Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague

2015–2016

ERSTE Foundation Fellowship for Social Research Diasporas, nation states and mainstream societies in Central and Eastern Europe

Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio-material proximity in the making of a cosmopolitan city Karel Čada Jakub Grygar Tereza Freidingerová

Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of a cosmopolitan city

Karel Čada, Jakub Grygar, Tereza Freidingerová

Abstract Through a case study of the spread of Vietnamese bistros and markets in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, this paper focuses on changes in the forms of everyday Vietnamese presence in the Czech Republic, the recognition and tolerance of these forms by Czech society and, finally, how these different forms can be transformed into cosmopolitan practices and identities. The paper makes use of media texts, biographical interviews and the researcher's own observations in order to map the relationships between transnational networks, material objects and the recognition of migrants by the majority society. The history of markets and bistros creates a map of mutual relationships between the Czechs and the Vietnamese: from ignorance, through hazard to fascination and celebritization. By way of ethnic cuisine, a positive Vietnamese presence in public space has been established in two ways. First, the Vietnamese have started to be portrayed as acting subjects with their own agency. Second, these gastronomic entrepreneurs are now seen by Czech middle class consumers as a welcome addition to the construction of Prague as a modern and cosmopolitan city.

Key words Vietnamese diaspora; ethnic cuisine; urban change; cosmopolitanism

Introduction In autumn 2015, newspaper headlines repeatedly highlighted xenophobia and intolerance in post-communist Europe. Intolerance towards immigrants has been expressed in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.1 According to a Eurobarometer poll from October 2015, Czech and Slovak respondents are, in comparison with other Europeans, the least likely to be comfortable with the possibility of working with a Black or Asian colleague. In contrast to public-opinion research that maps attitudes of population on the level of verbal and demonstrative declarations, this paper investigates the level of practice, variably described as 'everyday multiculturalism' [Hage 1997], 'ordinary cosmopolitanism' [Lamont and Aksartova 2002; Skrbis and Woodward 2007], or 'cosmopolitan conviviality' [Gilroy 2004]. We follow the 'convivial turn' [Neal et al. 2013] by focussing on how ethnic differences are negotiated

1

This research project was developed within the ERSTE Foundation Fellowship for Social Research 2015/2016.

Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

and managed in everyday lives and places [Wise and Velayutham 2009; Hall 2012; Neal and Vincent 2013; Byrne and de Tona 2013; Wessendorf 2014; Jones and Jackson 2014].

In this study, the menu of Vietnamese cuisine served in the Czech Republic therefore epitomizes some kind of projection screen, which creates a map of mutual relationships between the Czechs and the Vietnamese, as well as a map of the stuff that lies in their stomachs during these interactions. In this text we discuss the relationship of transnational networks, material objects and the recognition of migrants by the majority society. We focus on changes in the forms of Vietnamese presence inside the Czech Republic, of their recognition and tolerance by Czech society, and finally, on the way these different forms of presence are visualized by the relationship of Czechs to Vietnamese cuisine. We are not the first ones to connect the interest in transnational networks with both human and non-human actors, and we are also not the only ones to notice the way micro politics of recognition manifest themselves in everyday practice.

Food and its consumption are frequently invoked in discussions concerning the exchange of cosmopolitanism [Jones et al. 2014: 11]. In this case, the history of markets and bistros creates a map of mutual relationships between the Czechs and the Vietnamese: from ignorance, to hazard, to fascination, and glorification. This paper makes use of media texts, biographical interviews and the researchers' own observations in order to map the relationships between transnational networks, material objects and the recognition of migrants by the majority society.

We believe that the choice of the so-called object of our study, i.e. sharing Vietnamese cuisine prepared by Vietnamese people living in the Czech Republic with their Czech customers, and the choice of field, in which we principally collected our data, i.e. Vietnamese restaurants in Prague, has the potential to bring interesting insight to something that other studies with a similar focus often do not reveal. To be explicit, we are of the opinion that by means of studying the expansion of Vietnamese restaurants in Prague we will be able to comment on key topics used to understand the creation of transnational and diasporic connections, such as migrant dignity and recognition. In our text, we will gradually show that Vietnamese cuisine served in the Czech Republic is primarily regarded as attractively exotic and at the same time potentially threatening. And this very connection of attractive exoticism and the uncertainty that comes with it, makes Vietnamese cuisine a good artefact, which, in line with Claude Lévi-Strauss (1970), is not only good to eat, but also good to think.

