Why does food writing in Hong Kong suck so much?

For starters, we regurgitate press releases

The hed and dek basically say it all. A lot of contemporary “food media”, especially in Hong Kong, is plagiarised press releases about what’s new, new, new – new menu items, new chefs, new decor, new locations. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I like service journalism, I think news feeds of bite-sized info can help consumers decide how to spend their money. But it’s not the only form of journalism, and it’s not journalism at all if you’re just tossing all the words of the press release in a bag and spitting out a word salad with the same flavours. We (yes, I have been complicit) often take a publicist’s (or a restaurant’s, chef’s) word for something and base our stories on them, without as much as jumping on a search engine to fact-check or look up some background. Even if you do, and you find something you want to check, there’s a pressure most of Hong Kong’s food writers feel (and I suspect elsewhere too) about asking "uncomfortable” questions or including non-sanctioned facts (things that that no-one would bat an eye about if it were hard news). That pressure comes from the potential of being labelled “ma faan” (a great Chinese word whose meaning can range from inconvenient to fussy, annoying, or sh*t-stirring), or worse, blacklisted by publicists and the industry, and thereby losing access to sources, and let’s be real – media invitations to previews, tastings, and other “perks” of the job (yes, boo-hoo. I wrote a whole other paragraph about this and deleted it – too much of a digression (and too many words) for this edition of the newsletter, but trust, I have some choice words. Fodder for next edition, perhaps). The rules in Hong Kong’s food media have always been this: Play your cards right, publish the right things, and you can be wined and dined every day of the week at all the top establishments, access chefs easily for quotes when you’re on deadline, and be surrounded by people who make a song and dance of showing you respect. Be “ma faan”, and you and/or your editor/publisher will be fielding angry calls, emails and Instagram DMs until you’re demoted, fired or just ignored. Someone new, all bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready to rewrite press releases and produce vanilla content for a few free meals will replace you in two seconds flat.

This rant – about writers regurgitating press releases, and editors publishing them – was triggered by a recent event, but the larger phenomenon is nothing new. The event in question is the announcement that Belon, the highly-regarded French “bistro” in SoHo, will be moving, and that there’ll be a change of chef. Chef Daniel Calvert, who has been at Belon since day one (and took over at the helm shortly after) is leaving for Tokyo, and in his place will be chef Matthew Kirkley. So far, so normal (sad for Hong Kong losing a talented chef, but normal news-wise). What’s not normal is that none of the reports I’ve read (in “major” Hong Kong food outlets such as Lifestyle Asia, Time Out, and Tatler; I haven’t found it reported in SCMP or any Chinese-language publications yet) mention that Kirkley is, in fact, not new to Hong Kong. He’s actually moving from another acclaimed Hong Kong restaurant, Amber, where for the past year or so, he has been Chef de Cuisine – the number two person under culinary director (and front man for media) Richard Ekkebus, ie. a very important role at another important restaurant in Hong Kong. This is a key fact. How did I know this, you might ask? Do I have some insider knowledge that other writers don’t have? I wish, but this is publicly available information on LinkedIn. As anyone who’s Googled another person’s name knows, LinkedIn has amazing SEO. This was a first-page result. I can only assume that the omission of such a pertinent fact was because the press release omitted it too.

Why this information was not in the press release is another story entirely, but come on, fellow media folks, it’s not a huge task to Google someone’s name before writing about them. And if you knew and you decided to omit it, why? This is an indisputable fact that is highly relevant to the story. To be fair, there are a few reasons, one of which is that writers are paid a pittance, and perhaps editors are overworked too, but still, those aren’t really good enough reasons. Sometimes I’m that person that just throws their hands up in the air and says, “What’s new, lifestyle media is just one big advertorial machine anyway,” but other times I write rants like this.

I want to reiterate that this is not a singular event – my complaint here is not about Belon, nor their publicists. It’s about the fact that most food articles I read in Hong Kong (and beyond) are almost carbon copies of press releases. Tell me why a “foodie” who reads food media can’t just subscribe to press releases instead?

