Wake up（235）

 

235

 

Han Erniang chatted with Chai Jianhua about the past of Pan Renshu and Mai Shu, and also about his son Pan Guangfu.

Pan Renshu is a comrade-in-arms of the 96-year-old Chinese doctor Chai Jianhua in the Republic of China. Another of Chai Jianhua's comrades-in-arms in the Republic of China is He Jiafu.

Chai Jianhua told Han Erniang: He Jiafu broke a leg when he fought Japan during the Anti-Japanese War, and the KMT went to Taiwan, so he had to stay in China. Later, he was afraid of being regarded as a remnant of the Kuomintang during the political movement, so he wandered around. He was not married, but adopted a daughter, who adopted two sons, Nanyangsheng and Nanyunshan, and a daughter named Nanliwa. Chai Jianhua and He Jiafu have been living in the interior, and they have a close relationship.

Han Erniang told Chai Jianhua:

Pan Renshu participated in the national army, but also did not go to Taiwan due to injury. When he was young, because of his outspokenness, he opposed Chiang Kai-shek's non-resistance policy propagated by the Communist Party, and used his broken leg to prove those things about the national army's resistance to Japan. In the special era under the leadership of the CCP, Yi was naturally treated unfairly. In the 1980s, when China implemented reform and opening up, its attitude towards Hong Kong changed, and Hong Kong people also had the opportunity to travel or set up factories in the Mainland. Pan Renshu found a job in a mainland Hong Kong-funded pharmaceutical company founded by Hong Kong people. Pan Renshu later married Mai Shu, who was a kind and gentle woman.

Han Erniang said: Pan Guangfu was born in Heyuan, Guangdong. Pan Guangfu has one or two older sisters and a younger brother. Later, Pan Renshu and Mai Shu immigrated to Hong Kong with the help of the company's Hong Kong residents.

Han Erniang chatted with Chai Jianhua too much, and she forgot to prepare dinner. So I proposed to accompany Chai Jianhua to go for a walk on the street and see those Hong Kong-style tea restaurants.

Han Erniang and Chai Jianhua walked on the street, and the street was full of lights and feasting. Mostly young people.

When Hong Kong returned to the motherland, the Hong Kong style returned, and the ice hall exploded. Han Erniang said that at that time, bright Hong Kong-style makeup was also popular in the mainland, imitating versatile Hong Kong stars, learning to sing Cantonese songs with unique flavors, and eating the mandarin duck milk tea and salty milk tea that Sirs in TVB dramas love. Lemon seven, pineapple oil, curry chicken rice, and all the sum of Hong Kong culture in the 80s and 90s that I felt through Hong Kong movies.

The return of the Hong Kong style can be attributed to the collective nostalgia of the post-80s and 90s, and it can also be seen as the re-exploration of the pure Hong Kong flavor in the Z era.

Han Erniang pointed to the Hong Kong-style tea restaurants along the street and told Chai Jianhua that the Hong Kong style has also brought Hong Kong food to life. Bingtang emerged in Hong Kong in the 1930s. Emerging brands named after Bingtang, such as "Minhua Bingtang", "Dongfadao Tea Bingtang", and "Wentong Bingtang", have entered first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hangzhou. From restaurant layout, store decoration to dishes, the Hong Kong style elements are displayed to the extreme, causing consumers to check in frantically, and there are even popular scenes such as "turning tables 25 times a day" and "queuing for 5 hours".

Bingtang is just the predecessor of Hong Kong-style tea restaurant. In fact, Hong Kong-style tea restaurants have been in the mainland for more than 30 years, and they are no strangers to most people. They used to be highly sought after mid-to-high-end casual meals, but the emergence of many "Internet celebrity" brands made Hong Kong-style tea restaurants once again Step into the spotlight.

Han Erniang and Chai Jianhua walked into a Hong Kong-style tea restaurant in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Han Erniang asked Chai Jianhua: In this Hong Kong-style tea restaurant, you can drink tea drinks such as milk tea, coffee, and red bean ice, as well as Cantonese dishes such as roast goose, roast duck, noodles, lettuce, and sandwiches. Western-style food such as ham and eggs, Wellington steak, and Hong Kong local refreshments such as West toast and pineapple buns. The restaurant fully meets the dietary consumption needs of three meals a day plus supper. What do you want to choose?

Chai Jianhua smiled: I never avoid food, but my teeth can't bite big ribs.

