Editor's note: Local cuisine with Chinese characteristics carries the changes from ancient to modern, condenses the essence of culture and folklore, and conveys China's warm and upward spiritual outlook. Local cuisine with Chinese characteristics is the collective memory of Chinese taste, and it is also a veritable Chinese Chinese. The philosophy of life contained in local cuisine with Chinese characteristics is the most direct way to perceive people, culture and values in the Chinese values.
At present, the world pattern is changing, the international situation is becoming more severe and complex, China urgently needs to implement the "going out" strategy, Chinese cuisine is a bright cultural business card, an important grasp and implementation tool for China's "going out".
The Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism is in charge of the first-level association: The Chinese Food Culture Research Association initiated, and joined hands with the National Chinese Food Industry Alliance (American Chinese Food Alliance), the American Chinese Food Industry Alliance, the Spanish Chinese and Western Food Exchange Association and other national food experts, enterprises and institutions to create a "Chinese kitchen" and complete the national project of global promotion of Chinese cuisine.
Wherever there is sunshine and water, there is Chinese. CCTV Rong Media "Chinese Kitchen" Spanish Chinese Food Communicator Series Interview Series has been launched, we have traveled the world to find people who spread Chinese cuisine around the world. The world's best Chinese chefs, good restaurants, and good bosses will serve them one by one, and the story of the soul will move China.
Since the overseas search of "Chinese Kitchen", our common feeling is that the concept of Chinese food has been upgraded to the 2.0 era. In the perception of more and more foreigners, Chinese food is no longer just synonymous with traditional dishes such as goo meat, spring rolls and fried rice. Today's China, vivid and diverse, but also mysterious, so that the world is willing to take the initiative to learn more. Getting closer to and experiencing Chinese culture and Chinese from Chinese cuisine is the psychological motivation for many foreigners to contact Chinese food for the first time.
According to a survey by Metrópoli, an authoritative Spanish gastronomic magazine, the number of Chinese restaurants in Spain ranks first among Asian gourmet restaurants with different styles. Among them, Cantonese cuisine has been regarded as China's "representative dish" in recent years, becoming the peak of the era when Chinese food has swept the world.
At noon, we arrive near Plaza Mayor, the oldest place in Madrid, which preserves the original cityscape of the Spanish Asturian dynasty and is a favorite corner of the city where tourists flock. Old buildings on the street are piled up on a movie set, and during the stroll, time seems to slow down. We were about to cross a street at the corner gate of Plaza Mayor, when a dark green façade across the street caught our eye. Looking closer, the dark green façade is written in large gold characters "HONG KONG 70", and the authentic Hong Kong-style posters, tea restaurant menus and neon embellishments at the bottom are strong, simple and straightforward, exuding the fireworks of Hong Kong's 70s. It's like an old Hong Kong tea restaurant falling from the sky, or like the treasures of the small restaurants that are hidden in the streets of Chinese cities, the small façade inspires great expectations.
Turns out this is where we are interviewing today. Before arriving at the store, we had limited knowledge of today's interviewee, only that this was a young Taiwanese girl.
When I entered the store, I found that this can really be said to be an old Hong Kong that landed in Madrid.
The authentic Hong Kong-style posters of the 70s, wall decoration installations and photo ornaments posted on the walls are all full of strong Hong Kong flavor and fun. The layout of the restaurant is a typical Spanish-style old building, staggered and angled to hide limitations, but I did not expect to be a perfect fit with the old Hong Kong-style tea restaurant of "doing a dojo in a snail shell", where an old-fashioned hand-pulled iron door and a tight glass counter make the space alive and fragrant. The cafés, street food stalls and gorgeous dance halls of old Hong Kong coexist harmoniously in small restaurants, complement each other with complementary functions, and have to admire the design and decoration of the heart and ingenuity. In addition, the cement floor of the restaurant is also painted with Hong Kong characteristics of the "do not stop" yellow sign line, the glass table of the table is covered with Cantonese mahjong cards, the tableware is a strong and familiar swastika cup plate, the traditional Chinese old newspaper layout menu, colorful and accurate details are countless, but also let us immediately read the owner of this restaurant to the old Hong Kong familiarity and fascination.
