Why do Japanese/Chinese/Thai restaurants typically have only oriental workers?

[Buzzbee]

I was craving some chicken terriyaki for lunch, so I went to the food court at the mall. When I got back to the office and was eating my lunch, it occurred to me that I rarely see anyone other than an oriental person working at the Japanese or Chinese places at the mall, or in any place that serves oriental cuisine. Why is that? I tried to think of other ethnic cuisines that mirrored this and all I could come up with was Mexican restaurants tend to have a predominantly hispanic staff (at least where I live).

Why?

Italian places might be owned by Italians or by people of Italian descent, but the staff is generally a melting pot of various ethnic groups. French? German? South American? Indian (not Native American Indian, but from India, Indian) perhaps, but there aren't many around and I don't think I've ever tried it.

My first thought was 'family owned' but I'm not sure that's the case, especially in the mall food courts where the workers are typically high school/college aged students and pretty obviously aren't related.


Anyway, just a little observation I thought I'd toss out for the group.

[rkmsuf]

You should go apply for a job and watch the look on their face.

I mean who wants to call up for take out and hear a perfectly understandable person.

[sachmo71]

Pei Wei in my neighborhood has lots of white and hispanic people. I don't recall seeing one asian person there. Strange.

[rkmsuf]

I like how in 80% of cities in America you can find a "#1 Chinese Restaraunt".

What I want to know is which is actually #1.

[Raiders Army]

It adds to the authenticity.

I mean, would you buy Italian food from a Chinese guy or an Italian guy? If I were just passing through and didn't know the difference I would go with the Italian guy. What about Chinese food from a Black or Chinese guy? Same thing.

[JeeberD]

Chinese - Yup, almost always Oriental.

Indian - In the hole-in-the-wall Indian place that I love here the waitstaff is all Indian, but there's a fancier, more upscale place in Addison that had white, black, and hispanic servers...

Mexican - The smaller, better places have almost entirely Hispanic staff, but the crappy chain places (On the Border, Tia's, etc) it's usually a mixed bag.

German - There's a great German restaurant in the area but I don't get to go very often at all. The last time I went our waitress seemed to have a genuine German accent, but I have no clue about the rest of the staff.

Italian - I really don't go to Italian places when I eat out, I get enough of that at work. But when I do there seems to be a mixed bag when it comes to the staff. I don't think there's a very big Italian population in North Texas.


So, I think in general the smaller places usually have a more ethnic staff while the bigger (usually chain) restaurants hire all sorts of folks...

[rkmsuf]

It adds to the authenticity.

I mean, would you buy Italian food from a Chinese guy or an Italian guy? If I were just passing through and didn't know the difference I would go with the Italian guy. What about Chinese food from a Black or Chinese guy? Same thing.


Yeah, everytime I have a chicken finger I think "Man, it's like being in China. They really make a great fried piece of chicken."

Nevermind they don't even eat that stuff over there.

[Bomber]

There is a pizza place around here owned by a guy from Inida, and most of the Italian restaurants are Greeks who realize their own stuff sucks.

[JeeberD]

Greek food sucks? :confused:

[sachmo71]

Yeah, everytime I have a chicken finger I think "Man, it's like being in China. They really make a great fried piece of chicken."

Nevermind they don't even eat that stuff over there.


Then were did the lyrics "Chicken de China, the Chinese Chicken, have a drumstick and your brain stops sticking" come from, Mr. Smart Guy?

[gottimd]

An Italian restaurant my Fiance and her friends love up in New York, is ironically owned by Indians, and they consider it the best Italian food in town.

[Tigercat]

An interesting twist to this is restaurants in food courts around the nation that claim to be "cajun" but are really just chinese type dishes with cajun themes(bourbon chicken that is oh so close to the flavor of sesame chicken) that are staffedand run exclusively by those of asian decent. I laugh and groan at the same time everytime I see a "Bayou" or "Cajun" Grill in a mall.

[rkmsuf]

Then were did the lyrics "Chicken de China, the Chinese Chicken, have a drumstick and your brain stops sticking" come from, Mr. Smart Guy?


Busta Rhymes and A Tribe Called Quest, The Scenario.

"Checkady-choco, the chocolate chicken
The rear cock diesel, for chicks they were kickin"

Those f-in Barenaked Faires jacked Busta's flow.

[Raiders Army]

Yeah, everytime I have a chicken finger I think "Man, it's like being in China. They really make a great fried piece of chicken."

Nevermind they don't even eat that stuff over there.
Understood; however, I don't think most people go to Chinese restaurants to eat pizza or chicken fingers (although I've seen those dishes in there). If I wanted to eat a burrito, I wouldn't go to a Japanese restaurant.