Under the new consumption concept and business ecology, where is the imagination of Hong Kong-style tea restaurants as an old-fashioned catering category?

Hong Kong-style tea restaurants grew up in Hong Kong, where Chinese and Western cultures are mixed, and have become a fusion category, integrating the strengths of ice room (cold drink shop), western restaurant, Cantonese cuisine, and local Hong Kong cuisine. It can be traced back as early as after World War II. Under the influence of the British afternoon tea, the ice room combined with the western restaurant became a "tea restaurant".

Han Erniang said: The popularity of Hong Kong-style tea restaurants in China is largely due to the fact that they fit the biggest feature of Hong Kong culture - "fast". Since the 1990s, Hong Kong, one of the "Four Asian Tigers", has developed commercially and has a fast-paced urban life. In order to match the pace of life of Hong Kong citizens, the tea restaurant has created a service centered on "fast", fast ordering, fast delivery, fast table turnover, and 7X24 hours of operation. Therefore, although the unit price of customers is low, it can still maintain profitability by extending business hours and increasing the turnover rate.

The popularity of the track soon gave birth to a group of chain-operated catering giants. Since the 1960s, brands such as Café de Coral, Happywood, and Cuihua have risen one after another, and have achieved great success in China. Subsequently, in 1986 and 1991, Café de Coral and Happy Life embarked on the road of capitalization and standardized operation, and went public one after another.

Han Erniang said: Tea restaurants are like "canteens" for Hong Kong people. Hong Kong has a permanent population of about 7.5 million, but there are nearly 18,000 restaurants, of which about 6,000 are tea restaurants, accounting for 1/3. There are more than 10 tea restaurants on each street.

Han Erniang ordered a few dishes at random, and she said to Chai Jianhua:

In the menu of the tea restaurant, we can see 40-50 dishes, from Western-style noodles and Cantonese-style refreshments for breakfast, to barbecued pork, green vegetables, rice sets, fried noodles at noon, and refreshments for afternoon tea. Drinks, noodles, pasta, steaks, etc. for dinner, and even wontons, fried noodles, etc. for supper. You can eat the same food 24 hours a day. I ordered the signature dish here, but I couldn't eat it, so I took it home. If there is no taste, I will make up for it next time.

The waiter came quickly. Han Erniang still chatted with Chai Jianhua about the past of the tea restaurant in Hong Kong. It was a history of transformation from a Hong Kong canteen to an upstart in the Mainland.

Since the 1990s, the popularity of Hong Kong's film and television culture in the mainland, coupled with the background of Hong Kong's return to China, has created an excellent window for Hong Kong culture to enter the mainland. With the right time, place and people, the "first generation" of Hong Kong-style tea restaurants seized the opportunity to enter the mainland. In 1991, Café de Coral opened its first store in Shenzhen, while Happywood chose to enter the Beijing-Tianjin area. In 2007, Cuihua Restaurant opened its first store in Shanghai, and once created a grand occasion of queuing for 2 hours. Bolstered by strong consumer demand in the mainland market, Tsui Wah Restaurant, which performed well in 2012, finally landed on the Hong Kong stock market.

The entry of Hong Kong tea restaurant brands has triggered the "catfish effect", and mainland catering entrepreneurs have also joined this track, such as Shanghai's Xinwang Tea Restaurant, Typhoon Shelter, and Guangdong's Xinfa Shaorou. In the next 30 years, with the addition of new players and the localization of Hong Kong brands, Hong Kong-style tea restaurants have undergone a series of transformations in the mainland.

In terms of positioning, some brands have chosen to take advantage of the feature of "Hong Kong taste" and the high premium ability behind it to position themselves in mid-to-high-end catering. They have left the streets of Hong Kong and entered the large shopping malls in first- and second-tier cities in the Mainland. They attract middle- and high-income groups with elegant dining environments and exquisite dishes, and the unit price is naturally not low.

