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The end of Chinatown?

May 4, 2021 • 16m 59s

Australia’s restaurant industry has been devastated by lockdowns and the loss of international tourism. Some of the hardest hit businesses are those in Chinatowns across major cities. Today, Jess Ho on what’s at stake, and how the cities we live in might change forever.

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The end of Chinatown?

450 • May 4, 2021

The end of Chinatown?

[Theme Music Starts]

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Commentator #1:

“We're going to take a walk around Chinatown and show you some of the things that have changed, and some of these things sticking around.”

RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Commentator #1:

“Coming up here, we've got Shark Fin House, which sadly closed last February.”

RUBY:

Australia’s restaurant industry is worth tens of billions of dollars to our economy, and employs hundreds of thousands of people.

But the sector has been devastated by lockdowns and the loss of international tourism.

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Commentator #1:

“Coming up here, we've got... used to be a travel agent, this guy, who’s been around for so, so long.”

RUBY:

Some of the hardest hit restaurants are those in Chinatowns across major cities.

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Commentator #1:

“Dragon Boat’s gone. Ling Nam’s gone. Supper Inn’s still going”

RUBY:

Even before travel bans and lockdowns, many suffered the brunt of anti-Asian racism.

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Commentator #1:

“I think if more businesses close in Chinatown we’ll probably be fear, fear of losing the identity of Chinatown.”

RUBY:

Today, writer and food critic Jess Ho on what it could mean if we lose one of the oldest Chinatowns in the world.

[Theme Music Ends]

RUBY:

Jess, Melbourne’s Chinatown is a fundamental and, I would say, much loved part of the city. But it’s also a place that I think really experienced the brunt of the pandemic. We’re now a year on from the first lockdowns that shut down so many businesses, and you’ve decided to investigate what is happening to Chinatown. Tell me why?

JESS:

I think during the pandemic, Chinatown was one of the communities that was hit first.

Basically, all the businesses became obliterated. And it's a really important cultural and community hub, not just for the Asian community, but for Melbourne in general.

I mean, for me personally, I was going to Chinatown before I even knew what it was. It was a way for me to connect to my heritage because I was raised here. And I think for a lot of Melbournians or even people in the outer suburbs, people, you know, experienced real Chinese food for the first time by going to Chinatown. And because of COVID, like people don't know what's happening, where the businesses are going. If you go and walk down the street, every second shop is for lease.

RUBY:

Mm. And so Jess, when you started to think about Chinatown and how to tell the story of how it’s been transformed by the pandemic, what came to mind? Who did want to talk to?

Archival Tape -- Jess Ho:

“We’re going to get in close. I love it, it’s like please, let us sit in the strange corner on the table that’s half set.”

JESS:

Yeah, so I spoke with Jason Liu, who runs Flower Drum. And Flower Drum is one of those restaurants with so much prestige and history and innovation, as well as a connection to culture and cuisine, not just for the Cantonese community, but, you know, for all other Australians.

Archival Tape -- Jason Liu:

“Flower Drum is quite old school. There's a lot of antiques around and we've had a lot of the furniture since when we first started in the late 70s, early 80s. Actually, the chairs that we still use have been refurbed a number of times, they’re about 30, 40 years old now.”

JESS:

So when you walk into Flower Drum, you kind of feel like you're stepping back in time. Back into like the 70s and 80s, when they opened.

You know, you've got those white linen tablecloths. You see the tables that are so far apart, which is so uncommon these days, because obviously the more tables you can cram in, the more people you can cram in.

You know, you've got these red carpets, which to me just says ‘old school Chinese restaurant’. You get all these ridiculous smells of like rich soy, braises, umami and then, you know, like clean fried smells as you kind of go through the room.

The restaurant first opened in 1975 by Gilbert Lau.

Archival Tape -- Gilbert Lau:

“He sort of saw that opportunity to do a fine dining version of a Cantonese style restaurant.”

JESS:

And he hired Jason's father from Hong Kong to be the head chef.

Archival Tape -- Gilbert Lau:

“And said, would you like to bring your family over and cook for me instead?”

JESS:

And that's how the family became involved in the restaurant.

Archival Tape -- Gilbert Lau:

“We had a very strong connection with a lot of ethnic communities. We had a very strong connection with the Greeks, Greek community, Italian, Jewish”

JESS:

You know, it's the occasion restaurant. You go there for celebrations, you go there, you know, for business. It's a cultural hub.

And so Flower Drum sits in the middle of Chinatown as this kind of unchanging stronghold with like this super loyal clientele. So I was kind of curious about how COVID affected Flower Drum and Jason personally.

RUBY:

And so what did Jason tell you about the impact of the pandemic on Flower Drum?

