Nobody is sure of the existence of this shadowy society that all Chinese restaurants in the world belong to, nor am I. However, if you think the lack of facts would hinder my deliberate comments on the subject, you simply underestimate human potential.
This society publishes a handbook that spells out all the rules and regulations on operating a Chinese restaurant outside China as well as outside Chinese populated cities in foreign countries. They range from selecting a restaurant name, serving the kind of dishes to decorating the dining room. In other words, in remote towns, cities and
Countries with few Chinese or no Chinese, the more isolated the place the stricter aspiring Chinese restaurateurs must adhere to the rules and regulations in this handbook.
First of all, let us take a look at the art and the science of name selection. This is the first and the most serious consideration of any aspiring restaurateur, and the fortune it invites will determine the future success. Naturally, Lucky and Fortune are auspicious names to use. The name, of course, has to convey that it is indeed a Chinese eatery, in case the pungent smell that permeates two blocks of the neighborhood fails to produce enough warning.
For this reason, China, Chinese, Asia, East and Oriental are among the 30-40 words in this handbook for aspiring restaurateurs to select and to combine in order to make up their good omen names. Even though both sides of the Taiwan Strait proclaim to be China and Republic (one is People’s Republic of China, and the other, Republic of China; if you don’t know which is which, you are not alone), please note that people and republic are not in the book and are strictly forbidden, as no one wants to eat what common people eat. Instead, use king, emperor, dynasty, imperial, temple, pagoda or palace, especially when you want to apply reverse psychology for customers to overlook the shabbiness of the establishment. Use garden or plants such as jasmine, orchid or bamboo only when there is no yard, no plants and no flowers; plastic flowers will do nicely, thank you. Gold and golden are prominently listed in the handbook, while jade and pearl are close contenders.
When diamond and emerald are used in the names, the restaurants should have a
Western flavor and a license to serve wine and liquor, since these two precious
Gems are not native to China. Note that any metal lesser than gold, such as silver, copper, nickel, and any lesser jewels such as amber, sapphire and ruby are just beneath the dignity of any Chinese restaurant.
Dragon, ah yes, dragon is a nice name for your restaurant when the wok in the back kitchen is spitting fire and roaring with smoke, while panda is only tolerated in the new edition of the handbook as a name for some fast food establishment which is entirely tailored to indiscriminate Western palettes. No other animals, like dog, cat, monkey, snake, tiger and lion please, lest they conjure up the suspicion that they are been served on the plates. I have to let you on a secret: Golden Dragon is an all-time number one favorite, and you will find this name prominently featured in Chinese restaurants all over the world.
In the beginning, all Chinese restaurants in the world served a standard chop-suey kind of thing generically called Cantonese, which was synonymous with Chinese back then; it was anything you stir-fried, whether edible or not, as long as you put enough soy sauce to cover it up. Now the popularity of global travel has brought the dawn of diversity, we welcome the coming of various regional cuisines. The restaurateurs are encouraged to select among the following names from the current edition of the handbook in order to reflect their specialty: Beijing, Shanghai, Canton, Hong Kong , Hunan , Sichuan , Taiwan and Mongolian. Note that Beijing is required to go with dynasty, imperial or palace, while Shanghai, Canton and Hong Kong go well with new or golden to give them some needed glitter.
You also need to know that if you call your place Beijing, you really should have Beijing ducks ready to serve; Shanghai should have food loaded with sugar, and Canton and Hong Kong, whose flavor is basically the same, should have some fish and sea food handy — an aquarium with a few resigned lobsters, depressed turtles and struggling groupers desperate for air gives a nice touch, just be sure to hide it from the folks of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Hunan and Sichuan are new additions to the society of Chinese restaurants in the world. Their names are synonymous with fire-fire-fire, and they differ only by degree of
hotness which is next to impossible to predict. Be prepared to hunt for chicken
in the piles of chili when you order a chili chicken dish in a Sichuan or Hunan joint. In one famous Sichuan restaurant, I, a proud chili devotee, almost died of coughs and
tears after eating a dish marked with one chili — the lowest lethal dosage. When
I finally came back to life after a near-death experience, I asked the waitress
how hot the dishes marked with two or three chilies would be; she casually
replied, “Oh, no ha --- oh no one --- two, tree chili.” I understood she was saying,
“Nobody who ordered the dish marked with two or three chilies ever lived to
tell the story.” On the other hand, don’t order chili dishes in Canton or
Shanghai restaurants unless you are addicted to sweet taste with a hint of chili,
for the handbook clearly instructs that in those restaurants chili would not taste hot without lots of sugar.
We all know Mongolian restaurants only serve Mongolian B-B-Q, a communal do-it-yourself stir-fry with numerous ingredients, and even more numerous people jam-packed together with long chop-sticks as weapons in case you have to fight with the next fellow for the finished product. As for Taiwanese restaurants, although Taiwan is listed in the handbook, nobody has figured out what kind of food they serve, except that it is rich in MSG. I urge you to try, but I guarantee you will still be clueless after you have tried.
Now, the handbook also gives specific guidance to the required decoration. Do use red and gold plastic lanterns, no matter how dusty, old, gaudy and faded they appear; it also does not matter that these lanterns never provide any light. This is necessary for customers to know that they can expect to get fortune cookies at the end of the meal. Never mind that people in China never heard of fortune cookies; as they have never seen any restaurants with gold and red plastic lanterns they don’t know what they are missing. Plastic flowers are magnets to customers who simply can’t resist, and you should make sure all the colors are present and all the flowers are evenly distributed throughout the establishment.
As Lao-Wai (foreigners, as Chinese call them) are known to crave the noisy ambiance of Chinese restaurants, crowded table arrangement makes them sociable and lively so they can easily peek at next table’s orders and freely exchange comments which provide better information than the menu and the waitress whose English needs translation. The round table with a rotating Lazy Susan in the middle, ah yes, round table that can serve 8, cramp 16 if necessary, and sit only 1 or 2 when business is slow, is another defining feature of any Chinese restaurant along with the deliberate use of MSG. Some Lao-Wai may even fancy themselves as King Arthur and his knights sitting around the legendary Round Table and feel mighty regal in this properly named Golden Palace restaurant. Yes, you should by all means get at least one round table for your restaurant in order to obtain the full certification from this Secret Society of Chinese Restaurants.
(Lily Chu, a retired professor of Counseling and Educational Psychology from New Mexico State University, has an interest in reading and writing in English and Chinese. She now lives in San Diego, California.)
