One of the interesting culinary developments in Western China over the last two years has been the decline of the storefront restaurant. In its place, the home restaurant has grown in popularity. Now, before continuing, perhaps it is worth telling you all precisely what I mean by "home restaurant." A home restaurant is located in an apartment that has either been purchased or rented for the purpose of running some sort of restaurant out of it. They are then decorated in the style of many other restaurants--the bed rooms serve as private dining rooms, while the living room may be decorated in some other fashion. Some home restaurants split the living room into several stalls, thereby making room for more customers. One restaurant has a black tent in its living room in which customers can sit and eat. Still another restaurant drapes the walls in black yak hair felt to simulate the experience of the black tent. These home restaurants are rapidly becoming a popular and unique eating establishments for groups of friends to gather for meals. But why are so many restaurants opening in apartments? And why are people preferring these eateries to others?
One probably factor is economic: budding restauranteurs are opting to open home restaurants because of the relatively cheap start-up costs. A home restaurant only costs as much as it takes to rent an apartment. Alternatively, if the owner purchases an apartment, and the venture fails, their family still has a place to live. But there's more to it than this, I imagine. First of all, several of these establishments are (probably, I haven't asked) unregistered and therefore not subject to the same tax regulations. Additionally, to my understanding opening a restaurant with a storefront requires not only paying the rent, but also a zhuanrang fei 转让费 'transfer fee,' (like a subletting fee) for transferring the lease from one tenant to the next. Even in a relatively "small" city like Xining, these regularly cost over 100,000 RMB (over 15,000 USD). That's a fairly sizable outlay for a new business. Thirdly, allows businesses without traditional storefronts to advertise their establishment without spending any money. I think this is called viral marketing. Home restaurants have fewer walk-in clients, but once the word gets out they do a fairly steady business. An interesting side-element to this, is that several of the eateries are actually owned by single families that have turned their enterprise into a family chain. Notable examples would be singer/blogger/intellectual/women's rights activist Jamyang kyi ('Jam dbyangs skyid) whose family now operates three such restaurants in Xining and one in Lhasa. For the second question, as to why people prefer these eateries to others, there might also be a variety of reasons. The privacy these restaurants offer often makes them ideal for groups of people to sit and talk (as opposed to some larger restaurants), the food is often--though not always--excellent, and is handmade. They may appreciate the increased privacy that the home restaurant offers, or the unique ambience. Finally, a restauranteur's mobile number may be used as the restaurant's main contact information, and customers may become connected on WeChat or follow each other on other social networking platforms. Over the course of visits and social media correspondence, restaurant owners often become acquainted with their customers on a more personal level (and vice-versa), and form relationships that transcend the traditional manager-client . One last point worth considering, is that the home restaurant has by no means replaced the storefront restaurant, which remain the dominant style of eatery. Either way, this is an interesting phenomenon. There is a panel at the upcoming AAS meeting on the ways Tibetans inhabit urban environments. I'll be interested to see if anyone is going to report on the rise of the home restaurant, or on the way (as reported in an earlier post) Yushu Tibetans recreate their religious sites, and even the Yushu ritual calendar, in the big city.
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First off, let me wish a (belated) happy lunar new year to all of you readers out there. I hope that the year of the sheep treats all of you very well, and wish you only the best things in the year that follows.
