The Hong Kongers finding a new home through food

The Food Programme

BBC

Arts, Food

4.4 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2024

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jimi Famurewa meets the Hong Kongers who are serving, growing and eating the food of their home country to connect with their own food heritage and find a new sense of belonging.

Almost 200,000 Hong Kongers have arrived in the UK since a new government visa offered safe passage and the chance of a new life in January 2021. And, as they settle into communities across the UK, including in New Malden, Manchester and Reading, there’s been a noticeable impact on food culture. At Holy Sheep, in Camden, Jimi tastes the spicy rice noodles beloved by this new generation of Hong Kongers, before visiting Hong Kong's most famous organic farmer who relocated and now helps new migrants grow the culturally-significant Choy Sum and other Asian vegetables.

As he talks to Hong Kongers about the role food has played in settling into the UK, Jimi also finds out how, for some, food has become an act of resistance and a way to express political solidarity. From the so-called 'yellow economy' of pro democracy restaurants and food shops in Hong Kong, to choosing to travel miles to buy ingredients that don't come from China, Jimi starts to realise how food has become more than just a taste of home.

Produced by Nina Pullman for BBC Audio in Bristol.

Transcript

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0:38.0	Hello, can I have the Sichwell Marla Broth? I think I will have some pork belly and then you can pick the spicy level so you
0:48.9	go from mild to ultra I can see that Mild says best for babies there, which feels like a dig at anyone that's about to select that.
1:01.0	I'm sweating already and we've not even ordered so maybe I'll go
1:05.3	medium or extra. I'll go extra. What would you advise?
1:09.0	Welcome to the food program with me Jimmy Famerue. Where this week we begin in Camden, North London,
1:16.5	at a tucked-away noodle bar on the second floor of Holy Wharf Food Hall.
1:21.1	Holy Sheep is one of many new food outlets that have been opened by Hong Kong as
1:26.0	newly relocated to the UK.
1:28.8	It's also the choice of my companion for lunch.
1:31.5	This here, you can choose.
1:33.6	Hi I'm Joyce I was the project director of the welcoming committee for
1:37.1	Hong Kongers so it is actually providing the help for Hong Kongers to
1:41.1	settling so myself is also Hong Kong a week. Iers to settling. So myself is also Hong Kong. I came in 2022.
	...

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