Theoretical background The project is focused on multiculturalism as an everyday practice and mundane agency. We are less concerned with debates on multiculturalism as a philosophical concept, as represented for instance by Taylor [1992], Kymlicka [1995], Parehk [2000], Madood [2007] and Phillips [2007] in an international context or, in the Czech context, Barša [1999; 2011], Hirt [Hirt and Jakoubek 2005] or Přibáň [2012]. While philosophical and normative approaches are relevant for our understanding of institutional frameworks and elite discourses, convivial studies can reveal how multicultural conditions are experienced by lay people in their everyday lives.

However, these philosophical debates represent frameworks that resonate in public discourses wherein everyday lives are embedded. In the context of public disappointment with multiculturalism [Vertovec, Wessendorf 2010] and the emerging criticism of ideal cosmopolitanism as an unrealistic notion [Braidotti et al. 2013], Nowicka and Vertovec [2014] argue that the concept of conviviality can fit into new conditions when public criticism

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Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

towards cosmopolitanism goes hand in hand with a trend towards ‘active citizenship’ that privileges individuality with a spectrum of opportunities and choices [Soysal 2012].

Gilroy uses the term conviviality to refer to the processes of cohabitation and interaction that have made multiculture an ordinary feature and unremarkable principle of social life in urban areas. Instead, people discover that they are much more divided by taste, lifestyles, or leisure preferences than ethnic or racial backgrounds. “Conviviality is a social pattern in which different metropolitan groups dwell in close proximity but where their racial, linguistic and religious particularities do not – as the logic of ethnic absolutism suggests they must – add up to discontinuities of experience or insuperable problems of communication” [Gilroy 2006: 26]. Following the definition of tools of conviviality proposed by Ivan Illich [1974], one can seek particular social institutions fashioned in a way to help people live together in complex societies. In contrast to Gilroy, Vertovec [2007) insists on the meaningfulness of cultural differences in times of enhanced diversification, especially when they go hand in hand with situations of hierarchy and social inequality.

Besides the concept of conviviality, we discuss two relatively widespread sociological approaches. First is an explanation using the socioeconomic logic of distinction as conceived

by Pierre Bourdieu [1984]. Food and forms of eating are in this case similar to fashion or sports, especially as means of expressing social distinction, where consumption demonstrates and at the same time constitutes the consumer’s social status. Later in our text, we will show that this is important, although in comparison with Bourdieu’s conclusions a slightly modified characteristic feature of many participants in our study. The second is an explanation framework that exists, especially in connection with Western consumption of “ethnic cuisine” as expressed by the phrase “eating the Other” [Hirsch 2011, Bell and Valentine 1997; Goldman 1992; Heldke 2003]. While Bourdieu focuses mainly on the creation of distinction and maintenance of social boundaries via consumption, the phrase “eating the Other” refers to the commodification of cultural differences. According to bell hooks [1992], “eating the Other” certainly does not take place at just the level of ethnic cuisine intended for “white consumption”. Whether the Other is being eaten for the purpose of emphasizing plurality and overcoming prejudices, or as an act of expressing one’s own power, privileges and the ability to control the Other, it always concerns a means of satisfying the White desire. Even in this case, we will show that in some contexts it is possible to use this explanation framework to understand our topic in an inspiring way.

Although we agree that accents placed by Bourdieu or hooks in their analyses of consumption can be successfully employed even when searching to understand the social context behind the expansion of Vietnamese restaurants in Prague, we take different theoretical positions in our own analysis. We do not study food and its consumption as a way of sharing a pre-given Otherness. Similar to Hirsch’s study of the gourmetization of Arabic hummus in Israel [2011], we explore the role of food in creating identities, proximity and alterity in commonly shared space [Cook, Crang 1996: 140-145; Gupta, Ferguson 1992]. We are interested in the way meanings of Vietnamese cuisine have been historically established in the Czech Republic, and in the way actors imbedded in different political, social and economic fields contributed to it.

Applying Hirsch’s example [2011: 619], we use Vietnamese cuisine as Pierce’s qualisign. In Pierce’s semiotics, sign is something that one sees as a representation of something else - not necessarily the same thing for everyone and in all respects, but only in relation to a certain idea. Qualisign is therefore a sign in which quality is the sign. Quality is therefore not pregiven. In contrast, the way quality is interpreted (e.g. how “Vietnameseness” is understood in different contexts) is an outcome of establishing identities in different discursive fields.