I had several interesting experiences while celebrating this year's new year, and it's on this topic that I'd like to dwell for today's post. But before I get to the real issue as discussed in the title, perhaps a brief play-by-play of the evening is worthwhile: 3pm: Tsomo's grandfather calls us to come over to his home 3:30: we arrive and help make dumplings. Lots and lots of dumplings. 5: Eating dumplings. Lots and lots of dumplings. 7:55: Qinghai Province's Losar dgong tshogs. Drinking. Lots and lots of drinking. 10:45: Home. All in all, this sounds like a pretty uneventful evening, right? Well, there were several points that made this notable. I'm going to save the most important for last. 1) It's a very strange experience to watch yourself on TV. As loyal readers might recall, I was fortunate enough to play a role in the Qinghai Province Losar dgong tshogs this year. It was a blast, but watching oneself (and how little hair one has left) on television is a very bizarre experience. Reactions were tepid. The Qinghai Province show is less popular than in 2010. The shows produced over the last few years were quite underwhelming. In fact, last year's was probably the worst ever. This year featured plenty of stars, and a decent comedy. it was alright. But perhaps it is too late to regain audience interest. The group with which I watched the show was composed entirely of Khampas. The Khampas were a little bit generally feel alienated by the Show's overwhelmingly A mdo flavor. This year, however, featured a good number of Khampa singers, and the groups commented excitedly any time a person from Yushu stepped onto the stage. In fact, the group generally conversed amongst themselves until a recognizable figure would step on stage. Conversation would resume again after the Khampa had left the stage. 2) Perhaps the most intriguing topic of conversation on the night revolved around our consumption of dumplings. Before going over to my grandfather-in-law's home, Tsomo and I had discussed dumplings. She expressed concern that this year's celebration would follow a tradition that is more Han than Tibetans. In fact, after the question was broached, it became a topic of concern for the group more generally. They didn't stop making the dumplings, but they did feel the need to discuss what it meant to celebrate a Tibetan holiday. No conclusions were reached. Most interestingly, Tsomo was concerned with why her family never ate dgu thug 'Nine Noodles' as is common in Lhasa. Dgu thug, she had decided, was an authentic food for Tibetans. In fact, however, she had never had Dgu thug. When she was younger, her family had eaten mogmog (also called momo a bready sort of dumpling), and boiled meat. She had also reminisced earlier in the week about sheep's heads. Her father, who hails from Chumarleb, confirmed that this is the traditional new year's food for nomadic areas, and this generally coincides with my own experiences. So why, if people had grown up with "nomad food" at the holiday, were they suddenly keen to discuss dgu thug? In some ways the answers become obvious when we look at the expression of larger concerns of being Tibetan. What, many ask, does it mean to be Tibetan in twenty-first century China? Well, there are as many answers to this as there are people, I would imagine, and really answering this question requires a book (if not several) and not simply a blog post. Nevertheless, we start to see answers when we look beyond food or this particular festival, to other trends that have come out in the course of my research/blogging. Schools forcing people to dance "traditional dances" before class regardless of whether or not students want to do these dances (or even traditionally did these dances prior to the twenty-first century) because they are authentic, traditional, and And let's not pretend that these are isolated concerns. Several cultures and places around the world have undergone and continue to undergo crises of authenticity (Regina Bendix's excellent book In Search of Authenticity is a prime resource if you any of you want to take a stroll down German folklore studies' memory lane). In China more general the crisis of authenticity is in some ways compounded by the fact that people are surrounded with foods, medicines, and electronic devices that are considered to be "fake." The concern with authenticity, purity, and nature has exploded in China and particular in the rapidly changing Tibetan areas of Western China. Now, with ethnic minority groups defined as sharing a single language, culture, territory, and economic basis, the hegemony of reified definitions takes on a life of its own. So, now to return to the question that headlines this post, "What does it mean to "be Tibetan" at the New Year"? There seemed to be an intense concern with precisely this question at this year's new year party? Is it food? Language? Is it the festivals and the way people act one day each year? The songs you sing or the people you visit? Is it the date on which you celebrate the new year (less of an issue this year as the Tibetan and Chinese calendars happened to coincide). The next day, the answer seemed (at least to me) to provide some resolution to the question. In the morning, we poured milk-mixed with water on each other's foreheads while praying for auspiciousness in the new year. Then, we went to a small monastery in Xining, and watched several generations of Tibetans circumambulate the structure, burn butter lamps, and prostrate before deities. Perhaps this was the answer my wife sought all along. Perhaps the question should not be so much what is consumed, as the people with whom you consume it... |
About TimAs you can see elsewhere on this webpage, I conduct research on ethnic minorities in western China. This blog offers semi-academic musings on the minutiae of daily life out here--the sort of information otherwise destined for footnotes. Categories |