"God Eater", "Eclipsed Soul Meal", "Fancy Years"... These rich labels like "secret codes" in the store are also full of design concepts like restaurant movie scenes, and also make people imagine that guests who come here should be familiar with wong Kar-wai and Stephen Chow movies.
The waiters made us tea, and we sat at the window looking around the restaurant in detail. At this time, a sweet Taiwanese accent "Welcome" came from the entrance of the restaurant, and before the words could be heard, a young girl in a Klein blue suit walked toward us with a smile — the person we are going to interview today, and the manager of the "Hong Kong 70" Chinese restaurant, Paloma Fang.
This day happens to be International Girls' Day, and Fang Qiaolin, who has done two consecutive "Women's Day" public welfare speeches in the morning, rushed back to the restaurant to meet us. This young girl is fashionable and beautiful, with long maroon hair, trendy makeup, casual professional suits, that is, professional and amiable, polite conversation, soft and sticky accent, hearty laughter, is the kind of "beautiful young man" who is known at a glance.
Listening to us praise the aesthetic interest of the restaurant, Fang Qiaolin enthusiastically introduced her young and popular restaurant. She laughs and says, "We're the most fashionable place in Madrid right now." "There are so many fashion outlets that love to come here to shoot model blockbusters, and they love the wonderful contrast that comes with the collision of cultures. Sometimes, the media simply invites Fang Qiaolin to enter the film and appear in the film, and her distinctive Chinese face also has this fashion function.
Knowing that she still had women's themed events to go to in the afternoon, we immediately began to explore and interview her. Everyone threw out the same curiosity - how could such a young Taiwanese girl think of opening a Chinese restaurant with an old Hong Kong theme and feelings?
I will definitely not open a Chinese restaurant in the future
Born in Spain, Fang Qiaolin belongs to a young new generation of overseas Chinese. In the distant 1980s, my mother, who came to Spain from Taiwan to study fashion design, and my father, who also came from Taiwan to study economics, worked in the same Chinese supermarket in Madrid and fell in love. Although mom and dad did not have a background in the catering industry, they finally chose to open a Chinese restaurant and started a family business. The first restaurant was named "Shaolin", and later opened "Thousand Buddhas", full of Chinese cultural interest.
Fang Qiaolin was born in Madrid, because the birthday is similar, her mother gave her the most beautiful name in Spain (Paloma, commemorating the birthday of the Virgin Paloma; Paloma also means "pigeon")
When Xiaolin was 3 years old, one day her mother suddenly found that even if her daughter could understand Chinese, she blurted out Spanish. The mother was greatly shocked, thinking that "we must not let our daughter become a 'fake foreigner'", so she immediately took action and sent Xiaolin back to Taiwan to live with her grandmother, receive systematic Chinese and Chinese cultural education, and ensure that the roots of Chinese culture can be retained in her daughter.
When she returned to Madrid, Fang Qiaolin was 14 years old. Little by little, she re-adapted to life in Madrid, and this cheerful and atmospheric girl quickly opened her circle of friends. But at that time, she still had the most important thing - every school holiday, her classmates and friends were free, but she could only go to her parents' restaurant to help. So she vowed: I will never open a Chinese restaurant in the future.
In fact, this is also the attitude of most second-generation immigrants. Growing up in a Chinese restaurant environment, a new generation of young people often choose another career track.
In college, the track fang Qiaolin chose was the same as her mother's, all fashion design, and specialized in shoe design and production. After graduation, she also seemed to go to Elche, the leather capital of Spain, to stay away from her family's restaurant business and open her own shoe import and export company.
Because of the company's business needs, Fang Qiaolin, who had just started a business, put the company's production workshop in Guangzhou and frequently traveled between Spain and China. Unlike Chinese food, which ranges from snacks to large meals, Guangzhou's cuisine has opened her eyes and feasted on it, and she especially likes the ordinary but vivid traditional delicacies in Hong Kong-style tea restaurants. Once on a trip to Guangzhou, she brought a few Spaniards from the company's team, and accidentally found that the heavy luggage of these people was stuffed with Spanish ham, canned food, and some even brought enough Spanish bread to eat throughout the trip. This made her laugh bitterly. But colleagues stressed that after arriving in China, three meals a day must be greasy and unpalatable Chinese food, and their stomachs can't stand it.
