作者简介

Cheuk Kwan was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. He has also lived in the US, Saudi Arabia and Canada, and speaks English, Japanese, French and several Chinese dialects. Kwan is the co-founder of The Asianadian, a magazine dedicated to promoting Asian Canadian arts, culture and politics, and a film production company, Tissa Films. His cinematic works―Song of the Exile, Latin Passions and Beyond Frontiers―braid his personal experiences with his love of travel and appreciation for Chinese culture worldwide. He now resides in Toronto, ON.

内容简介

From Haifa, Israel, to Cape Town, South Africa, Chinese entrepreneurs and restaurateurs have brought delicious Chinese food across the globe. Unravelling a complex history of cultural migration and world politics, Cheuk Kwan narrates a fascinating story of culture and place, ultimately revealing how an excellent meal always tells an even better story.

Dotting even the most remote landscapes, family-run Chinese restaurants are global icons of immigration, community and delicious food. The cultural outposts of far-flung settlers, bringers of dim sum, Peking duck and creative culinary hybrids like the Madagascar classic soupe chinoise, Chinese restaurants are a microcosm of greater social forces―an insight into time, history and place. From Africa to South America, the Jade Gardens and Golden Dragons reveal an intricate tangle of social schisms and political movements, offering insight into global changes and diasporic histories, as the world has moved into the 21st century.

Author and documentarian Cheuk Kwan, a self-described “card-carrying member of the Chinese diaspora,” weaves a global narrative by linking the myriad personal stories of chefs, entrepreneurs, labourers and dreamers who populate Chinese kitchens worldwide. Behind these kitchen doors lies an intriguing paradox which characterizes many of these communities: how Chinese immigrants have resisted―or often been prevented from―complete assimilation into the social fabric of their new homes, maintaining strong senses of cultural identity, while the engine of their economic survival―the Chinese restaurant and its food―has become seamlessly woven into cities all around the world.

An intrepid travelogue of grand vistas, adventure and serendipity, Have You Eaten Yet? charts a living atlas of the global Chinese migration, revealing the synergies of politics, culture and family.

“Once in a lifetime, a book comes along that pulls all the strands of social history, migration, world politics and food into a comprehensive, entertaining book that is both enlightening and thoughtful. Have You Eaten Yet? arrives at a perfect time and is more relevant than ever. A must for anyone interested in how politics, culture, family and food merge together to create a most unique global phenomenon.”― Ken Hom, OBE, author, chef and BBC‑TV presenter

“A fantastic and important book. The social history and personal individual stories that Kwan shares brings to life what it means to be a Chinese immigrant navigating life in a foreign land. He highlights the strong sense of identity that so many Chinese immigrants possess, consciously or unconsciously, connecting them to their Chinese heritage, through food, so that no matter how disconnected or displaced, whether in Trinidad, Cuba, or Madagascar, one can draw from it, be nourished by it and share it. Kwan brings us closer to understanding our human experience, whether Chinese or non-Chinese, immigrant or non-immigrant, so that we may take away the human stories that ultimately bind, connect and inspire us all.”― Ching He Huang, Emmy-nominated television broadcaster, host of Ching’s Amazing Asia and bestselling cookbook author

“This book is aptly titled. “Have you eaten yet?” is a colloquial Cantonese greeting akin to “You are well?” Just as food is quintessential to Chinese culture, these stories nourish the soul and warm the heart. With a masterful blending of rich textures, contours and flavours, Kwan takes us on a lively journey of the omnipresent Chinese restaurant capturing the enduring spirit of the Chinese diaspora. I hear their voices jumping off the pages. This is how history should be told!” ― Dora Nipp, historian, lawyer and CEO of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario

“Seeing the world of the Chinese diaspora through the restaurants they created is brilliant. The stories shared are about adaptiveness and resilience, but also about innovation and invention and the creation of new flavours and culinary experiences that have shaped the history of the world. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the kinds of restaurants that Kwan describes were the model for small family-run businesses as a portable technology of the Chinese migrant networks that transformed the globe. If who we are is a product of what we eat, then the invention of Chinese restaurants as a worldwide phenomenon that spanned every ocean and continent has shaped all of us.”― Henry Yu, history professor, University of British Columbia

“In my many decades of traveling across continents and oceans, I’ve come across many enclaves of Chinese immigrants. “Have you eaten yet?” is a phrase I hear often in communities populated by those who came from Canton, the province of my family. More than a casual social greeting, the question conveys to me a sense of familiarity, of culture, history, tradition and of home. It took the keen eye of a great storyteller like Kwan to spin all that to a most enjoyable and meaningful book. Have you read the book yet? If not, what are you waiting for?”― Martin Yan, host of Yan Can Cook on public television, chef-owner of M.Y. China Restaurant, San Francisco

“Kwan was ahead of his time in taking the form of the culinary travel documentary but merging it with a deep sense of community histories and the vast networks of diaspora. Chinese food may be everywhere, yet through Kwan’s research and storytelling, we realize that in each niche it finds itself, it acquires something unique in its translation.”― Oliver Wang, sociology professor, California State University, Long Beach

