China Harbor has sat on the western fringe of Lake Union for 30 years—a hulking black field surrounded by docked yachts and boat rental corporations.
However till final week, I’d by no means been inside the huge Chinese language restaurant. Each time I drove previous, the large crimson letters within the stereotypical typeface actually referred to as “wonton font” shouted “CHINA HARBOR,” drawing my consideration to the constructing and the steps main up by means of the spherical entryway. I’d attempt to glimpse what and who was in there till the curves within the street pulled my eyes away.
For the three a long time it’s occupied the previous Elks Lodge constructing alongside Westlake Avenue, China Harbor has been mired in conspiracy. It’s been a mythmaker, an object of fascination. Anybody I requested in regards to the restaurant spoke about it conspiratorially. “It’s a entrance, you recognize,” they’d say. “It’s all the time empty there. The Chinese language mafia owns it.” They spoke of dangerous meals, of poor well being scores, and rampant rat infestations. They’d toss round theories about prostitution, medication, and basement playing. None of them—associates, coworkers, strangers on the web—had ever been. The thriller grew. Then, lower than a month in the past, the restaurant’s staff posted on Fb that China Harbor can be closing. Lastly, throughout its final week in operation, I ate at China Harbor.
I arrived with two associates at 6:30 pm and waited in a protracted, unmoving line to only speak to the hostess. Contained in the banquet corridor, which I may solely glimpse from my spot within the empty foyer, folks dined. Behind me, the road stored rising as increasingly folks confirmed as much as pay their respects, or whet the appetites of their curiosities earlier than it was too late. Many appeared stunned to discover a line, to have to attend. They’d most likely purchased into the “mafia entrance” rumors, too, and had anticipated an empty ballroom.
Within the giant eating room, a wall of home windows snaked across the perimeter, framing the view of South Lake Union and the Seattle skyline with ornate crimson lattice. The room’s gentle glowed by means of painted ceiling tiles in between wood-carved beams. Tables and tables stuffed with folks crammed a eating house as huge as a soccer subject.
The hostess sat my group at a desk subsequent to the window that appeared out on the lake as nightfall fell on Seattle. A frazzled waiter, his disposable masks slipping beneath his nostril, took our order, advising us to order as a result of “it could take a very long time.” We may barely hear him above the din of diners and solely ordered appetizers.
The crab rangoons got here first and had been gone in a matter of seconds and a matter of bites. My abdomen growled gratefully when the moo shu pork got here out. I wasted no time slopping hoisin sauce onto a pancake as I piled pork within the center. I moaned as I took a chunk. Yum. We heaped steamed garlic inexperienced beans onto our plates and consulted the menu for our most important dishes.
Within the frenzy of closing-time festivities, we couldn’t flag down a waiter. When a busboy got here to clear our soiled appetizer dishes, we begged him for a drink menu.
“Oh, I don’t know what we’ve got,” he mentioned. “I’ll go get somebody. At present’s my first day.” The restaurant’s deliberate closure was in three days.
Quickly, a waitress got here. She took our orders. Once we requested for beef chow mein, she mentioned, “No. Get chung fu. It’s higher.” We trusted her. Once we ordered dim sum, she shook her head. “None left.”
We gorged on almond rooster and slurped beef chung fu. By the point the meat and broccoli got here out, we decided it could make lunch tomorrow and break up it into to-go packing containers. All of us left China Harbor sated and impressed.
Above all, it appeared like a traditional Chinese language restaurant. The place did all of the hullabaloo come from?
After consuming there, I wished to dive into the thriller surrounding the constructing. And, boy, would you imagine it? That thriller that’s tailed the enterprise for many years? It’s really simply run-of-the-mill racism.
If you wish to know something about what White Seattle thought of China Harbor by means of the a long time, look no additional than the Bare Loon, an early-aughts satire weblog that now reads like The Needling’s conservative, unfunny uncle. A farcical story from the Bare Loon referred to as “China Harbor Most likely Not Simply A Restaurant” entails, what I assume, is a made up story of the Loon staking out the constructing:
Most individuals agree that the 34 thousand sq. foot facility is in reality a entrance for a large drug smuggling operation. The institution’s waterfront location and immense space for storing make this beautiful a lot a foregone conclusion. In an try to verify this, our investigators referred to as the restaurant, and tried to make a reservation for “Cocaine, occasion of two kilos” in a pretend Chinese language accent. The outburst of blended Chinese language and English profanity that resulted from this question was thought-about to be proof sufficient of the assertion, and we felt that it had been definitely worth the hassle making the earlier thirty calls by which the individual answering had merely hung up on us with out responding.
