Chop Suey : A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States Read Online Free

come, I no can tell difference; but now I understand very well.” Nevertheless, he doubted that the American’s polite behavior would last very long: “All men come first time China, very good gentlemen, all same you. I think two three time more you come Canton, you make all same Englishman too.” 12
    By the end of December 1784, the
Empress of China
’s hold was packed with hundreds of chests of bohea and hyson tea, yellow nankeen cloth, silk, and porcelain. Thecustoms authority issued its “Grand Chop,” which gave the
Empress
permission to leave China, and on December 28, she raised anchor and set sail for the United States. Other American ships were already heading east across the Atlantic, around the Cape of Good Hope and then on to China. Shaw and the crew of the
Empress
had inaugurated the era of the China trade. For the next sixty years, traders from ports like Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Salem, Massachusetts, would set sail for the other side of the world, lured by the chance to become rich by trading for the tea and finished products of one of world’s largest and oldest nations. These traders’ adventures led to one of the most remarkable—and unlikely—culinary exchanges of the last few centuries.
    In 1784, the United States and China were, respectively, the youngest and oldest countries on Earth. The Americans were then still working out the most basic principles of government (the Constitutional Convention would take place three years later) and just beginning the process of deciding what made their culture distinct from England and the rest of the Old World. The Chinese, in contrast, had become one country over two millennia earlier and could trace their lineage as a culture back to the dawn of history. Unlike the new nations of Europe who could not ignore the achievements of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, China had almost always been the dominant culture in its region, East Asia. As a consequence, many Chinese thought of their country as the “Middle Kingdom,” the center of human civilization. It was thanks to some of their legendary rulers that humankind had first learned to use fire, to hunt and to fish, to sow crops and build houses, to treat illness with medicine, to write, and to mark time with calendars. The Chinese had also developed a highly complex system of government, at whose apex stood the emperor, ruling under what they called the Mandate of Heaven: as long as the emperorremained virtuous, Shangdi, the supreme ruler of Heaven, would give him command over all humanity. In 1784, China was governed by the great Qianlong Emperor of the Manchu-dominated Qing Dynasty. He wielded power from his throne in the Hall of Supreme Harmony in Beijing’s Forbidden City, which was off-limits to all except his closest retainers.
    Expanding outward from this point, the Chinese traditionally divided the world into a series of five concentric circles, based on an ancient plan ascribed to the legendary Yü Emperor. First came the royal domains, meaning all the lands within the borders of China directly ruled by the emperor. All Chinese were, by definition, civilized. The core of these domains was what Westerners called China Proper: the eighteen provinces extending from what is now Hebei in the northeast to Hainan Island (then part of Guangzhou Province) in the south and to Sichuan in the west. Just beyond China’s borders lay the lands of the tributary royal princes: the kingdoms of Korea, Laos, Vietnam, Tibet, Mongolia, and others. Made humble by the presence of the Chinese behemoth next door, their rulers had decided that it was usually far better to accept Chinese supremacy in East Asia than fight it. They learned Mandarin Chinese, converted to the Chinese calendar system, and at regular intervals donned Chinese costume and traveled to the court at Beijing to give costly tribute to the emperor. In return, he would invite them to an imperial Manchu banquet, sixth grade. Beyond these