants to the coastal cities created the abundance migrant labour to fuel the Motherland’s huge infrastructure and manufacturing boom. Only more recently has the latter (i.e. Hunanese) being more astute and adventureous had succeeded in taking over that title of “Jews of China” (中国的犹太人).
As a side note, the old immigrants of Cantonese, Fujianese and Hakka (广东人, 福建人 和 客家人) were often referred as the “Jews of the East/Orient” – not Jews of China. All in all, a great discussion!
Jet So
said,
November 23, 2007 at 10:19 am
My apologies – that should be 河南人 or Henanese – NOT 湖南人 or Hunanese, that are the 中国的犹太人 or Jews of China. Sorry, I had just too many spicy peppers recently … kekeke
@ Ben: “…there are quite possibly more Changle natives living in the US than there are in Changle itself.”
Hmm, very interesting. The same could have been claim for my old hometown of Kaiping, Guangdong (开平, 广东省) over a decades ago. More natives living in the U.S. or overseas than the people in Kaiping itself!
Matt M H
said,
December 21, 2007 at 5:45 pm
Ben…I had the opportunity to experience some Kansas City Chinese food this week. Didn’t realize how much I missed crab rangoons although I could do without the other Midwestern “specialties.” I never see crab rangoons out in L.A. I do know that cream cheese is becoming more popular in countries like Spain—do you see that happening in China?
Benjamin Ross
said,
December 22, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Matt-
Glad you got the chance to experience ‘authentic’ Kansas City Chinese food. Crab Rangoon is definitely a big hit in KC. In China, cheese and cheese products are still relatively new on the culinary scene. So while it’s definitely more popular than it was 10 years ago, it is not commonplace yet. In Fuzhou, to buy cheese you had to go to Metro, a German megamall which has outlets in most larger Chinese cities. Another prohibitive factor is that cheese (especially good cheese) is still extremely expensive in China. I’m not a big cheese eater, and since it was so expensive, I basically just did without it while I was there. As a funny side note, I am pretty sure there is no Chinese word for “crab rangoon.” Whenever I overhear Chinese conversations in Chinese restaurants, they just use the English word “crab rangoon” rather than translating it into Chinese.
Wensley Ni
said,
May 28, 2009 at 4:44 pm
This is a personally entertaining blog because my grandparents came from Fuqing to Indonesia, where some of the Fuqing immigrants have become financially very successful. Two families of Fuqing origin are billionaires (Lin Shao Liang aka Liem Sioe Liong) and the late 蔡雲輝 (Tjoa Ing Hwie in Hokkien).
I now live in California. Every year I ski in Dodge Ridge, near Sonora, California, formerly a Gold Rush town. I usually eat at 2 Chinese restaurants in Sonora: Great Wall, and Wok & Sushi. Guess where the owners are from? Great Wall’s owners are from Fuzhou, and Wok & Sushi’s owners are from Fuqing. The Wok & Sushi owners were so excited to learn of my Fuqing ancestry when we chat, even though my knowledge of the language only consists of counting to 10 and simple kiddie words like: go eat, good bye, drink water ….
Rima
said,
August 11, 2009 at 10:12 am
I have many Fujianese friends in NYC’s Chinatown. Many of their lives have been filled with sacrifice; often living for decades on the edge of poverty in tiny apartments. I often wonder, but don’t dare ask them, if it was really worth leaving China for such a difficult life in NYC? But then I’m aware of the extreme social pressure to leave the small cities and towns and make their fortunes in the U.S.