Epilogue

I was feeling a little bad after publishing this, as it reads like I've completely ignored good food writing (and writers) coming out of Hong Kong. They are few and far between, the writers are not paid nearly enough (and often quit food writing, or Hong Kong, altogether), and good stories, when they do come out, are buried in a steaming pile of the other aforementioned stuff, just in terms of sheer volume. If I sound abrasive, it's because I'm out of energy from hoping and begging everyone to please do better.

What I’m Reading

Among other things (self-censorship, what the National Security Law means for journalists), Timothy McLaughlin’s A Newsroom at the Edge of Autocracy in The Atlantic highlights the fraught relationships between the journalists and editors of the South China Morning Post, especially of late. Yes, it’s worrying, and I would never wish that sort of newsroom culture on anyone, but coming back to our little teacup of food writing, I could only wish for more debate about biases and what to publish. Food media here is, basically, already self-censoring, and it’s not even because it thinks there’s an authoritarian government breathing down its neck. It’s some twisted corruption meets Stockholm syndrome-esque situation with much less at stake.

Inadvertently, I read two articles that formed a perfect primer to the troubled world of patenting fruits and vegetables. The first, Cracking the Case of South India’s Missing Vegetables by Reina Gattuso in Atlas Obscura, talks about a project by Akash Muralidaran, a food designer, in which he tried to cook every recipe in the classic 1951 Tamil Brahmin cookbook Samaithu Pár, but couldn’t because some of the fruits and vegetables could no longer be found on the market. Through Muralidaran’s research, Gattuso segues beautifully into explaining the loss of native plants and biodiversity, and monoculture – problems that aren’t just to do with cooking and the environment, but also the economics and politics of corporate control over crops. A great companion to this article, it turns out, was published just days later in The Counter – Intellectual property and trademark protections for fruit-growing plants are on the rise—and so are the lawsuits. While focused on the US, it suggests implications all over the world, no thanks to companies like Driscolls that have woven a complicated net of exploitation internationally, just so that we can eat blueberries year round.

What I listened to

Episode 7 of Take A Bao, Tracing the Way of Kueh, which is a lovely overview of the Southeast Asian kueh (listen to it for the definition – it encompasses way more than I thought) and the history and culture around it. I would have liked a little more history about the links to Chaozhou and Hakka communities, but I guess I’ll just add that to my ever-growing list of interesting things to research.

Chef and activist Preeti Mistry on Dana Cowin’s podcast, Speaking Broadly – it was especially interesting to me to hear their explanation of the differences between gentrification and (modern-day) colonisation, specifically that making a run-down neighbourhood nicer is not really a crime in itself, “we all like nice things,” they say. In the podcast, Mistry succinctly summarises many of the movements in food and media today – they’ve been in this fight a long time, and it’s nice to hear these so-called “radical”, “new” perspectives in the words of a seasoned practitioner.

What I ate and drank

I ordered in for the first time in the longest time (I was never in the habit of getting food delivered, Covid hasn’t changed that) and boy, was it a treat. It was a dinner bento for 2 from Nikushou, and eating an Amela “fruit” tomato from Shizuoka for the first time in months felt every bit like coming out of some kind of fast where your palate is overwhelmed in the best possible way. The grilled chateaubriand of local beef (“local” means slaughtered in Hong Kong; we don’t have commercial cattle farms here), Okinawan winter melon cooked lovingly in dashi, and super meaty Hokkaido scallops were highlights too. Eating food I didn’t cook is getting increasingly exciting as the days wear on, and this tops the charts right now. Also, bonus points to Nikushou for trying to minimise the number of containers and wrappers things came in, and delivering in a sturdy, reusable bag. I wish there was a better solution than disposables right now, but for many reasons, this is what we’ve got for now, and props to Nikushou for giving a damn. Watch this space for more opinion related to food delivery packaging…

Weingut Heitlinger Pinot Noir 2012 – after months of drinking New Zealand PNs almost exclusively, this was a refreshing change (nothing wrong with NZ wines btw)!. It was like drinking smooth ribbons of cherries and raspberries that were a day or two from fully ripening, along with some well-integrated minerality, which I love (goes with my salty personality and all, LOL). This was my friend’s bottle; we bought some together a few months ago from the lovely Deco Wines for a song.

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