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Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

Establishing the value of Vietnameseness in a specific context is a result of both political ideologies (e.g. when the Vietnamese are construed as “dirty”, “vital”, “healthy”, or “close to nature”) and what Keane [2003] denotes as a “semiotic ideology”. These semiotic ideologies influence whether elements of Vietnamese material culture refer to the consumption qualities connected to Vietnameseness. As we will later argue, in the case of Vietnamese cuisine served in Prague, the most important quality was the “authentic link to exoticness.”

Methodology In the following pages we discuss our topic in three seemingly separate thematic sections.

First, we introduce Vietnamese migration and the integration of the Vietnamese in the Czech Republic. We show key points in relation to the wider global context and in relation to the events in Vietnam and the Czech Republic. We are convinced that without such a comprehensive approach we can understand neither the forms of the Vietnamese presence in the Czech Republic, nor their migration, transnational networks, diasporic ties or relations with the Czech society (and of the Czech society to them). In the second part of the text we examine how the presence of the Vietnamese in the Czech Republic has been reflected in the Czech media space. Identifying various narrative schemes / patterns and their connection to broader discourses dominating Czech public space is important to us for two reasons. First, these narrative patterns and discourses help to create, in a broad sense, the conceived public space, and in this way illustrate the kind of environment, prejudices and expectations the Vietnamese living in the Czech Republic deal with. Second, the narrative structures captured in the media space lead to a deeper understanding (and deconstruction) of the testimonies of food critics, food bloggers, and Vietnamese bistros customers, whom we interviewed in our research. In these interviews, we pay particular attention especially to those semantic clusters, which can be described as cultural codes fixed in narrative or discourse. In the last part of the text these cultural codes are presented and analysed. We show how, through the use of these cultural codes, food critics and food bloggers understand Vietnamese cuisine and the people who prepare it, and, on the other hand, how the Vietnamese themselves, the owners of these restaurants, understand their customers.

Our thoughts, analyses and interpretations are backed by several data sources: 1. We conducted a content analysis of Czech periodicals – 300 articles printed between the years 1995 to 2014.

2. We realized participant observations during three thematic excursions organized as part of the Prague foodie community into markets and restaurants.

3. We conducted four in-depth interviews with food bloggers and food critics, whose texts play a key role in the wider Czech awareness of Vietnamese cuisine.

4. With the help of students engaged in the research of our topic, we collected nineteen interviews with owners of Vietnamese restaurants.

5. In a similar way, we also obtained seventeen interviews with customers of Vietnamese restaurants.

6. We conducted two in-depth expert interviews with people who have been for a long time concerned professionally with studying the Vietnamese living in the Czech Republic.

7. The method of tackling our topic was subject to a discussion as part of a seminary of the Cabinet of Urban Studies at the Institute of Sociological Studies, Charles University.

8. We studied professional literature related to the topic.

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Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

Vietnamese in the Czech Republic2 With approximately 65,000 inhabitants of Vietnamese origin (0.65 % of the total Czech population), the Czech Republic ranks 12th out of the 40 countries where the Vietnamese live.

When one compares the share of Vietnamese to total population, the Czech Republic ranks fourth in the world. Immigration of the Vietnamese to Czechoslovakia, or the Czech Republic respectively, started in the 1950s. The first migrants – mostly orphans of NorthernVietnamese soldiers – came in 1956. The immigration of adults, mainly apprentices or workers, began in the 1960s, when a couple hundred Vietnamese arrived. They were followed by thousands of predominantly manual guest workers. The former communist Czechoslovakia experienced a steep increase in numbers of Vietnamese in the second half of seventies. While there were only 2,100 Vietnamese between 1967 and 1974, there were nearly 35,000 of them between 1980 and 1983. The Vietnamese had almost no opportunities to settle, become citizens or invite their relatives. After the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, many of them returned to Vietnam, but some of them did manage to stay even after 1990 and invite their relatives and friends.

Since the establishment of the Czech Republic in 1993, the number of registered foreigners with Vietnamese citizenship has grown from 9,000 to almost 60,000. However, it seems that since 2008 the number has remained approximately constant. It is also estimated that there are another 5,000 Czech citizens of Vietnamese origin who are not included in these immigration statistics.