At the same time, Fang Qiaolin felt a strong sense of mission on her body, "I didn't expect that the misunderstanding of Chinese cuisine by foreigners was so deep, and our Chinese food culture should not be passed on like this!" This "moment of awakening", Fang Qiaolin now recalled as if it were right in front of her. She joked with us: "I think I really have Chinese food genes, and I made all kinds of plans at that time, fighting with my parents, trying to avoid the idea that they wanted me to take over the family restaurant." 」 The Spaniards say, 'You don't want to drink broth, but you want to drink three bowls'. In the end, I avoided my parents' restaurant, but I still didn't hide from my own restaurant. “
Back to guangzhou, China more than a decade ago, that "moment of awakening" of Fang Qiaolin. She spent a lot of effort, and finally successfully pulled the Spanish colleagues to eat her favorite Cantonese morning tea, did not expect to be out of control, colleagues from misunderstanding and resistance to Chinese food, quickly switched to strong love, from a variety of refreshments, to the later chicken claw snake soup, the adventurous spirit of food surprised Fang Qiaolin.
"It turns out that foreigners can accept Chinese food 100%!" Fang Qiaolin, who has accumulated business judgment and experience, also sees the huge market potential of overseas Chinese food. Shortly after the trip to Guangzhou, she quickly shut down the import and export company, said to do it, chose the site to open a store, and immediately turned around and entered the catering industry.
She wants to open a new generation of Chinese restaurants.
My parents were afraid I wouldn't be able to pay the rent
But there are so many Chinese cuisines, what kind of Chinese food model is suitable for the local area?
Come to think of it, Chinese food has been in Spain for more than 100 years. In the eyes of the Spaniards who love food, the impression of "Chinese food" has undergone many changes. The first generation of Chinese restaurants sold cheap and fast low-end bento, even the Chinese here are not likely to eat; slowly there are integrated restaurants and Chinese takeaways that adapt to local tastes, that is, the Chinese restaurants of Fang Qiaolin's parents' generation, engraved in Fang Qiaolin's childhood memories, nothing more than spring rolls, fried rice, almond chicken and other greasy and coarse dishes. For a long time since then, the so-called "fusion cuisine" with a vague face of Chinese flavors has become the overall impression of Chinese food in Spaniards.
With the change of the identity of new immigrants, with the addition of more and more merchants with capital backgrounds and large catering brands, the Chinese food that goes to sea at this time is gradually refined and advanced, among which, the taste and ingredients are quite close to Spain's Cantonese cuisine, and began to gain the most Spanish love. Food writer Gancha Crespo has written that Cantonese cuisine has a large number of "fans" in Spain - the most popular in Spain nowadays is Cantonese dim sum, such as shrimp dumplings, steamed dumplings, wonton noodles, and you can also buy healthy foods from China, such as Wang Laoji from Guangzhou and Cantonese turtle paste.
Fang Qiaolin, who loves Cantonese street food herself, decided to open an authentic Hong Kong-style tea restaurant that does not accommodate local tastes. Now it seems that this decision is quite cutting-edge and bold. Therefore, Qiao Lin's parents are not optimistic, and they have not even rented her own restaurant storefront, afraid that her too idealistic restaurant will not survive in reality, and her daughter will most likely be unable to pay the rent.
But Fang Qiaolin has her own decisions and insists on her own persistence. She said that she chose the Hong Kong-style tea restaurant, in addition to introducing and disseminating authentic Chinese cuisine, but also to create an experience way to let the Chinese cultural traditions be presented and returned in her restaurant.
She firmly believes that in addition to the difference in skin color, she is actually a Spaniard. But she was fascinated by Chinese culture and tradition, and in her view, this charm and cultural appeal was cosmopolitan and had long been validated among her classmates and friends, among young people in Spain and Europe.
