True, though I feel like they’re destroying their golden egg.
Thanks for recommending those books. I haven’t purchased printed matter in a while, and pretty much gave up as what was written upon release is more or less out of date by the time they arrive here. Things change so fast over there, that what was good during a snapshot and documentation in printed matter may not be the same now (or still in existence for that matter). I have a book written by Chua Lam of his 150 best restaurants from some years ago, and it’s pretty much a foot rest now.
It’s so much easier to consume information via these youtube videos (a reminder of what will be lost) or looking at Instagram photos of people who post + following those who know their stuff well.
Not everyone has money to leave, nor the capability to do so. People still need to eat, work, and survive…I don’t think a lot will shut down, but it will change and evolve for sure…for better or for worse.
People over here complain the hell out of the crazy waits for takeout for say, R&G Lounge, or how Harborview got into the PR disaster of hosting a socially distant wedding banquet where a good portion of the guests got infected… but they are not thinking of the big picture what happens when places like those are gone for good.
The PRC playbook will probably be focused on gradually sucking the life (financial sway) out of HK, and transplanting it into nearby (and much more ‘controllable’) Shenzhen.
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Has been in play for some time now and one would contend effectively realized.
| Rank | Port | Volume 2018 (Million TEU) | Volume 2017 (Million TEU) | Volume 2016 (Million TEU) | Volume 2015 (Million TEU) | Volume 2014 (Million TEU) | Website |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shanghai, China | 42.01 | 40.23 | 37.13 | 36.54 | 35.29 | English Chinese |
| 2 | Singapore | 36.60 | 33.67 | 30.90 | 30.92 | 33.87 | English |
| 3 | Shenzhen, China | 27.74 | 25.21 | 23.97 | 24.20 | 24.03 | Chinese |
| 4 | Ningbo-Zhoushan, China | 26.35 | 24.61 | 21.60 | 20.63 | 19.45 | English Chinese |
| 5 | Guangzhou Harbor, China | 21.87 | 20.37 | 18.85 | 17.22 | 16.16 | English Chinese |
| 6 | Busan, South Korea | 21.66 | 20.49 | 19.85 | 19.45 | 18.65 | English Korean Chinese Japanese |
| 7 | Hong Kong, S.A.R, China | 19.60 | 20.76 | 19.81 | 20.07 | 22.23 | English Chinese |
One of my Facebook friends is a very young sushi chef who started off as the Sergio of a sushi omakase (high end but catering towards locals) in the New Territories but now he is based in Shenzhen, and settled down there with a local woman… the empire he works for just opened a yakitori omakase and they have baller AF sake.
The Japanese food scene in Shenzhen is super happening…I’m quite shocked at this restaurant’s ability to source super high end ingredients and super high end sake…maybe they just drive across the border. They also recreated a version of Ebisu Yokocho, like literally an alleyway of restaurants side by side, drinking halls…literally bang bang boulevard, Japanese style.
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Well youtube is banned in China go figure. Just wondering if there’ll be more and more info sequestered and smothered away.
But yeah, books can be more or less out of date though I always find it fun to flip through them.
The only counter point is: https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3033377/hong-kong-remains-key-gateway-chinas-fdi-rises-29-cent-first
Considering capital controls are still relatively strict in China, HK still has some role but no idea now with the special trade status revoked.
Nevertheless, I have heard that Shenzhen is an amazing place with things constantly changing. Is there any historical dish associated with that area though? It was mostly a podunk village till the 80s no?
I went to Shenzhen in the late 90s and it was expanding and booming but still seemed like a third world country. There was a theme called a small world which was rinky dink as hell.
I went there in 2012 and it was unrecognizable from what I remembered it being.
Same here. Some of the public restrooms had no toilet. They were simply an empty holes where you pee and poop straight into a river.
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Anyone have any good recommendations for mandarin speaking food channels like the canto one that has been posted? Or additional interesting canto channels?
Watching these videos really help with keeping my language skills fresh since I basically only speak Chinese when ordering food from a Chinese restaurant.
Historical richness doesn’t really figure here, as (supposedly per CCCP’s vision), Shenzhen is destined to be the dynamic, gleaming City of the Future. Its recent and meteoric rise from a podunk fishing village is by design.
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Mandarin channel ok too? Or do you just want Cantonese?
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Unfortunately one such “historical dish“ for the region was, up until just earlier this year when legislation was passed (did a very quick search out of curiosity) … dogs and cats.
Yes they bred dogs just like pigs for food. I believe this originated in and perpetuated across Guangxi and a good part of Guangdong to some extent.
You could still find familiar looking Cantonese cuisine say in the 90s, but the flavors were a bit different compared to HK.
With China opening up, people from all across the country migrated around for work. So nowadays you go to Shenzhen you’ll find all sorts of regional Chinese there, thus in terms of food culture it’s mixed and there are probably more international cuisines to an extent. With more companies up there doing business and some outside of China, demand for food variety is there for sure. The high end omakase sushi bar mentioned a few posts above that started in HK New Territories then opened in Shenzhen, just opened up another branch somewhere in Guangzhou.
Mandarin and Cantonese both appreciated!
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Yeah me too more Mandarin and Cantonese!
Although my father side speaks Shanghainese, I won’t even attempt that!
Also crazy how multi lingual HK’ers are (at least the ones I meet in CA), many are trilingual and some are quad-lingual (likely the result of 1949 civil war bringing the family dialect to HK)
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Hahaha similar roots also throw Hakka in there for me.
I’m from the midwest originally so there aren’t too many chinese speakers in my generation.
The Youtube series A Bite of China was first aired about 5-6 years ago. Sure, there’s a certain amount of blatant CCCP nationalistic kool-aid here, but it’s overall tolerable. The food scenes make it all worth watching.
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Do you happen to know which playlist it’s in on cctv? I’m having a hard time finding it since I can’t read Chinese.
Copy and paste CCTV纪录 then in that channel search to narrow down by A Bite Of China as needed.
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Completely off topic but 3 Kingdoms with English sub
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I’m used to the OG version. Does it show my age? 
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