Though China Harbor does technically meet the {qualifications} for being thought-about a restaurant—in that they serve issues purporting to be meals—the meals that’s served is unnaturally shiny and, in response to a lab we despatched it to, could in reality be plastic.
The Loon piece goes on, but it surely hits on a number of key China Harbor myths: The restaurant can’t presumably afford all of that house by simply being a restaurant, unlawful issues have to be funding this fascinating piece of real-estate, and the meals is soiled.
Perhaps The Loon is an artifact from a bygone period the place punching down with stereotypical racist jokes may win you a Comedy Central particular, however 2008 wasn’t that way back, and this racism nonetheless exists, evidenced by all of the still-persistent China Harbor rumors.
It doesn’t take a genius to piece collectively that each one of those extremely racist issues are frequent in anti-Asian rhetoric, however I’ll lay it out for you.
In accordance with a PBS story printed within the wake of the pandemic through the peak of anti-Asian hate, “persistent false narratives… that Chinese language American neighborhoods or Chinatowns are dens of vice ship the message that Asian persons are much less civilized.” Suggesting that China Harbor homes a brothel upstairs or a playing den within the basement isn’t solely racist, it’s unoriginal! Theories that Asian companies aren’t authentic companies, however fronts for criminal activity are commonplace nationally. And so is the entire soiled meals factor.
Assuming Asian meals is “soiled or disease-laden” is a trope we are able to hint again to the 1850s when white folks unfold the false rumor that Chinese language immigrants ate rat and canine meat. In actuality, these lies—which ought to sound very acquainted to us proper now—had been how white folks expressed their concern of the brand new, the unknown. For white staff within the 1850s, this sneering at Chinese language immigrants was white staff utilizing them “as a scapegoat for his or her financial woes,” Ellen Wu, a historical past professor at Indiana College advised PBS. This has one other title: xenophobia.
Take into consideration monosodium glutamate, or MSG. The chemical compound, based within the early 1900s as a option to improve the umami taste in meals, was maligned beginning within the late Sixties when a physician blamed the seasoning for the dangerous feeling he obtained after consuming Chinese language meals. This spawned a whole ailment recognized actually as Chinese language Restaurant Syndrome. Regardless of there being no precise proof that MSG was dangerous, the stuff all however disappeared in Chinese language meals within the US.
“That MSG causes well being issues could have thrived on racially charged biases from the outset,” an article in 5 Thirty Eight defined. This “concern of MSG in Chinese language meals” was simply one other instance of “the U.S.’s lengthy historical past of viewing the ‘unique’ delicacies of Asia as harmful or soiled.”
In actuality, chances are high the China Harbor was making ends meet not by trafficking medication from one facet of Lake Union to the opposite or no matter folks assume, however by being a singular, multi-use house on this in any other case business a part of city. Their occasion house was massively fashionable in Seattle’s Asian neighborhood. Of their closing announcement, they wrote that, on their busiest days, they “served over 500 visitors.” On weekends, the restaurant’s occasion house will get booked out for salsa nights and different multicultural dance areas. There’s a therapeutic massage enterprise and a basement swimming pool the place folks take swim classes. It’s a hub for non-white Seattle. Does anyplace that doesn’t cater particularly to white Seattleites all the time encourage this type of concern or suspicion?
I remorse not having given China Harbor an opportunity earlier than it closed its doorways as a result of staffing woes, excessive rents, and development charges. Whereas the China Harbor rumors all the time appeared far-fetched to me, I felt responsible for even entertaining them with out ever having gone contained in the constructing; For coming into the restaurant and on the lookout for any signal mob exercise. I ponder if anybody else who packed that eating room to get a glimpse of a Seattle thriller realized the conspiracy a part of the favored conspiracy theories as they cleaned China Harbor out of dim sum. I want I obtained to eat some dim sum. The following time that craving comes I’ll go to the restaurant’s new enterprise, Vivienne’s Bistro.