Graph 1: The number of registered foreigners with Vietnamese citizenship

The number of registered foreigners with Vietnamese citizenship 70.000 60.000 50.000 40.000 30.000 20.000 10.000 0 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Source: Czech Statistical Office Over the years, the Vietnamese diaspora in the Czech Republic has internally differentiated along lines of migrant cohorts, generations or socio-economic status. There are also groups of

2

First part of this chapter comes from the article Sapa in Prague. A Gate for the Vietnamese into the Czech Society. Or Vice Versa? (visegradrevue.eu, December 12th 2015).

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Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

children who migrated to the Czech Republic with their parents (the so called “one-half generation”) and those born here (second generation and now even third generations). It is estimated that 12-14% of all Vietnamese residing in the Czech Republic are not immigrants, but children of immigrants who were born in the Czech Republic, yet they still possess the legal status of a foreigner. Between 1995 and 2014, 9,000 citizens of the Vietnamese Socialist Republic were born in the Czech Republic.

Graph 2: Births of foreigners with Vietnamese citizenship in years 1995 - 2014

Births of foreigners with Vietnamese citizenship in years 1995 ‐ 2014 1.200

1.000

800

600

400

200

0 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Source: Czech Statistical Office The existence of young Vietnamese elites integrating into Czech society can also be documented through the growing number of Vietnamese citizens studying at Czech universities. In 2004, 175 citizens of the Vietnamese Socialist Republic studied at Czech universities; however, their number exceeded one thousand a decade later (1045 in 2013).

Furthermore, only a tiny minority of them (25 students in 2013) pay for education, while the rest study for free. In the Czech university system, free education is on condition that the student has the ability to study in Czech. The data proves that the second generation Vietnamese have been able to integrate into Czech society, learn Czech, and succeed in the Czech university environment.

Vietnamese cuisine in the context of contemporary urban changes This Vietnamese minority plays an important role in the construction of Prague as a cosmopolitan city. Almost 11,000 Vietnamese reside in Prague. Special attention is paid to the SAPA market. The largest Vietnamese market in the Czech Republic, it is named after a sacred mountain in central Vietnam, SAPA, and nicknamed by the Czechs as 'Little Hanoi'. It 6

Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

is the centre providing the base for the economic activities of Vietnamese living not only in the Czech Republic, but Poland and Germany as well. Spread across 35 hectares, one can find shops, schools, restaurants, ambulances, a Buddhist temple, and even car services, in this neighbourhood. Official figures indicate that although the SAPA neighbourhood is predominantly inhabited by Czechs, 3,500–4,000 Vietnamese live there - though this figure may be as high as 9,000.

This year, 2015, has been officially named the Year of Vietnamese Culture in the Czech Republic, and cultural events promoting Vietnamese culture in Prague (mostly represented via Vietnamese cuisine) have been highly attended by the Czech public. One of the most spectacular events, realized as part of this programme, was the "Experience Vietnam. Cultural Gastronomic Event". This Vietnamese cuisine tasting was located in the same place where the first, and nowadays iconic, Vietnamese bistro opened outside an area of open markets. The show was attended by more than two thousand people in one day, and almost thirty thousand people declared their intention to take part in it via Facebook. According to the internet server Eating Out Prague, which recommends places in Prague for tourists to eat out, Vietnamese cuisine epitomizes Prague’s current food scene: “you know you’re in Prague when you catch someone debating the best place in town to get a bowl of the Vietnamese noodle soup, pho”3.

A similar opinion was also expressed by the American TV chef, Anthony Bourdain, when he visited the SAPA market while shooting the Prague episode of his No Reservation series. In the episode, Vietnamese cuisine was portrayed in opposition to traditional Czech meals. “I had a lot of goulash, a lot of pork, and lot of dumplings. So, I’m looking forward to Vietnamese food”, said the TV chef before his trip to SAPA with a young Czech Vietnamese guide (Episode 4 in Season 6, 28:25 – 27:35 min). Even though Czech and Vietnamese cuisine are described by this global TV star as contradictory, both of them are represented as authentic representations of Prague. "What is the first thing you think of when pondering Czech cuisine? Vietnamese noodles? No, me neither,” advises Bourdain to his audience (Episode 4 in Season 6, 27:25 – 27:35 min).

