filed under Activism | Food | Only In RI | Sex | Social Justice | Women
“Chinese Laundry” Deemed Racist and Dirty
4:46PM ON
03/18/2008
BY
Ariel Werner
Thanks to tipster Bill M. for alerting us to this story:
Chinese Laundry, which opened March 11th at 121 North Main Street (right in my neighborhood!), is not receiving the warm welcome for which its owner, Chow Fun Food Group owner John Elkhay, had hoped. The restaurant, which claims to offer, “a modern pan Asian dining experience with an intoxicating vibe, incredible worldly flavors, and a sensual, sophisticated atmosphere,” opened amidst a firestorm of controversy.
John Elkhay, who has brought fun, trendy restaurants to the Providence dining scene, arrived at his VIP party on Friday night after a stressful and unexpected debate that emerged in the blogosphere earlier in the day. An ad for his newest restaurant, Chinese Laundry, in Providence Monthly featured the naked torso of a woman and the words “See what you are missing.” It caught the eye of a student at Brown University who referred it to a blog written by a self-proclaimed “angry Asian-American woman.”
In addition to this ad campaign, the walls of Chinese Laundry are decorated with black and white semi-nude photographs. And, as the Projo reports:
For the VIP party only, Elkhay outfitted that private dining room with a model, scantily clad in red silk, to serve as a live platform for the wide selection of sushi that was set down on leaves. Imagine if the angry blogger saw that scene? Once the model left, another female, wrapped in a sheet, appeared, only this one was a photograph, larger than life-size, embossed on the table.
Now, Feministing explains, the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) is asking people to take action against Chow Fun’s racist, sexist ad campaign. NAPAWF declares on its blog:
NAPAWF calls on Mr. Elkhay to take seriously his own proclaimed desire to respect the cultures that he seeks to profit from, by acknowledging their histories and realities rather than packaging them into offensive and oppressive pop culture quips. We urge Mr. Elkhay, as a successful business owner, to wield his powers of publicity in ways that are constructive to dismantling, rather than propagating, culture and gender oppression.
Send a message to the Chow Fun Food Group! Click here to sign a petition calling on Mr. Elkhay to issue a formal apology and discontinue this “business practice.” Please contact Bonnie for more info or if you would like to get involved in local campaign efforts.
As for me, I’m wondering if a casual drink at Chinese Laundry to scope out the situation will make me a collaborator.
March 18th, 2008 at 5:13PM
lisa Says:
Here’s a review by someone on craigslist..doesnt sound to fabulous ….
http://providence.craigslist.org/vnn/607020567.html
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March 18th, 2008 at 5:15PM
Ariel Werner Says:
eesh! forget fears of being a collaborator… i can’t afford to check it out!
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March 18th, 2008 at 6:28PM
Eric Smith Says:
Without knowing all of the details about the decor and whatnot in there, it seems obviously tacky and sexist, but rascist? I’m not seeing that. Are there details I’m missing?
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March 18th, 2008 at 7:03PM
raininri Says:
Hm, perhaps I should raise a stink about every Italian restaurant with a ridiculous caricature of a spaghetti-bending, mustachioed fat man out front. Or even Mario Brothers.
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March 18th, 2008 at 7:17PM
John Biltobe Says:
Mario Brothers is racist!
But the music rocks…still can’t get it out of my head….triplets and all…
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March 18th, 2008 at 9:18PM
Ariel Werner Says:
Eric, as for why the ad scheme and decor are racist, there is a longstanding tradition of white men Orientalizing and exotifying Asian women. The race of the women portrayed in the ad scheme is important. The jury is still out on the decor… I’ll let you know when I check it out.
raininri, I think one key difference between Chinese Laundry and Providence’s many Italian restaurants is that John Elkhay is white and male while employing an ad scheme that exploits Asian women. Obviously not all Italian restaurants with caricature logos are owned by Italian men but, in PVD, it’s likely.