“An amazing first-person New Yorker–style global ethnography of quiet emotional intensity that I could not put down. As a Chinese restaurant kid, Kwan's words made me tear up, as he really gets those interstitial moments between local patron and diasporic Chinese restaurant worker. Kwan nails the agony of what it’s like to be a part of and apart from China/Chinese people.”― Jenny Banh, Asian American studies and anthropology professor, California State University, Fresno

“An intimate yet sweeping lens on the Chinese diaspora through the institution of the family-run restaurant all around the world. From the jungles of the Amazon, to the heights of the Himalayas, to tropical islands of the Caribbean, to the fjords of Scandinavia, Kwan explores how, as immigrants, all our stories are all different yet all our stories are the same.”― Jennifer 8. Lee, journalist, author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles and producer of The Search for General Tso

“Travel the globe in this fabulous memoir with the author, eating your way from Saskatchewan to Madagascar, and savour the stories, flavours, sounds and culinary adventures of Chinese restaurateurs as he brings you into their kitchens, replete with savoury welcome. Kwan has a unique gift for creating meaningful intimate connections with everyone he meets, for reading their history alongside his own, and honours the restaurant workers with his heartfelt storytelling. All readers will find something here that rings true for them.”― Glenn Deer, Asian North American studies and English professor, University of British Columbia

"Hong Kong–born publisher and filmmaker Cheuk Kwan explores the Chinese diaspora through one of its most salient hallmarks: food. Around the world, restaurants have served as a foothold, a place of community, and sometimes even a bulwark against cultural assimilation. Personal stories of chefs, servers, and labourers come together in this delicious tour of a truly global yet uniquely Chinese institution."―AWB


Cheuk Kwan was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. He has also lived in the US, Saudi Arabia and Canada, and speaks English, Japanese, French and several Chinese dialects. Kwan is the co-founder of The Asianadian, a magazine dedicated to promoting Asian Canadian arts, culture and politics, and a film production company, Tissa Films. His cinematic wo...

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豆瓣评论

  • untamedheart
    原来以为会是北美和欧洲这样发达国家的中餐馆历史挖掘,结果是五大洲十五个国家的中餐馆走访,比如马达加斯加,南非,喜马拉雅山脚,阿根廷,西班牙海岛,是另一番趣味。作者是祖籍九江,生在香港,童年在新加坡,少年在日本,求学在伯克利,之后居住在多伦多的纪录片导演关卓中。这本是他做同主题纪录片的后续产物,即是镜子也是窗户。从这些因为不同的政治经济家庭原因漂泊他乡的华人中照见自己,也从他们所在的不同地区文化看见新鲜有趣的世界,其中不乏在不同国家政治摩擦,动荡中求生存的艰辛。赞叹华人生命的韧性和适应能力。贯穿整本书的一个问题是,我们如何定义自己的国家身份,是法律是种族还是文化认同?每个人有自己的答案,但我现在的答案和70岁的阿根廷华人老伯一样。02-13
  • 失控艺术家
    五星的题材,三星的写作,但我依然给很多身边的人推荐了这本书。太喜欢这些世界各个角落的中餐馆的故事了:土耳其的第一家中餐馆老板是民国时期管理西域的高级官员,解放前夕徒步到巴基斯坦然后一路来到土耳其;南非中餐馆的老板讲述种族隔离时期南非华人的奇特付处境;挪威北极圈里世界上最北的中餐馆;中餐如何正儿八经成为了秘鲁菜的一部分…这些故事都可以称得上传奇,可惜作者写浅了,把所有一二三代华人移民都写得脸谱化,都proud to be Chinese,都抱持着落叶归根的信念。但到底什么是根呢?所谓的地理上的根可以是剥离了种种社会政治因素的存在吗?Proud of Chinese food难道不是一件远比proud of being a Chinese要简单的事吗?读罢我脑中回响,谁此时流浪,谁就永远流浪。07-03
  • tumbler爱自由
    虽然是二十年前的游记读起来有点距离感,但是还是了解到了很多有意思的历史的//阅读的体验算是从开始的嫉妒(作者)使我面目全非(因为我也想说好多语言周游世界)到最后对移民的后代的identity crisis/question第一次有了compassion(即使都是身在北美,咱这种“老北京正黄旗”面对歧视和压迫史在某种意义上可以抽离的)//其他的一点小感悟:1.中国人真是太难了;2.移民史就是世界史;3.因为作者选材的原因(餐饮业)看这本书绝对可以对middleman minorities有更直观的了解12-07
  • 小裁缝
    大部分华人回答 of course I am Chinese 确实是的 在国外越久 越proud to be Chinese||特别想去trinidad那家Greatwall+嘉年华 再去吃印度正宗的chili chicken |中国菜的soft power 是美国完全无法比拟的04-04
  • rebel
    第七本有声书,实体书很精美,每章开头都有小插画,与其说内容主要讲广义的chinese不如说是讲hakka04-26

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