We ask: What is the Chinese culture and tradition that you are fascinated by?
She made it clear: like in the Wong Kar Wai movie. The young Europeans of my generation watched Wong Kar Wai's films to understand China and then fell in love with traditional Chinese culture.
Fang Qiaolin, who was born in Spain and grew up in Taiwan, has gained more understanding of traditional Chinese culture from movies. As the French existentialist philosopher Marcel Mardan put it, "The cinema of a country always shows the spiritual face of that country more directly than any other means of artistic expression." ”
Fang Qiaolin, like her peers all over the world, has a special love for the films of Chinese director Wong Kar-wai, and "Fancy Years" is a work that will certainly be in the list of films in various countries, with Chinese retro aesthetics and deep oriental cultural conditions. The unique oriental aesthetic charm of image manufacturing comes from the solid roots of Chinese culture.
This answered our first question. Why did Fang Qiaolin, a girl who grew up in a Taiwanese family, open such a tea restaurant full of old Hong Kong feelings. But isn't it, looking around this restaurant, there are symbols of Wong Kar Wai movies everywhere. The retro inspiration of "Hong Kong Seventy" is derived from the classic elements in the movie.
Once upon a time, for the new generation of young diners in the world, a restaurant should provide, in addition to the food on the table, but also the unique temperament and atmosphere of the store. It is often said that the mark of a good actor is the ability to enter a role invisibly, in the same way, Fang Qiaolin believes that a restaurant is also a theater, and the visual picture and thematic emotions should be perfectly integrated to bring diners into their own spiritual space.
The construction of a world also begins with the establishment of time and space. Fang Qiaolin, a designer by birth, is personally responsible for her creation, and her creative inspiration comes entirely from her beloved old Hong Kong in the 1970s, which has both the characteristics of traditional Chinese culture and the atmosphere of Western culture, which not only exudes Chinese classical aesthetics, but also overflows with the fusion of Chinese and Western cultures. The "secret code" is on the right side, and the "Hong Kong Seventy" restaurant is loved and punched by the guests, which is the epitome of the culture of South China, which combines classical and modern Chinese and Western styles, such as "Fancy Years".
Hanging freshly baked roasted wax, a street movie poster, a small Bowl of Cantonese, each old object Fang Qiaolin personally bought, today the restaurant guests out of a huge amount of tabletop mahjong cards, she was a big buy at a time forty pairs, but also attracted the store to her sideways, asked her if she wanted to open a chess and card room ...
Leaving behind various challenges and stories along the way, "Hong Kong Seventy" uses ingenious spatial patterns and authentic Chinese cuisine to tell a literary and earthly story to young people around the world who have a common curiosity and similar cultural cognition of distant China in the old city center of the world's urban madrid, with a long aftertaste.
Inject passion into each small dumpling
However, the restaurant's initial progress was not smooth.
On the first day of opening, a guest asked, "Is there fried rice?" Are there spring rolls? ”
When told that "there is no, but there is char siu, pho ...", the guests left with a look of doubt.
What's more, the first store of "Hong Kong Seventy" opened in early 2020. The rapid sweep of the epidemic has made the catering industry the first industry to be hit hard, not to mention this newly opened Chinese restaurant. As a matter of course, the Madrid region soon gradually liberalized the restrictions on restaurant operations, helping the restaurant industry to recover as much as possible. In this process, while coping with the impact of the epidemic, Fang Qiaolin also led the team to do a lot of exploration.
She recalls: "Our chefs and waiters didn't make a special distinction, and everyone would easily and proactively introduce our dishes to the guests, just like talking about home. At the time of the Chinese New Year, we introduce a mahjong card to the guests, send the guests the Chinese New Year coin red packet, and hide the coin in the Chinese dumplings, and the guests who eat the coin will be as happy as the king who ate the three kings day cake here, and they love to come to this restaurant again.
She added: When I first opened, it was really difficult, but even if the temporary production was incomplete and imperfect, it didn't matter, because I knew that we were taking a new path. I believe that as long as you persist, you will definitely gain something, and you will gain something from doing difficult things.