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March 18th, 2008 at 10:15PM
joe bernstein Says:
White men exotifying Asian women?Get a grip-I don’t think white men invented footbinding for instance-some traditional Asian cultures have treated women pretty poorly-arranged marriages for instance-try to know what you’re talking about-Japanese men have a reputation throughout Asia for treating women like crap-being attracted to someone is equivalent to exotifying them?What do they teach you at Brown?The restaurant sounds tasteless nevertheless-and the idea of eating raw fish products off a seminude person sounds about as hygienic as peeling gum off the sidewalk and chewing it(i did this as a kid which may account for my general attitude):)My wife of 37 years is Hispanic-i guess i must have “exotified” her.Boy,will she be surprised to learn that.
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March 18th, 2008 at 10:20PM
Bill M. Says:
There are Asian “massage” spas right here in RI that have been busted and are involved the international human trafficking of Asian women. It’s a serious issue.
Also - rainiri - C’mon, cartoonish “Mario” cariacatures are not at all in the same realm as the clear objectification of “exotic” foreign Asian women.
Really, I can’t beleive this even needed further explanation, but I guess it does. Clearly, the objectification of Asian women as submissive nymphs who are exotic delicacies to be served up for the consumption and pleasure of Western men is a real problem that has permeated the mainstream to the point where it’s so common that people have become desensitized to it.
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March 18th, 2008 at 10:56PM
chiz Says:
joe b:
it’s not that white men are over-oppressing asian women more than their asian male counterparts. it’s just annoying to see a restaurant like chinese laundry pull all the stops in fetishizing asian culture (have you seen their website?) as this foreign exotic thing but with no differentiation between the various asian countries. i understand it strives to be “pan-asian” in its cusine but everything about this place is orientalist and gimmicky.
(extensive discussion on chowhound)
I’m an asian female.. and I’ve had my share of white guys coming up to me in bars and the first thing out of their mouths is how much they loooove asian girls.. as if all I am is my ethnicity. seriously.. no “hi, how are you?” … but then all they really know of asia is china (typical convo: I love asian women. are you chinese? me: no, I’m cambodian. them: same thing right?) .. chinese laundry smacks of that sentiment and that is why people find it racist and offensive
but aside from the racial implications, this restaurant is just tacky and offensive in general. come on.. using women as plates?
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March 18th, 2008 at 11:28PM
joe bernstein Says:
chiz-Sounds like you’ve met some ignorant guys-I would never bother even going into this place-some great places for REAL Asian food have unfortunately closed like Lemmie’s Barbecue and the little Laotian place on Eaton and Enfield-there was a place that didn’t bother with atmosphere-you’d walk in and people were making jewelry at one table,playing cards at another,etc-but they cooked everything to order and they charged very little-the first time i walked in a guy who turned out to be the owner poured me a glass of brandy while i waited-other times his wife would bring over a glass of tea-it was like eating at your cousin’s house or something-one of my interests is Asian films-and believe me,i don’t mistake one country’s films for another -even though there are Chinese actors in some Korean films-of course spending a few decades in the INS,a year in Vietnam,and growing up in NYC kind of helps with understanding the different cultures.Apsara on Hope Street is ok and i like Galaxie and Lucky Garden.Some friends of mine who are Chinese took me to Phoenix Dragon on Broadway and i’ve gone back quite a bit.Come to think of it,the name “Chinese Laundry”is kind of stereotyping isn’t it?
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March 18th, 2008 at 11:43PM
chiz Says:
joe:
those places sound awesome! i absolutely adore hole in the wall places (ate at the back of a mexican convenient store the other day).. you might like mekong restaurant on smith st, which is laotion.. definitely not much of an atmosphere but the food’s awesome.. try the beef tongue =D .. and i’d love to see a place do like an asian film night and actually explore real asian culture.. imagine that!
