General Tso, Chinese Food in America, and My Dad

I spent many hours of my childhood in Chinese restaurants. I did word searches and sipped on Shirley Temples while my dad whipped up Beef and Broccolis in 140-degree kitchens. He also washed dishes, bussed tables, waited on tables, and cooked, before eventually owning his own restaurant. It was more reputable but also more work. Twelve hours a day, six days a week for 20 years was a lot of hours that my dad hauled ass to serve Chinese food he would never eat to American customers. 

I just watched The Search for General Tso, a documentary that traces back to the origin of America’s most iconic “Chinese” dish, General Tso’s Chicken, or as I grew up knowing it, General Gao’s Chicken.

From the rise of Chinese restaurants in America and how this foreign cuisine eventually became a comfort food in the American diet, the documentary illustrates the way Chinese people have made a life for themselves in the United States through the food business. 

Opening restaurants was an economic need for survival when, in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was signed to keep Chinese immigrants out and to force those already in the States out of work. The only way to earn a living, then, was to open up their own shops, which they did, namely in two industries: laundry and food. (When I lived in Brooklyn, a neighbor asked me if I owned the local laundromat. No, it was indeed owned by a Chinese family, but it wasn’t mine).

Families spread across the US opening restaurants in places where they wouldn’t have to compete with other Chinese businesses. That’s why in the middle-of-nowhere-Idaho you can still count on finding a Golden Dragon or a China Inn to curb your lo-mein cravings. 

Food was a way for the Chinese to carve out space for themselves in American life and culture. Adapting the flavors–making things sweeter and fried–to American tastes was a way to fit in. 

One of the Chinese-Americans interviewed in the documentary had eaten at over 6000 Chinese restaurants all over the States. When asked why he explained it as a search for an identity and to see how the Chinese American fit in with overall American culture. 

In my younger days, I rejected most things about Chinese culture except the food. Now as adults, my Chinese-American friends and I are always seeking good Asian food, but it feels less like a search for identity and more like an embracing of it. It helps a lot that in recent years Asian food has boomed in mainstream popularity. 

At home, my dad never breaded and deep-fried chicken before cooking. We didn’t throw in cashews or garnish with broccoli, and we definitely did not add three tablespoons of sugar to any dish, not even to desserts. 

On my dad’s days off, we never ate at Chinese restaurants. Either he’d stir up some egg fried rice, a simple mix of rice, eggs and scallions, or he’d go to McDonalds. Sometimes when he picked me up from school, we’d go to The Cheesecake Factory—my dad always got the Chicken Jambalaya because it was a little spicy, while my dish of choice was Louisiana Chicken Pasta because I liked things creamy and fried to suit my American side of the palette. 

I learned from watching The Search for General Tso that restaurant jobs are the most common for new immigrants because you don’t have to speak English. When my mom’s side of the family immigrated here in 2013, two of my uncles and a cousin went door to door seeking employment at Chinese restaurants.

Job-hopping brought one of my uncles to New Hampshire where a Chinese restaurant provided accommodation, where staff could sleep in a shared dormitory, shower, and make video calls to their families at the end of the night. For two years my uncle, who spoke zero words of English, lived and worked there going stark crazy from boredom and loneliness, saving up his days off to visit home once a month. 

An interesting point mentioned in the documentary is about the attitude towards Chinese food. French cuisine is revered. The labor is thus valued over Chinese labor and it reflects in the prices on the menu. What does that say about the cultural attitude towards the people whipping up your weekly General Tso’s Chicken?

While I don’t think General Tso Chicken requires much skill and technique, the sweat-blood-and-tears involved are worth something, no? 

On many a school nights around 10 pm, I’d put on my dad’s coat and shoes for fun, and drive with my mom to pick my dad up from Sally Ling’s in Newton Center. He’d come out the back door with a takeout bag of Jumbo Fried Shrimp and Beef Hofun that my mom and I would eat in front of the TV while my dad passed out on the couch. 

I always noticed new scars that marked his arms. They were burns from splattering oil because the gas in Chinese restaurants kitchens is turned up like campfires; higher heat, faster cooking, more money. 

When my dad eventually started his own business, I’d sit in front of the TV alone munching on chicken fingers with duck sauce, while my parents did the day’s accounting at the kitchen table until midnight, every single night of the week. The next morning, he’d start the routine over and over into his mid-50s, when he finally moved back to China. 

My dad was never home for Christmas (or any holiday rather) because Chinese restaurants were counted on to stay open for people who didn’t celebrate Christmas.

Before my mom’s side of the family made the decision to immigrate to the States, my dad warned them: America is not as great as you think. You do backbreaking work for little reward. “太苦了,” he would say squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head, “Too much hardship.” 

My uncle left NH and now cooks in a Chinese restaurant in Worcester; my cousin serves tables at a Chinese restaurant in Lexington; and another uncle delivers produce to Chinese restaurants across Massachusetts.

Food is an integral part of Chinese culture. So much so that our greeting is “Have you eaten?” in place of “Hello, how are you?” Traditions pass down through food; families gather around food; stories are told through food. Every social gathering in China involves food.

But here in America, food is integral to the Chinese in an additional way; it’s their livelihood. 

My dad was trained as a classical musician. But for the twenty years he labored away in Chinese restaurants in America, the only thing he sang about was the pain in his lower back. That didn’t stop him from providing for the family though. 

As I watched The Search for General Tso, I found myself smiling. Over the last hundred years, Chinese people have quietly been easing their way into daily American life through General Tso’s Chicken, of all ways. As an ABC (American Born Chinese) even I crave it once in a while (like every 5 years).