Chinese food in Mexico City

I found this on a Food in Mexico City Blog and it makes me want to go.   What I miss in small coastal towns is a variety of food options.   Well this should get you started if you are in the "big city".

The young chef, Luís Alfonso Chiu is the son of immigrants from Canton. He grew up in the deco/colonial house, now converted into the restaurant. But the family feeling continues. As chef Chiu presides over the kitchen or mingles with clients his proud parents, Alfonso and Patricia, quietly run the ship.

Chef Luís recounted how his grandparents, who arrived here during the Mexican revolution, had been ‘asked to leave’ during the growing anti-Chinese movement of the ‘20’s and ‘30’s (astute business people, the Chinese were resented by the Mexican upper classes). His parents were born in China but the lure of Mexico remained and they immigrated--lucky for us. The chef grew up here, is as Mexican as mole, but loved the food of his ancestors, so he went back to Canton and Shanghai to study cooking.

Asian Bay Restaurante

Av. Tamaulipas 95 (between Vicente Suarez & Campeche) Condesa
Open Monday - Thursday: 12:00 -10:30 pm
Friday, Saturday 12:00 -11:30 pm
Sun:12-9 pm
Tel. 5553-4582

The Chinese in Mexico, 1882-1940

History of Chinese in Mexico documented for first time in English-language book.
By Letisia Marquez December 16, 2010

The little known history of the Chinese in Mexico — one that is marked by a bloody massacre and a successful effort to shut down Chinese-owned businesses in one Mexican state — is documented for the first time in an English-language book authored by a UCLA professor.

“There’s this rich history of the Chinese in Mexico that’s been forgotten for the most part,” said Robert Chao Romero, assistant professor of Chicana and Chicano studies. “It’s been forgotten because it’s a dark chapter in Mexican history, unfortunately.”

The book, titled “The Chinese in Mexico, 1882-1940” (University of Arizona Press, 2010) notes that Chinese migration to Mexico dates back to the 1600s when Spanish trading ships sailed between Mexico and the Philippines. Small numbers of Chinese immigrants entered colonial Mexico as personal servants of Spanish merchants.

Some Chinese stayed in Mexico to earn their living as tradesmen, barbers and shopkeepers, and often resided in segregated quarters in the periphery of large cities, Romero said.

Wide-scale migration to “Big Lusong,” as the Chinese referred to Mexico, did not occur until much later, according to Romero. About 60,000 Chinese entered Mexico during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many of them with the intent of trying to gain illegal entry into the U.S., which had barred Chinese immigrants in 1882.

(At the time U.S. authorities did not arrest Mexican workers trying to cross the border for higher wages because there were no laws in existence that barred or even limited Mexican immigration to the United States, Romero noted.)

In 1899, the Mexican government also signed a treaty with China to recruit Chinese to work in agriculture in the northern border areas, Romero said. By the 1920s, Chinese immigrants who had settled in Mexico were the second largest immigrant group in the nation — after Spanish immigrants — with a population of 26,000, Romero said. They resided in every Mexican state except for Tlaxcala.

The rest of the Original UCLA Article

Chinesca Culture Offering Found in Tepic

MEXICO CITY.- A funerary offering of Chinesca culture integrated by 8 ceramic pieces created between 200 BC and 400 AD was found in Tepic municipality, at Nayarit Mexican state. This is the first conjunct of Chinesca objects located in their original place in all Western Mexico.

Six anthropomorphic figures and 2 vessels were found; based on the way they were placed, a reduced space in a half-moon shape, it can be deduced it was part of a shaft tomb.

For the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) specialists, the finding represents an exceptional opportunity to explore shaft tombs of Chinesca affiliation, since these contexts had not been analyzed in situ before.

The distinctive characteristics of Chinesca culture are the oriental features of the figure faces, as well as its pottery, which present a buff colored coating and with fine black and red lines.

Armando Santa Cruz Ruiz, director of Nayarit INAH Center, and archaeologist Mauricio Garduño, informed that the discovery took place at 14 de Marzo locality, where houses are being constructed. Tepic municipal president, Roberto Sandoval Castañeda, gave notice to the Institute so the finding could be verified.

After positively dating the more than 1,600 years old objects, INAH began the salvage and moved the objects to Nayarit INAH Center for their register and restoration.

Mauricio Garduño, responsible of archaeological excavation, detailed that nuclear zone of Chinesca culture was settled in Nayarit high plateau valleys, in Tepic and Compostela, from where it diffused to other regions. “It was a highly developed culture for it time (200 BC to 400 AD), with an advanced agriculture, handcraft production and important commercial activity with groups at the coast, with whom exchanged obsidian and shell.

“Chinesca culture controlled important raw material deposits, such as in Navajas Volcano, where obsidian of excellent quality was found”.

The INAH archaeologist informed that evidence of this culture has been found at Cañon de Bolaños, Jalisco. Material of the same affiliation has been recovered as well in Northwestern Coast that corresponds to the first 2 centuries of the Common Era.

Most relevant funerary architecture in Prehispanic Western Mexico is represented by shaft tombs, underground funerary complexes integrated by crypts with vertical shafts, with rich offerings. “At this kind of Prehispanic tombs, offerings were placed around the shaft, in a half moon shape”.

Finally, INAH will continue doing probing wells in a 2,500 square meters area with the aim of recovering the most information possible, concluded Garduño.

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