but yeah you hit the nail on the head… even the name is very much stereotyping
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March 19th, 2008 at 12:05AM
joe bernstein Says:
i’ve passed by the Mekong many times but never went in-i sometimes shop at the market next door-my grandmother used to make pickled beef tongue in a pressure cooker at home-she also made jellied calf’s foot-practically a lost art-a few times i was asked by Chinese restaurant people why i was ordering chicken feet-that they never had non-Asians order it and i told them that it was popular with East Europeans and it was on the table every Friday in my house(albeit minus the black bean sauce)-Lemmie’s was owned by a Chinese friend of mine but she sold the building-she and her husband made Hong Kong and SE Asian food and it was really good.As far as Asian films-i own hundreds of them,but if you want to rent them,Acme Video on Brook Street near Wickenden(i think the cross street is Transit)has probably the most international and independent films in New England with a huge number of Asian films subdivided by country-they have special rates on various days of the week-forget the major chains compared to this place
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March 19th, 2008 at 1:17AM
Eric Smith Says:
Also, anyone who would eat food off another person is a fucking idiot.
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March 19th, 2008 at 2:19AM
Ari Savitzky Says:
ok-
a couple things.
a) naming your upscale asian fusion restaurant Chinese Laundry, when the downtown building it used to occupy was a Chinese Laundry, is not inherently racist. A little weird, but it depends how you do it. Not having seen the interior, I’d imagine it’s something less mindful of the history of the edifice than, say, the masonic temple. But I don’t think that’s the point.
b) For those who watched the first couple seasons of The Surreal Life, recall that the cast did, at one point, eat sushi off of a naked Addrienne Curry. Vern Troyer shit a brick and the rest is banal.
It was probably a cool, performance erotic art-y type thing before that. Oh wait! It was:
http://www.sexoteric.com/blog/index.php/__tag/nyotaimori/
Oh wait! It was actually a Japanese fetish/custom/trend before that. Called Nyotaimuri!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyotaimori
So yeah, lets not call Japanese people fucking idiots or anything.
While we’re at it, let’s also establish that eating food off another person a la Varsity Blues is generally accepted, so there’s a fine line.
c) Of course, beautiful women are used to sell everything. Yes, there is some misogyny embedded in that but also let’s get real, sex sells, beauty sells, we know it, ok.
All of that said, The ad pictured above is a little fucked up. It isn’t a pretty, scantily-clad Asian girl like the kind in the calendars you see in most regular american-chinese restaurants. That would be transparent, and crass, [though you could do an ironic take on said calendars though that's obviously not what "Chinese Laundry" is going for.] Nor is it even a hip scantily clad asian model-lady of some type.
It is a nude female body, faceless, rendered in black and white, with chinese characters written down the side of the torso. Its just fucked up. No face, just a body with Asian writing on it. [Note: the writing says, in traditional Chinese characters: "Chinese Laundry"]
The ad is all wrong, it evokes chattel slavery and is creepy looking.
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March 19th, 2008 at 2:35AM
Matthew Lawrence Says:
Lucky Garden is amazing. The salt and pepper tofu makes me way happier than any other Chinese food I’ve had. Mekong was amazing, although I haven’t been there since they reopened. There’s new owners, right?
Anyway. I don’t think the name Chinese Laundry is offensive–it’s based on French Laundry in New York, and in a location that actually was a Chinese(-owned) laundry until about 2004.
Also, John Elkhay is tacky. Has no one ever been to (or even by) XO before? And while the ad is tacky, I still don’t see it as particularly racist. Offensive, maybe. Objectifying women, you bet. Tacky, for sure. But racist? I don’t see it.
The name Chow Fun Food Group, on the other hand….
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March 19th, 2008 at 2:36AM
Matthew Lawrence Says:
Okay, I just used the word amazing twice in consecutive sentences and the word tacky three times in four sentences. I wish I weren’t awake!
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March 19th, 2008 at 8:46AM
raininri Says:
OK, fair enough–it wasn’t a great comparison–but I don’t think you can trivialize stereotypes and misconceptions of any group if you’re going to be offended by the stereotyping and ill-conception of any other. And my point isn’t that all of those things are offensive - it’s that they’re ignorant and silly and I really think people are overpersonalizing and reacting oversensitively to something that isn’t that big a deal.