The SAPA market was created in 1999, and was exclusively designed for wholesale purposes and warehouses. In 2008, the market cancelled its entry restrictions, which had previously required a trade license, and became open to all visitors. As mentioned before, the SAPA market is presented as a tourist attraction, and as a place where the multicultural life of the community can be experienced. However, it is also associated with illegal activities and crime. The tension between pleasure and fear is still present in local discourse, and local meanings of the SAPA market are still contested.4 The SAPA market is an ideal case for exploring conflicting discourses of multicultural belonging, and how these discourses influence local actors.

Even though SAPA has played an important role in relations between the Czechs and the Vietnamese in Prague, the popularity of Vietnamese food originated in a different Prague market – in Holesovice, which is situated much closer to the city centre, and in the newly renovated areas of Karlin and Holesovice. The historical market is a traditional marketplace

3

http://www.eatingpraguetours.com/blog/prague-vietnamese-food/.

The public debate on the coexistence of the Czechs and the Vietnamese in Libuš started in 2008. At that time, the SAPA market suffered an extensive fire. In its aftermath, the Czech majority complained about the behaviour of the Vietnamese. The situation escalated in 2010, when one of the Czech residents invited Czech media to the market, and announced his intention to establish a militia to defend Czech citizens against the so-called Vietnamese mafia (Czech TV 10th April 2010, Blesk 5th). Even though the militia has never been established, opinions on the Vietnamese have remained polarized (see Dítko 2013).

4

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Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

where Prague inhabitants bought food and vegetables during the communist era. In the 1990s, the market was predominantly occupied by Vietnamese vendors selling cheap textiles and electronics.

It was here that, in the centre of Vietnamese economic life located outside the SAPA market, one of many small bistros targeting Czech customers with Chinese meals appeared in 1998. In the 1990s it was common practice. In all probability, most Chinese restaurants and bistros in the Czech Republic were owned by the Vietnamese, serving so-called "Chinese" cuisine based on rice and noodles, chicken and duck meet, and glutamate. The Czech majority is, in most cases, unable to distinguish the Vietnamese from other people with East Asian origins, therefore, the Vietnamese could easily perform as Chinese for the Czech public.5 The bistro, which later became known as "stall number 8", however, also offered Vietnamese meals.

Whereas Chinese meals were announced and depicted in the colourful Czech menu and illustrated by photographs, the menu offering the Vietnamese soup pho and other traditional meals was for Czech costumers technically invisible: originally intended only for the Vietnamese vendors, the carte du jour was only printed in Vietnamese on a plain sheet of paper affixed to a window.

However, it did not take long before stall number 8 started becoming increasingly popular among the Czechs as well. According to the legend recounted by Prague foodies, the Vietnamese cuisine served at the bistro was discovered by young professionals working in an

5

http://www.lidovky.cz/cinska-vs-vietnamska-kuchyne-male-patrani-po-puvodu-bister-po5-/dobrachut.aspx?c=A100625_110329_dobrachut_glu#utm_source=clanek.lidovky&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=a-souvisejici.clanky.clicks; http://www.vietfoodfriends.cz/press/detail/the-prague-post-student-blog-teaches-czechs-about-the-joys-ofvietnamese-cuisine-7; http://ekonomika.idnes.cz/vietnamci-otevreli-uspesne-bistro-cinane-je-bleskove-okopirovali-1c8/ekonomika.aspx?

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Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

advertisement agency nearby, people that belong to the group of educated professionals, artists and intellectuals Richard Florida (2002) called “the creative class”. This group started to have regular lunches there and they spread word of this place with their colleagues and friends.

What made the areas of Karlin and Holesovice the starting point of Vietnamese cuisine expansion was the extreme flood, which damaged these neighbourhoods in 2002. The ensuing rapid infrastructure renovation went hand in hand with social change. The traditional working-class population left their houses, and the long underfinanced houses were replaced with office buildings, ateliers and newly reconstructed apartments as well as housing estates inhabited by new urban middle and upper classes. Ten years after the damaging flood, the Karlin area had become a posh district with a flourishing gastronomical culture attracting foodies from all over the city.

The mushrooming of Vietnamese restaurants can be considered part of a similar process. The following map shows the proportion of inhabitants of Vietnamese origin in districts of Prague (darker shades of red represent higher proportions) in relation to the distribution of Vietnamese bistros and the offices of multinational companies. Whereas Vietnamese citizens reside predominantly in the southern suburbs of Prague, the highest density of restaurants are identified as being in the gentrified areas. Vietnamese bistros and restaurants are represented by green dots. These restaurants or bistros have become part of the Prague foodie scene. They have been reviewed by media, information about them has been spread on social media, and celebrities have been seen eating in such places. As one can see on the map below, their presence is associated with the spread of global companies. Global companies are used as a proxy identification of gentrified areas.

