Ming-dynasty china found in Acapulco

Archaeological project yields thousands of fragments of porcelain

A new archaeological project focusing on the history of the Port of Acapulco has yielded its first treasure: thousands of fragments of a 400-year-old shipment of Ming-dynasty china.

Described as “export-quality Chinese porcelain,” the porcelain fragments — rice bowls, cups, plates and platters — were found just a meter and a half underground.

The pieces had arrived aboard the China Galleon and date back to a period of time between 1572 and 1620, when Ming emperor Wanli ruled over China. The discovery was made near Acapulco’s cathedral, in what is known as the city’s Old Quarter.

Ming-dynasty china found in Acapulco

Yellow Peril in a Globalized Tijuana:

Yellow Peril in a Globalized Tijuana: The Dog-Meat Incident, NAFTA, and Chinese Immigrant Labor

Lo Yen City

In October 2015, while in Tijuana’s Moustache Bar listening to anarcho punk from Mexico City, Pomona, and Riverside, I ran into a familiar Chinese woman in the bar’s patio. This Chinese woman who did not identify herself by name to me, can be seen frequently throughout Tijuana in her daily vending routes, especially in El Centro (downtown) and the Pasaje Rodriguez. Pushing her cart and shouting, “Chun-kuuuun! Chun-kuuun!” she sells chicken, vegetable, and shrimp egg rolls for twenty and thirty pesos each, the equivalent of a dollar-fifty and two dollars. She has even caught the eye of the San Diego Reader, who identified the 31-year-old vendor as Liang Yanfen. Many people coming from the US at the punk show only had dollars and she accepted them as well. The profit the Chinese woman made at the show from receiving dollars that night was surely higher than what she makes in her usual weekday sales. During a brief conversation she told me that her income decreased significantly since April 2015. In her seven-hour walking shifts she sells about thirty chun-kuns a day, a drop from the hundred she would sell daily before April. Aside from sharing with me that her street-vending became increasingly slow, she also presented a few pictures of her baby girl, whom her husband and mother care for while she works Tijuana’s downtown.

Why business was down and the dog meat story

But, what happened in April, and why did the woman tell my friend and I about the turn of events since? On 7 April 2015, Lo Yen City, a Chinese restaurant located in Tijuana’s Boulevard Fundadores, was shut down due to an anonymous tip provided to local police claiming that the restaurant was selling dog meat. This old trope about Chinese restaurants serving dog or cat meat to patrons is widely known and circulated in Tijuana, as in other places. This time the tip was taken seriously and police raided Lo Yen City because the anonymous tipper also told of a haphazard slaughter of dogs they had witnessed in the restaurants’ backyard. The tip was revealed to be sadly true in the days to come and a dog corpse was found in Lo Yen City’s kitchen. 

Very good article on much more than dog meat  - From Tropics of Meta

The Chinese-Mexican Cuisine You’ll Find Only Along the Border

California Foodways: The Chinese-Mexican Cuisine You’ll Find Only Along the Border

If you ask people in the city of Mexicali, Mexico, about their most notable regional cuisine, they won’t say street tacos or mole. They’ll say Chinese food. There are as many as 200 Chinese restaurants in the city. North of the border, in Imperial County, the population is mostly Latino, but Chinese restaurants are packed. There are dishes in this region you won’t find anywhere else, and a history behind them that goes back more than 130 years.

The Salcedo family sits in a coveted booth at the Fortune Garden restaurant in the city of El Centro. The mother and three adult sisters are almost drooling, waiting for their food to show up. They come from Yuma, Arizona — over an hour away — twice a month just to eat here.

A huge side order arrives, light-yellow deep-fried chilies, a dish I’ve never seen. Then a salt-and-pepper fish, which the Salcedos describe as “Baja-style,” with lots of bell peppers, chilies and onions. But have you ever heard of “Baja-style” dishes in a Chinese restaurant?

Mayra Salcedo explains, “It’s like a fusion, Mexican ingredients with the Chinese. It’s very different than if you go to any other Chinese restaurant, Americanized Chinese restaurant.”

Her sister, Marta, carefully mixes Chinese mustard, a little spicy Sriracha and ketchup into a special only-in-Imperial-Valley dipping sauce for barbecue pork.

“When they order, they don’t say barbecue pork,” says Fortune Garden co-owner Jenissa Zhou. “They say carnitas, carnitas colorada.” That’s “red pork” in Spanish.

KQED - California Foodways: The Chinese-Mexican Cuisine You’ll Find Only Along the Border