Bill M - Comparing some photographs and insensitive marketing to human trafficking is an even worse analogy – exploitation of a fictitious stereotype is VASTLY different than endangering / exploiting real people. I see this guy’s tacky marketing as no different than stereotypes in film and colloquial humor: maybe not politically correct and certainly not accurate, but requiring no more action or response than “yeah, that’s actually not right, ignoramus.”
Honestly, this reminds me of the whole Imus “nappy-headed hos” thing. Insensitive? Yes. Insulting? Sure. Worthy of the considered litigation for mental anguish / defamation of characte and the whole hubbub that surrounded it? Not in the least. People insult and inaccurately portray other people all the time, including and especially people of similar backgrounds. By singling out harmless statements of difference based on race / gender (and I’m NOT talking about hate speech, which is in a different class altogether), those statements are given more resonance and power than they should have had in the first place.
As an aside, do you really think guys that overgeneralize and “exotify” anyone (be it Asians, blondes, beefcake other men, etcetera etcetera) with total disregard for their individual cultures and personalities are going to be otherwise sensitive and tactful?
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March 19th, 2008 at 8:47AM
joe bernstein Says:
matthew-on saturday and sunday from 11am-3pm Lucky Garden serves dim sum and they get a large crowd,mostly,but not by any means entirely Asian-i even notice a lot of NY plates there-long way to drive for dim sum
you’re right about the salt and pepper tofu-anyone who thinks tofu is boring would sure be surprised!!
i was visiting my daughter in Pittsburgh last year and we went to a Taiwanese place called Rose Tea Cafe-i know they were authentic because they offered such things as “smelled bean curd”(stinky tofu) and “homestyle intestine with sour mustard”-i stuck to some more conventional noodle dishes,but they made the best tea i ever tried
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March 19th, 2008 at 10:28AM
chiz Says:
oh i love lucky garden! it’s my go to place for weekend brunch. havent had the salt and pepper tofu yet but I will try that next time. Joe, I give you mad props for having had chicken feet.. most asians that I bring to Lucky Garden wont even try a piece.
anyway, I think the daily dose should do more food/restaurant reviews (hint hint)
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March 19th, 2008 at 10:44AM
joe bernstein Says:
the thing about Lucky garden is that if you are driving by it looks like just another chow mein/chop suey place-i like that they have two menus-one for the Americanized food and the other for Hong Kong style-they also make great soft shelled crabs,”egg with silver fish”,and “japanese style eel”-none of this seems adventurous for me- i spent time in the Netherlands where i have friends from Cameroon and they cook dishes that i have no idea what is in them,but they are really good-some of the vegetables they use have no equivalent here and they use some SERIOUSLY hot peppers
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March 19th, 2008 at 12:34PM
Matthew Lawrence Says:
they have an american menu, a hong kong menu, an american specials menu, a chinese specials menu, a specials board, and about 7 people waiting on you at any given moment.
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March 19th, 2008 at 2:00PM
joe bernstein Says:
you forgot the illustrated dim sum menu-AND usually a copy of the projo to read while waiting for takeout
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March 19th, 2008 at 2:25PM
Bill M. Says:
raininri: Women, especially non-white women, face many hurdles and stereotypes as they navigate our slowly-evolving society. The very fact that you are clueless to the extent of their anguish really proves the whole point I tried to make in my last post. The fact that you do not understand the full extent of the negative emotional impact of the offensive material proves that there is a disconnect. Obviously, this restaurant case is a situation where whoever came up with the ad, and the the restaurant owner approving the ad, and the magazine/paper accepting and running the ad all just sort of let it proceed without understanding the full implication. I agree with you that it’s a case of ignorance more than pointed, purposeful bigotry. But that is exactly the point I was trying to outline in my previous post. That the mainstream has become desensitized to these images of objectification, hence they keep popping up. Obviously the ad does not equate with slavery or trafficking. But it’s all part of the same big, complex problem. The objectification of women permeates our culture to the point of mass desensitization. Your lack of understanding the full ramifications proves it I think. What you think is a simple case of “ignorant and silly” is hurtful and demeaning to others. There’s a lack of empathy. That’s just the reality of where we’re at as a society right now. I think your reaction is a good example. We’ve got to do a better job empathizing with those that feel marginalized if we are going to progress. Even if we think something is overblown, if someone is hurt, we should listen and try to understand.