Archival Tape -- Jason Liu:

“When news broke, there was going to be a lockdown myself in a number of other restaurateurs did get together, for a sort of roundtable discussion. Just to sort of gauge what was going to happen and how to get through all this.”

JESS:

I know that some businesses were like, ‘Oh, what are we going to do with our staff? How are we going to take care of them? Are we going to keep ordering food? Things are going to spoil…’

Archival Tape -- Jason Liu:

“There's little things that you wouldn't even think about for shutting down a restaurant for so long that, you know, your seals for your dishwasher might start cracking. So you got to turn it on every now and then.”

JESS:

He had a lot of conversations with people around him and was like, ‘OK, we have to do takeaway. We have to do takeaway as quickly as possible.’

Archival Tape -- Jason Liu:

“Obviously, you can't just, you know, be closed for six months out of seven. We sort of joined the masses and started doing take away. That's when things changed a lot for us.”

JESS:

So Jason was taking phone orders personally and doing deliveries as well.

Archival Tape -- Jason Liu:

“That was a good thing about doing deliveries myself as well. Just connecting with your friends, and customers and then everybody in our community. Just to say ‘hi’, just so see how you’re doing, that sort of stuff.”

JESS:

Jason spoke about how he had really faithful clientele. And, you know, I think everyone's income got slashed at the time. So instead of forking out for a massive meal they were like, oh, grab a bottle of wine, we'll grab one dish.

If it was fresh food, Jason would deliver it himself. So he'd still had that customer contact and that personability. Um, yeah. And he could speak to everyone and encourage them to come back in and let them know the plans.

RUBY:

Right, so Flower Drum survived, that’s largely because of how established it was, and also, the fact Jason was in a position to change the business model, and react quickly. But what about the other businesses in Chinatown? We know there were many that had to close. So how permanent is the damage that has been done?

JESS:

Yeah, there were quite a few large permanent closures.

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Restauranteur #1 (translated):

“My business is down by 70%, as I serve Hubei cuisine we suffered the most”

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Restauranteur #2:

“Uuuh the feeling is not too good.”

Archival Tape -- Identified Interviewer #1:

Have you ever seen anything like this before?

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Restauranteur #2:

“No, never. Please come out. Don't be scared to support our industry.”

JESS:

Restaurant staples like Shark Fin Inn. If you think about Dragon Boat, it's been there since I was a child and I was eating there. Annam closed, Ling Nam, which is really important for the hospitality community as well. It's where everyone went to eat when they finished work.

You know, back in the day, you would probably have to duck and weave and bob up and down, walk along the actual street next to a car just to get up to the length of Little Bourke Street. But now, you can probably just clear it without even stepping aside, which is a scary thing.

And even though the lockdowns have ended, we haven't seen the same kind of foot traffic in the CBD as we did pre COVID. Um, the foot traffic is down 50% compared to before the pandemic. And on average, the business incomes in Chinatown are down 55% in comparison with the pre COVID earnings.

But a lot of restaurants being impacted by the effects of the pandemic, not just from a lack of foot traffic and, you know, lack of office workers. But one restaurateur in particular said to me, you know, she hasn't experienced racism blatantly, but when your bookings go from a full house to absolutely nothing and everyone's cancelling last minute and your address is on Little Bourke Street, it kind of speaks for itself.

RUBY:

Mm so you’re saying that it’s not just these logistical problems to do with foot traffic and CBD’s being a lot quieter, but also about racism? Is that what the community is saying to you?

JESS:

So, I've spoken with a few people in the food industry, not just, you know, restaurateurs, but in food media.

And it's been glaringly obvious that a lot of white owned Asian businesses have not spoken out against Asian hate. They haven't said, ‘go support Chinatown, go support all these businesses, all these people’. You know, ‘we stand in solidarity with you’.

Despite profiting off the flavours, the techniques, the food, the cuisine, the people.

And even consumers, if you look at Australians like we love Asian flavours, we want to eat Asian ingredients. You know, it's being used in modern Australian dishes, same with the techniques.

But when Chinatown needs the rest of the state to give them support, like, will it happen?

RUBY:

We'll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Jess, the concern about the ongoing viability of Chinatowns in Australia - because of the combination of lockdowns and racism - it isn’t just something happening here. There are Chinatowns all over the world and they've all been impacted to some degree by the pandemic. Can you tell me about that, and how likely these places are to survive?

JESS:

It's a little scarier overseas, I guess, because, you know, it's meant thousands of closures.

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Reporter #1:

“Vancouver’s historic Chinatown is under threat and many businesses are shuttered due to the pandemic.”