Pic 1: Geographical distribution of Vietnamese bistros and restaurants

Source: Prague Institute of Planning and Development and our mapping 9

Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

The bistro in Jiriho z Podebrad Square (naměstí Jiřího z Poděbrad) is usually mentioned as an example. The small bistro, situated on the edge of the traditional bourgeois areas of Vinohrady and the gentrified working class area of Žižkov, serves a limited variety of meals – beef and chicken soup (Phở), stir fry beef with noodles (Bún bò Nam Bộ) and spring rolls (Nem cuốn). Even though the Vietnamese owners of the bistro and their children have given a couple of interviews to the Czech media, the workers, often family members who came from Vietnam to the Czech Republic at the invitation of the bistro owner, are able to communicate only in Vietnamese. Almost every evening there is a queue of people squeezed into the steamy and hectic space waiting to take away their dinner. Both newspaper reviews and our interviews with customers documented that the environment, with its hard to breathe smell in the air, is part of the authenticity which customers experience. When one takes a walk around the bistro area, several other ethnic places can be discovered. A Dutch cheese shop and a French café are just next door, Mexicans and Vietnamese run their restaurants in the same area. There is a French bakery nearby. From Wednesday to Saturday, a farmer’s market is held there. Gentrification has transformed such places from a zone of working-class and ordinary housing to ones where the creative class live and consume in “a type of pleasurezone for omnivorous, status-conscious consumers” (Skribiš, Woodward 2013: 100).

Narrative patterns and discourses in the Czech media space For the media analysis, which represented a launch platform for our work, we chose the period from 1995 to 2014. The selection of articles was conducted on the basis of searching in the media archive NEWTON media. As keywords, we chose the combination "soup AND Vietnam", "food AND Vietnam" and "pho AND soup". On the basis of these keywords, we identified a total of 836 articles. The corpus of data, however, was further filtered and classified. Through filtering, we selected articles that (1) inform about the Vietnamese in the Czech Republic; (2) inform about the Czechs in Vietnam; (3) inform Czech readers about Vietnam. In this way, we obtained a resulting corpus of data that contained a total of 320 articles. Daily newspapers, including specialized supplements, weekly and lifestyle magazines, were primarily monitored in the selection. The presented media were studied in their printed and online versions.

The following chart shows article distribution in individual years. A sharp rise and increase in the frequency of articles is caused by an increased incidence of the very topic in the media, but also by the increasing number of newspapers and magazines, their supplements, and their internet versions. This analysis will be clarified by relating this data to the context of the corpus of data about the media portrayal of the Vietnamese in the Czech Republic which we are currently working on.

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Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

Graph 3: Distribution of selected media articles

Distribution of selected media articles 16,00% 14,00% 12,00% 10,00% 8,00% 6,00% 4,00% 2,00% 0,00%

Source: NEWTON MEDIA Archive (our own calculation) Besides the occurrence alone, there were also changes in the framing of how Vietnamese cuisine was constructed, and how its image was predominantly presented by Czech media.

This part of the analysis is presented by the following axis, which introduces the main images of the researched period: 

1996 – 1998: Exotic flavour or the Vietnamese cuisine (star anise, dogs, snakes etc.)

Vietnamese food was described in the context of Asian cuisine, with emphasis on its exoticism and dissimilarity to usual central European flavours. The cuisine was described in the context of travelling to Asia. It was extracted from the everyday world to the level of touristic curiosities and attractions (consumption of snakes and dogs is emphasised). 

1999 – 2002: Vietnamese instant soups (health hazards, bad quality, smuggling spirits in boxes of soup)

This period demarks the beginning of Vietnamese cuisine contextualization in the Czech Republic. The cuisine was, however, frequently associated with cheap instant soups, which were sold at markets. On one hand, emphasis was placed on their exoticism and affordability, while on the other hand, these soups were very often associated with different kinds of hazards. The media reports on their poor quality and the health risks of their consumption.