[rkmsuf]

Understood; however, I don't think most people go to Chinese restaurants to eat pizza or chicken fingers (although I've seen those dishes in there). If I wanted to eat a burrito, I wouldn't go to a Japanese restaurant.

What? Chicken fingers, spare ribs, teriaki sticks and stuff is the staple. No way they eat that crap over there. They eat Big Macs like the rest of us.

[JeeberD]

Man, this thread is making me hungry. I may have to visit the Chinese buffet tonight...

[AENeuman]

Strange to hear "oriental", especially living here in SF. Reminds me of my dad saying "colored people."

Anyways, the most popular sushi place here is owned by chinese people, a real popular chain here is a chinese and italian mix, and a new "it" place is a pizza place run by africans.

[weinstein7]

Asian restaurants in NYC are often staffed by hispanics. And when they are Asians, they're quite often the "wrong" Asians.

But it's not just Asian restaurants. Polish restaurants are usually staffed by Poles, Turkish restaurants by Turks, African restuarants by Africans etc. It just seems logical to me, since a) it feels more authentic, and b) if you have questions they'll be more able to help you.

I went to a hungarian place once and asked the waiter a question about the pronounciation of something, and he was like "I have no idea, I just work here." Kind of took the fun out of it :)

And I'll second Neuman's comment....does anyone still say "oriental?"

For that matter, Thais aren't what most people would consider "oriental" anyway, I don't think.

[moriarty]

And I'll second Neuman's comment....does anyone still say "oriental?"



Well, they probably do in Texas.

I've been to a lot of burrito places which were entirely staffed by asian employees. Always struck me as rather strange, but the food was good.

[TazFTW]

Well in Hawaii, the reason is because we order in Chinese. I don't know many white, hispanics, african americans, etc... that can speak mandarin/cantonese. With the bigger chinese population here it'll be wise to hire waiters that can speak Chinese in the event that the customer knows little english.

[sachmo71]

Well, they probably do in Texas.





What do you mean by that?

[Lathum]

You know I noticed the same thing, everytime I go to Hooters there are large breasted girls working there. Weird.

[Schmidty]

What do you mean by that?

He probably thinks everyone in Texas is a redneck.

[EagleFan]

Greek food sucks? :confused:

Ass, I believe... ;)

[gottimd]

It'll give you diarrhea.

[Franklinnoble]

Oddly enough, I just had chinese for lunch.

Crap place. All chinese, for sure... but the bastards tried to pass off orange chicken with sesame seeds as sesame chicken.

[Schmidty]

I live a block away from a Greek restaurant ("Eleni's") and they have the BEST omelettes that I've ever had. Feta cheese, olives, gyro meat........mmmmmmmm....

[dawgfan]

I laughed a bit when a local BBQ sandwich joint was bought by an asian couple (and not an american-born couple from traditional BBQ regions either...)

Not quite what you'd expect when going into a BBQ joint...still, for what it was, the food was decent.

[JeeberD]

Feta rocks my world

[Raiders Army]

You know I noticed the same thing, everytime I go to Hooters there are large breasted girls working there. Weird.
That's the best...but I've seen some regular size breasted girls working there as well.

[Schmidty]

I laughed a bit when a local BBQ sandwich joint was bought by an asian couple (and not an american-born couple from traditional BBQ regions either...)

Not quite what you'd expect when going into a BBQ joint...still, for what it was, the food was decent.

Dude, haven't had Mongolian BBQ? It kicks ass.

[sachmo71]

He probably thinks everyone in Texas is a redneck.


Oh. Well, he's right. I was just curious.

YEEEEHAW!

[Draft Dodger]

one of our many Chinese restaurants has asian owners and servers, but the the bussers/dishwashers are all Central/South American. I've also noticed that the servers seem to cycle through on a semi-regular basis - maybe every 6 months or so they all seem to get replaced at the same time. I've always assumed it was some sort of exchange program / work study type of thing where they come over to work for a short time and then go back home. None of them ever have very good English skills, making me assume they haven't been here very long.

[dawgfan]

Dude, haven't had Mongolian BBQ? It kicks ass.

Oh sure, but this place I'm talking about is being marketed as a Texas-style BBQ joint.

Some of the best BBQ I eat is at a local "teriyaki" joint that one of my former asian co-workers was so fond of disparaging for not being "authentic" teriyaki. Didn't matter to me what they called it - their spicy chicken teriyaki is the bomb.