In this way, with the "silly insistence" during the epidemic, only a year later, not only the reputation of "Hong Kong Seventy", Fang Qiaolin actually opened a semicolon in the Chinese area, and in the city center where business is gradually recovering, she has also successively launched restaurants with different dishes, and this year's plan is to open six.
This young girl who can be a fashion blogger is only in her early thirties, who could have imagined that she has built her own new form of Chinese food city pool, and the same young people-based diners in Yingmen every day not only spread her beautiful movie restaurant on social media, but also cherished the Chinese food in the restaurant.
Food in China; Chinese food may not be in China. In the face of an increasingly young catering market, Fang Qiaolin's Chinese food concept is to adhere to traditional tastes, but it needs to be innovative in form.
Among the restaurant's several popular dishes, we were impressed by a small dumpling.
The small steamer is a bun skin naturally dyed with four local ingredients, the oil is round, and the edible flowers are spread between the buns, which is the most popular way in Europe, and more specially, the bun is inserted with two small tubes of one color and one light, and the ancient small dumplings are mixed with the lively playfulness of the fashionable snacks.
Fang Qiaolin skillfully demonstrated the magic of the small tube for us. Her delicate fingers coated with beautiful nail polish lightly pressed lightly, and the juice in the small tube was quickly injected into the small dumplings one by one. The whole process is very light, fun and good-looking.
She explained to us that the design was the inspiration of the guests. She saw that Western diners were not dexterous enough to clip small cages with chopsticks, and when the waiter taught them to dip in vinegar to eat, there were always guests who slipped their hands, flew away with buns, and splashed vinegar. In this way, the vinegar is poured into the injection tube, and the small cage is dipped in vinegar with a light press, which is convenient and intimate.
Xiaolongbao may have other shops, but the small dumplings with cute small vinegar tubes are only this one, the dishes immediately become fresh and interesting, through the diners' mobile phone lenses, in the social media flooded with a round of topic ripples, it did not take long, "Hong Kong Seventy" xiaolongbao, became a well-known Internet celebrity dish.
Putting down the small vinegar tube, Fang Qiaolin felt generalized: "I was really passionate at that time, I didn't seem to sleep every day, basically all the time I stayed in the restaurant, found this problem, adjusted that detail, and didn't stop." ”
This passion not only ignites small dumplings, but also attracts several Michelin chefs to explore today's "Hong Kong Seventy" char siu platters, dry stir-fried beef rivers, or eclipsed soul rice, which are all must-order signs, and have also attracted several Michelin chefs to explore.
Fang Qiaolin said: "Catering comes with its own communication attributes, net red dishes make people have the desire to take pictures, and the expression of cultural traditions will make it easier for young people to understand Chinese cuisine and Chinese in this way, and can spread more quickly and widely." ”
I speak for young China
During the search, we noticed that many of the first generation of Chinese diners in Spain usually started and continued the whole process of Chinese food in the form of husband and wife, and the lack of successors was a problem that was widely mentioned. The second- and third-generation immigrants who have lived in Europe for many years and even were directly born in Spain have their own career plans and life pursuits, and there are not a few young Chinese who can't say Chinese or even can't say it.
In Fang Qiaolin, we see her extremely precious and dedicated protection of Chinese culture and traditions as a second-generation immigrant born and raised in Spain.
In Wong Kar-wai's film world, people come and go, "Every day, we rub shoulders with a lot of people, some people may become friends, some become confidants, so I never miss the opportunity to rub with anyone." 」 In a specific time and space, the encounter between people and people even passes by becomes a story.
In the view of Fang Qiaolin, who is lively and cheerful and seamlessly connected with multiple languages and cultures, her Chinese restaurant has long become her living room, and it is the most direct place for her to connect and observe the people around the world who "pass by".
From the beginning of her store, her "Hong Kong Seventy" has targeted young people. For Europeans between the ages of 15 and 40, she said, they have more or less imagined and experienced about China today.
"I think they like to come and eat Chinese food, like the experience of Chinese restaurants, and subconsciously have curiosity and expectations for today's increasingly powerful China." Fang Qiaolin's words bring us profound inspiration.