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March 19th, 2008 at 2:32PM
raininri Says:
I can’t help but wonder why all (and I do mean ALL) my female friends express unconcern, then. That, really, is what bolsters my opinion on the subject – I’m not some ascetic monk that never has any contact with intelligent, educated females. Being an empath and knowing how women feel certainly gives you an advantage here, except that I don’t believe you know or feel what they do any more than I or any other male does.
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March 19th, 2008 at 2:35PM
raininri Says:
And I think the only thing this discussion *proves* (aside from my apparent cluelessness) is that different personalities react differently to this issue, and it’s therefore NOT a cut and dried offense. I will endeavor to respect the feelings of those that feel slighted more in the future, but I refuse to say that that is the *right* or only reaction to this and thereby negate the feelings and opinions of many others.
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March 20th, 2008 at 2:59PM
Jessica Wang Says:
I’m uncomfortably surprised by the fact that most of the responses to this post are presumably by males. As a Chinese-American female, I am disgusted by the ad, the restaurant’s theme, and the justifications that have been given for it.
First of all, most media representations of Asian/Asian American women all into one of two stereotypes: the “FOB” whose poor English is worth a good laugh, or the hypersexualized, geisha-like escort. The latter image usually places us in a subservient position to a man/foreign master. That in itself is misogynistic enough; make it a white man and of course it instantly evokes imperialism and the use of women as war spoils, sexually valuable for being exotic. This is fetishization.
Additionally, nyotaimori is a specific practice, and Chinese Laundry is not actually a nyotaimori restaurant. Instead, John Elkhay has loosely used its concept in combination with the semi-nude photographs, kung fu movies in the bathroom, and his placement of the nearly nude woman under a glass floor so patrons can step all over her body. This is not about erotic or artistic traditions or even the simple use of sex to sell something. It’s the blatant use of stereotypes to represent a fusion of Asian cultures. The advertising and atmosphere say that the exploitability of Asian American women is the most appealing aspect of “the Orient.”
As for the name of the restaurant itself, Elkhay said that he chose it to “honor the time honored traditions before us.” Historically, Chinese-Americans have been associated with the laundry business because discrimination and financial disadvantages excluded them from other businesses. Sam Sing Laundry, which used to be located there, closed because the family who owned it was evicted in 2002. To provide a parallel example, can you imagine someone opening a Latin American restaurant and calling it “Mexican Maids”?
If you’ve heard little or no protest from women, it really makes me wonder. How many women have you asked? How many were women of color? You are certainly entitled to not care or be less concerned about this than me, but it does not lessen the harmful consequences of these negative stereotypes. Silence from some does not justify the pain of others.
I wish I didn’t have to cringe every time a man tells me about his yellow fever, I wish I didn’t have to feel enfuriated by jeering catcalls and occasional loud, mock-Mandarin gibberish yelled at me as I walk down the street. Unfortunately, indifference is a privilege that I simply can’t afford.
I would encourage reading the blogs that first publicized the issue. They counterbalance the Projo’s and the Boston Herald’s journalism, which has strong biases belittling the issue as a “stir-fried controversy.”
http://www.reappropriate.com/?p=1105
http://www.reappropriate.com/?p=1102
http://www.angryasianman.com/2008/03/chinese-laundrys-headless-naked.html
http://www.angryasianman.com/2008/03/napawf-weighs-in-on-chinese-laundry.html
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March 21st, 2008 at 10:26PM
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March 28th, 2008 at 4:17PM
Amanda Says:
Maybe she didn’t have any clean laundry?
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