[Draft Dodger]

also, one (or maybe both) of our supermarkets have recently put in a sushi counter, and they only seem to have Japanese people working there, which would seem strange because I live in one of the most vanilla white towns in one of the most vanilla white states - I'm not sure there are ANY Japanese people here. My assumption is that the stores have contracted out the sushi stuff to an outside company that's probably based in Boston and has to staff all the stores.

[moriarty]

Oh. Well, he's right. I was just curious.

YEEEEHAW!

Yeah, basically taking a free shot a Texas since JeeberD who made the comment is from Texas (or so says his profile).

"Ya know we don't git too many of them there oriental types down here"

No harm intended. :p

[JeeberD]

Hey now, Buzzbee used oriental first... ;)

[sterlingice]

Strange to hear "oriental", especially living here in SF. Reminds me of my dad saying "colored people."

Anyways, the most popular sushi place here is owned by chinese people, a real popular chain here is a chinese and italian mix, and a new "it" place is a pizza place run by africans.
Not to be belligerant- I'm genuinely curious, but when did Oriental become offensive and, kindof, for what reason? I noticed when I was growing up that people used it quite a bit more but somewhere in the 90s, it just kindof fell "out of fashion" and Asian became the preferred term. I always associated it with the region known as "the Orient" but I didn't think it had any negative connotations. Wiki, below, wasn't much help as it seems they try to justify it as something about universities in Europe, which, as you know have Americans riveted to their screen, every time they make a decision.

Political correctness in the United States

The use of the term Oriental is politically incorrect for its inaccurate and racist implications of the peoples that it refers to. The term Oriental was used by white Europeans to set a parallel between the "East" and "West," where the East was seen as backwards, exotic, and patriarichal, while the West was seen as logical, rational, and more modern. Additionally, many of the universities in Europe that historically offered courses in Oriental Studies were riddled with inaccurate and false information that was further used to cloud and distort the reality of the people the studies referred to. These distorted pictures of so-called "Oriental" peoples was used to justify colonization of the countries and their people in order to "make them civilized and Western." Additionally, it has been used in a derogatory fashion in the United States as an ethnic slur, and those associations have remained with the term for many Asian Americans (see parallels at "nigger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger_%28word%29)").


SI

[weinstein7]

SI,

The general problem with "orientalism," as I understand it, is that it was a label constructed by Westerners to describe "the east." As such, it's spectacularly vague, and covers everything from the Middle East to Japan to the Phillippines. I think people don't like being labeled as "orientals" because it's such an artificially imposed term. Japanese don't consider themselves "oriental," they consider themselves Japanese.

On top of that I think the term has negative connotations, at least in America, presumably dating back to our "difficulties" with Chinese and Japanese immigrants.

[AENeuman]

From what little I know. Oriental, being that it is a western word, describes a certain style/theme, much like one could say Victorian. i have heard people say that oriental is something you call a rug, but not a people. To be oriental is not to be asian, but to embody the characteristics of the "oriental" theme (marco polo, colonialism, turkish bizarre, etc).

[Klinglerware]

Also, the term "oriental" conflates ethnicity and geography. Even if "the Orient" is a more or less geographical term, people use "Oriental" not to denote the geography one comes from, but one's racial/ethnic origins. "Oriental" would be okay with me if it were used as a geographical term, but it just seems very imprecise to use it as an ethnic term, especially when people seem to apply the term selectively--I doubt that many people would classify an ethnic Russian who lives in the Russian far east as "oriental", even though that would be a correct usage if "oriental" were truly a geogrpahical term.

[Karlifornia]

Whenever I hear someone genuinely bitch about asian people, it always seems to be "Damn Orientals"...

[sterlingice]

SI,

The general problem with "orientalism," as I understand it, is that it was a label constructed by Westerners to describe "the east." As such, it's spectacularly vague, and covers everything from the Middle East to Japan to the Phillippines. I think people don't like being labeled as "orientals" because it's such an artificially imposed term. Japanese don't consider themselves "oriental," they consider themselves Japanese.
But isn't that the same problem with the term Asian? It can include anyone from Japan to Russia to the Indian subcontient to the Middle East? I guess I always associated "Oriental" with south east Asia and was incorrect.

Don't the same problems arise with the term Eurpean where anything from England to the Mediterranean to the Balkans to Russia are all included?

SI

[stevew]

Isn't the reason cause of family connections too? I used to eat at a series of Chinese places called Kins Walk in Norfolk, and it had seemed from newspaper articles that each "new" store in the line was being run by an extended family member.

[-Mojo Jojo-]

Yeah, everytime I have a chicken finger I think "Man, it's like being in China. They really make a great fried piece of chicken."

Nevermind they don't even eat that stuff over there.