With the recognition of such a big pattern, she pays special attention to starting from the restaurant and starting from the restaurant to three-dimensionally show the image of the current China. Unlike traditional Chinese diners who keep their distance from the media, she decided to push herself in front of the media, through attending public welfare activities, widely participating in various topics related to China, and advocating for China's young generation. In the Spring Festival of 2022, the TV station also specially invited her to introduce China's Year of the Ox to the whole of Spain with Chinese.
In Spain or the entire European catering industry, there are very few female managers of restaurants, and as a young girl from a Taiwanese family, her social voice is naturally limited. But Fang Qiaolin, who has shuttled freely on multiple cultural backgrounds, believes that "the power of Chinese unity will be very strong", and the new crown epidemic that has swept the world has strengthened this belief.
She remembers that just after celebrating the Chinese New Year in early 2020, the epidemic broke out in Madrid. At that time, the surprise and fear of the virus led to many incidents of discrimination and provocation against Chinese people; there were also cases of international students being discriminated against in schools and were regarded as carriers of the virus. While the Chinese Embassy is actively improving the situation, a large number of international students have taken the initiative to isolate at home. It was at this time that the Chinese in the city were very conscious, and there was no special organization, so everyone divided their work and cooperated, spontaneously rescued the unmasked international students, and sent them materials and care.
At that time, "Hong Kong Seventy" was not long after its opening, but Fang Qiaolin did not hesitate to participate in the team of preparing meals for international students, and provided a large number of authentic tea restaurant delicacies for international students free of charge during the epidemic. Until not long ago, there were international students who had received help at that time who came to the restaurant to eat and told her: At that time, when I looked at the lunch box of "Hong Kong Seventy" during the quarantine, I wondered what kind of shop it was; today I came to the store to see the sign and menu, which was really kind.
Chinese unique watchman help, passed on in the hot Chinese food.
During that time, Fang Qiaolin bravely walked in front of the media and the public, broadcasting live on three or four television stations a day, calling on everyone to treat the virus and the epidemic rationally, speak out for the unfair treatment of Chinese, and actively safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of international students in Spain. "Even though I'm just the owner of a small restaurant, I think my restaurant is not only promoting Chinese culture, but also making Chinese respected," she said.
Her campaign and speeches quickly won the understanding of more Spanish media and communities, and gained their heartfelt support. Later, many media began to take the initiative to contact, and reporters encouraged the continuation of such publicity and voice, and envied the warm flow of Chinese under the epidemic. It also gave her greater confidence in her own small personal strength.
Taking food as the medium and business as an observation, the young Fang Qiaolin uses her ultimate mission and growing Chinese food business to practice the attitude and proposition of overseas young Chinese on guarding traditional Chinese culture and conforming to the trend of overseas markets; and with the passion of young vitality and the vision of a larger world view, to narrow the distance between the two as much as possible, perhaps this is the future and hope for the higher development of overseas Chinese food.
The difficulties of starting a business, the changeable market, the ideals of youth, and the plans for the future, Fang Qiaolin all used her sweet Taiwanese accent to tell the story methodically. The interview is progressing happily, but because this is International Girls' Day, she has become a new face of women in the Chinese food industry, and she will soon have to catch the next trip of the day.
We hurriedly ended the interview, looked at this smart and stylish blue suit, said goodbye with humility and courtesy, and quickly disappeared outside the restaurant door.
"That era has passed, and everything that belongs to that era no longer exists", this is the end of the film "Fancy Years" arranged by Wong Kar-wai, and it is also the strange and obsessive imagination of traditional China by Fang Qiaolin's generation of young audiences around the world.
"Colorful years, moon-like spirit" is the origin of Wong Kar-wai's "Fancy Years" film inspiration, but also the attitude, wisdom, ability and belief of Fang Qiaolin's generation of young people around the world. Stepping out of curiosity and imagination, they stride forward in their own "fancy years" and face the increasingly powerful China of today's era.
("Chinese Kitchen" Creative Group: Jia Yunfeng, Wang Sheng, Huang Rong, Zhu Minyuan, Ci Chunlei)
Note That the graphics in this article are from food brand communicators