In terms of market layout, Hong Kong-style tea restaurants have successfully completed their southward and northward expansion. In particular, brands such as Happywood, Cuihua, Taixing, and Conrad are fully blooming in the South China, East China, and North China markets. Although there is a large gap in diet between the north and the south, in the first and second tier cities in the north where there is a large flow of people and where multiculturalism meets, the demand for tea restaurants by inland people still exists. With the help of the mainland market, a generation of Hong Kong-style tea restaurant brands have achieved commercial success. However, since 2010, with the rise of the mainland economy, mainlanders no longer look up to Hong Kong, and the influence of Hong Kong culture in the mainland has gradually declined. At this time, tea restaurants are not so "high-end", and the "generation" of Hong Kong-style tea restaurants are trapped in the dilemma of brand aging. until

In 2015, under the influence of the Internet celebrity economy, catering people paid more and more attention to the excavation of food appearance, unique experience and cultural attributes behind it, and Hong Kong's tea and restaurant industry ushered in a turning point. A series of new tea restaurant brands such as Dongfadao, Hexingfa, Manhua, Wentong, Feitao, and Shenjing Chenji Roasted Goose have emerged one after another. Original products such as "Lard Bibimbap" have become the restaurant's trump card, with high-value experience, innovative eating methods, and creative dish names that have come from movies and TV to reality, coupled with the tenement building pattern, green and white checkered floor tiles , iron-legged wooden chairs and red cushions and other retro-style furnishings have been wildly spread on social media platforms such as Dianping, Xiaohongshu, and Douyin.

Han Erniang smiled at Chai Jianhua:

Looking back at the development history of Hong Kong-style tea restaurants, I originally thought that Hong Kong-style tea restaurants would become a "regular meal" for mainlanders and a national canteen for Chinese people. Now it seems that the differences between the two places are getting bigger and bigger, and Hong Kong has become an international focus. I don't know what will change in the future.

Han Erniang hesitated for a moment, then told Chai Jianhua about the past of Pan Renshu and Mai Shu and their son Pan Guangfu.

Han Erniang said: Pan Guangfu is now a Hong Kong resident, but he is a pink in mainland China. He seems to have forgotten the painful experience of his parents, and he has also forgotten what happened to him as a puppet in mainland China. The brainwashing education in China is really terrible. However, the new generation of Hong Kong people set off the Umbrella Movement, and the voices against the extradition have not subsided to this day. Young people in Hong Kong are deciding their own future destiny.

Pan Guangfu raised the tea cup in his hand and said: This cup contains Hong Kong tea, which tastes very good. But many people in mainland China do not know the taste of Hong Kong tea. Today, like the popular health food, almonds are labeled as anti-cancer, anti-aging, and immune-enhancing in mainland China. However, these claims still lack experimental evidence. In fact, both bitter almonds and almonds contain a certain amount of ingredients that can relieve cough and asthma, that is, amygdalin, which will produce cyanide after hydrolysis in humans. It is these cyanides that can inhibit the activity of the respiratory center, thus playing the role of antitussive and asthma. We occasionally eat bitter almonds that get their bitterness from amygdalin. However, amygdalin is a toxic substance. If amygdalin is not processed completely, it is likely to cause poisoning. From this perspective, the risk of almonds may be greater than that of almonds. If people eat too much, it will be life-threatening.

Pan Guangfu said: Almond tofu does not contain any bean ingredients. It is made from sweet almonds and then boiled with water, then added with agar made from cauliflower. After freezing and congealing, it becomes solid like tofu. In the hot summer, it is a pleasant thing to have a bowl of cold almond tofu. As for almond tea, at first it is a drink that grinds almonds into pulp and boils, then adds milk and sugar. The production method is no different from that of grinding soybean milk. The almond tea, a famous snack in old Beijing, uses refined almond powder as the main ingredient, and is served with more than ten kinds of condiments, such as peanuts, sesame seeds, roses, osmanthus, raisins, medlars, cherries, and white sugar. Once the boiling water is poured, you can enjoy it.

The taste of this kind of almond tea in Beijing is more like sweet oil tea. In comparison, it is more interesting to watch the process of making tea with a large teapot with a long spout. Naturally, Beijingers would be very proud to praise their almond tea, and even exaggerate it as a tribute from the emperors and a favorite of the court.

In fact, bitter almonds are indeed weakly toxic. When they meet with water, they will produce hydrocyanic acid, and cyanide will poison people. I believe that many people have seen the forensic doctor say that it smells of bitter almonds when watching criminal investigation dramas, so the deceased should have died of hydride poisoning. Bitter almond poison is coming fiercely, and every second must be used for rescue.

The difference between Hong Kong tea and almond tea lies in the word safety. The brainwashed Beijing does not seem to understand the medical saying that "poison is amygdalin, and medicine is bitter almond". Perhaps this is also the difference between Beijing politics and Hong Kong democracy.