Chinese people love that stuff (although you're correct that it's not really a traditional Chinese dish). KFC is huge in China, easily the most popular American fast food chain. And there are several Chinese clones of KFC as well...

[weinstein7]

But isn't that the same problem with the term Asian? It can include anyone from Japan to Russia to the Indian subcontient to the Middle East? I guess I always associated "Oriental" with south east Asia and was incorrect.

Don't the same problems arise with the term Eurpean where anything from England to the Mediterranean to the Balkans to Russia are all included?

SI

Not really, because people who live from England to the Balkans consider themselves as Europeans. They invented the term. Indeed, many Europeans go out of their way to refer to themselves as "European," rather than by a specific nationality.

Similarly, Asians accept the term Asian and use it to describe themselves. I imagine most Asians would prefer being identified by their specific country of origin, or at least region, than as simply "Asians," though it probably depends on the context.

[jaygr]

For what it is worth, my Fiance is Chinese and she has always said for her and those she knows at least, the biggest problem with the term oriental is that is (should be) used to describe things- rugs, art, etc. - and not people.

[TazFTW]

the biggest problem with the term oriental is that is (should be) used to describe things- rugs, art, etc. - and not people.
That's my biggest objection to the term. I am a person not an object.

[mgadfly]

This thread was more interesting when it was about food. I wonder what we are having for dinner tonight...

[Buccaneer]

From what little I know. Oriental, being that it is a western word, describes a certain style/theme, much like one could say Victorian. i have heard people say that oriental is something you call a rug, but not a people. To be oriental is not to be asian, but to embody the characteristics of the "oriental" theme (marco polo, colonialism, turkish bizarre, etc).
bro, isn't there an Oriental Restaurant on Market? ;)

Now you got me wondering whether someone from Egypt embodies the characteristics of the "african" theme?

[ISiddiqui]

And I'll second Neuman's comment....does anyone still say "oriental?"
I do. That's mostly out of protest though. People call it 'Asian food', but being a Subcontinental (Indian Subcontinent), isn't Indian food 'Asian'? So Oriental is a way to distinguish. I guess I could call it "East Asian Food".

[finkenst]

Talso, one (or maybe both) of our supermarkets have recently put in a sushi counter, and they only seem to have Japanese people working there, which would seem strange because I live in one of the most vanilla white towns in one of the most vanilla white states - I'm not sure there are ANY Japanese people here. My assumption is that the stores have contracted out the sushi stuff to an outside company that's probably based in Boston and has to staff all the stores.
this is probably corrct, draft dodger...

one of the supermarkets contracted (or vice versa) with Hissho Sushi. It was quite decent for midwestern markets... unfortunately it probably wasn't enough of a success since it's been discontinued.

[GMO]

Could this be discrimination against non-orientals?

[Axxon]

One of my favorite restaurants growing up in Tampa ( I don't think it exists anymore sadly ) was "El Gran Dragon de Oro" which specialized in both Cuban and Chinese food and was staffed mostly by hispanics.

Down the street from my house is an all you can eat Chinese buffet that is mostly staffed by hispanics too. It's food is decent and good for the price ( $5 for a buffet ) and includes a few mexican dishes like tacos etc.

Just a couple of observations.

[Buzzbee]

I certainly didn't use the term oriental as a slur and apologize if it offended anyone here. I claim ignorance and laziness as to my use of it. I considered Asian, but wan't sure if that was necessarily correct since Asia covers such a vast area. I didn't realize that oriental could be considered a slur. Glad to see my observation and my ignorance has sparked to pretty decent conversations.

Now, what's for dinner?

[Buccaneer]

Now, what's for dinner?Oriental?

[Buzzbee]

Oriental?
Food or person?

[Buccaneer]

Massage.

[Sharpieman]

Speaking of Chinese food, did anyone catch Howard Stern's bit with the Chinese resturants? Hilarious stuff.

[perez24]

I live a block away from a Greek restaurant ("Eleni's") and they have the BEST omelettes that I've ever had. Feta cheese, olives, gyro meat........mmmmmmmm....

I'll second you on that. Greeks seem to have cornered the diner market here in Maryland...and the best pizza I ever ate came from a Greek restaurant in Jefferson City, MO.

[JeeberD]

I certainly didn't use the term oriental as a slur and apologize if it offended anyone here.

Ditto. Sorry if I offended anyone...

[Franklinnoble]

Massage.
The asian massage parlors around here, and, more specifically, the bay area, are renowned...

Do asian/oriental people really mind if you call them that? I was under the impression that as long as you don't go around calling them "gooks" you were OK...