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Reporter #2:

“San Francisco's Chinatown is on life support. The virus, in combination with a virulent strain of anti-Asian sentiment, has left its streets empty and its storefronts shuttered”

JESS:

In the main strip of San Francisco's Chinatown alone, fewer than 50 of roughly 200 restaurants and stores remain open. Chinatown in San Francisco is just so... it's equally as iconic.

I think it's as big. It's as vibrant. But with a pandemic, it's just gotten everyone off the street.

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Commentator #1:

“The economy in Chinatown is deteriorating to the level that even such a popular place cannot survive.”

JESS:

You know, you see all the ‘Stop Asian Hate’ and all the violence and the lack of education and the xenophobia around the Asian population, not necessarily Chinese people, because someone decided to call it ‘The China Virus’.

RUBY:

Jess, right back at the start of the pandemic we saw an upsurge of anti-Asian racism, in large part, I think, propelled by people like Trump, who called it ‘The China Virus’. Can you tell me about the impact that has had, not only on the businesses in Chinatown, but also the community here in Australia more broadly?

JESS:

Personally, you know, I've felt it a lot more. I don't think people realise that if you look different, and it doesn't matter where you're from, you experience some kind of racism or microaggression at least once a day, like on a good day.

And then, you know, during the pandemic, things just became more blatant. You know, people would throw things at you, people would yell at you from moving cars. And you're like, ‘what is going on?’ So I think it's a very strong and diplomatic way to say that Chinatown’s just been a little bit quiet since the pandemic hit, and there might have been some active avoidance by a lot of the population.

Without immigrants kind of eating where they feel comfortable and where they can speak their own language and order food, there's a flow on effect. And a lack of immigrant population...there's less people migrating here from the borders being closed, which means they're not going to Chinatown and buying what they need to eat food from home. You know, a lot of students have flown home.

If you look at the way that Chinatown is patronised, you know, it's you've got the young students who want an affordable, cheap, nutritious meal that they can eat quickly. You've got office workers who, you know, want to be able to leave the desk and be back within half an hour and, you know, be full and, you know, with immigrants and tourists, it's one of the places that you go to.

And there's just a complete lack of that.

RUBY:

And when you weigh all this up - the disappearing customer base, the lack of support that you mentioned earlier from white - owned Asian food businesses, where do you land? When you think about the future of Chinatown, do you think that we are at risk of losing it?

JESS:

It's one of the oldest Chinatowns in the world. If you kind of go through the city. You can see the history of it, especially with the museum going back to the Gold Rush era and I guess everyone has a cultural touch point there, with where they can buy their ingredients, where they can speak to other people in their own language and you know, where other people get to learn about not just Cantonese food, it was predominantly Cantonese back in the day, but now it's kind of branched out to more regional Chinese. Yeah, I guess it's not just cultural. It’s educational.

And I think the way that we think of Chinatown is we think it's going to be there forever. And with a lack of immigrants eating there, with a lack of students patronising the area, lack of office workers, you know, just being generally excited to eat something that's not a sad desk sandwich. We might not see Chinatown there forever. It might be called Chinatown, but it'll change into something that's probably a lot more franchised and sterile.

RUBY:

Jess, thank you so much for your time today.

JESS:

Thank you.

[Theme Music Starts]

RUBY:

Also in the news today —

The coronavirus crisis in India has spread to neighbouring Nepal, which recorded a record of over 7,000 new COVID-19 cases.

The surge in infections has prompted new lockdowns in major cities and towns, with markets, offices and schools closed.

Meanwhile India reported 3,689 COVID-19 deaths on Sunday, which is the highest single-day rise yet in the pandemic.

Total cases in the country are now nearing 20 million.

And from this week the Victorian state government will open 22 state-run vaccination sites to the public.

Everyone aged over 50, as well as people in phases 1a and 1b, will be able to book an appointment and receive a vaccine.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am, see you tomorrow.

[Theme Music Ends]

Australia’s restaurant industry has been devastated by lockdowns and the loss of international tourism.

Some of the hardest hit businesses are those in Chinatowns across major cities.

Even before travel bans and lockdowns, many suffered the brunt of anti-Asian racism.

Today, writer and food critic Jess Ho on what it could mean if we lose one of the oldest Chinatowns in the world.

Guest: Writer Jess Ho.

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7am is a daily show from The Monthly and The Saturday Paper. It’s produced by Ruby Schwartz, Elle Marsh, Atticus Bastow, Michelle Macklem, and Cinnamon Nippard.

Brian Campeau mixes the show. Our editor is Osman Faruqi. Erik Jensen is our editor-in-chief. Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio.

New episodes of 7am are released every weekday morning. Subscribe in your favourite podcast app, to make sure you don’t miss out.


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450: The end of Chinatown?