Vietnamese soups were often associated with other types of hazards too. Several times during this monitored period, the media reported that spirits were being smuggled in boxes of these soups. The image of Vietnamese cuisine corresponded with the image of the Vietnamese minority, which was associated with markets, poor quality goods for a reasonable price, as well as certain safety risks. If there were any reports on domestic Vietnamese cuisine in this 11

Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

period, they were aimed at adopting Czech traditions (e.g. The Vietnamese eat carp at Christmas). In simple terms, if the Czech media showed interest in what the Vietnamese ate at home, they did so only when the Vietnamese started to eat the same food as the majority did in Bohemia. 

2002 – 2004: “Vietnamese China-Town”, everyday life of Vietnamese market men

With increasing frequency, the media started to report on the existence of SAPA as a large Asian marketplace. In connection with the Vietnamese, the first reference to the changing image of the city appeared ("Like other West European cities, Prague also has its own China Town"). Media were interested in the everyday life of Vietnamese salesmen and also referred to Vietnamese cuisine. The food, however, was often referred to within hybrid frameworks connecting Czech and Vietnamese elements. However, the framework of danger that defined the way Vietnamese cuisine was reported on during the previous period, was replaced by a framework of everyday life. Cuisine in this context was not perceived as a peculiar entity worth attention, but rather as part of the description of the environment where the same role is played by what is eaten and how is it eaten. This framework can be characterized by the quote: "With the blissful smile of an experienced gourmet, Chin orders his favourite chicken soup pho ga and beer. Gambrinus. Don’t be mistaken. This is not Hanoi, it is Kunratice near Prague "(5/23, 2002). 

2004 – 2006: The exotic flavour of Vietnamese cuisine (star anise, dogs and snakes again)

This period saw a comeback of the exotic Vietnamese cuisine framework connected to Czechs traveling in Vietnam. Vietnamese cuisine in the Czech Republic was a minor topic. 

2008 – 2010: Where do the Vietnamese eat in The Czech Republic – Czech exotic encounters

In this period, which followed the opening of the SAPA complex to the general public, the framework of authentic Vietnamese cuisine started to emerge. The food itself became the centre of articles, which also focused on recommending places to go. In the context of Prague, such places were both big Prague markets (the stand in Holešovice marketplace near the city centre and the SAPA complex on the city’s edge), but also the first bistros or restaurants promoting Vietnamese cuisine, which were springing up in gentrified Prague neighbourhoods (Vinohrady and Karlin). In this period, Vietnamese cuisine was most frequently represented by pho soup, which also served as the metonymization of the entire Vietnam (Vietnam in a bowl, who eats pho gets to know the real Vietnam). The hominess of this dish was emphasized. On a metaphorical level, this reference can be understood as an invitation into a Vietnamese home by way of food. However, even in this context, a reference to "true and authentic Asian food at a reasonable price” appeared. 

2010 – 2012: Celebritization and diversification of the Vietnamese cuisine

Besides the description of the places where the Vietnamese eat out, recipes on how to make the food at home emerged as part of this framework. In this period, the celebritization of Vietnamese cuisine can also be spoken about. Through this media framework, Vietnamese cuisine was becoming a form of evidence whereby knowing places to eat out acquired cultural capital. There were popular actors or singers who recommended the cuisine. Their fondness for Vietnamese cuisine was connected with a non-superficial attitude towards food ("You may be surprised, but my favourite place for lunch is not a luxurious restaurant, but a takeaway".).

Cuisine, similar to the framework between 2002 and 2004, functions as a means of defining the identity of the consumer, not place, as was the case when describing the everyday life of 12

Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

Vietnamese markets. In this framework we focus on the emerging diversity of Vietnamese restaurants, which were moving from the world of bistros and takeaways to the world of restaurants for the middle class. In connection with food, the media reported on the young Vietnamese who start their own businesses, talk about Vietnamese food in their blogs or organize guided tours to SAPA, as well as use their nationality as symbolic capital that allowed them to differ from their peers and establish their expertise in relation to the assessment of what is and what is not authentic. Unlike the stories of the Vietnamese which appeared in 2002 and 2004, whose identity was presented as strongly diasporic with an emphasis on a certain unapproachability, the identity of the young Vietnamese presented in the articles of this period became rather transnational, stressing not only both the Vietnamese and Czech origin, but also the proximity to young urban elites in other European cities. In the next part, we focus on the practical side of the celebritization of Vietnamese cuisine and food adventures discourse.

Foodies On Sunday 24 May 2015, fourteen people gathered in front of the side gate of the SAPA market. They came to exchange a voucher worth 50 Euro, purchased in the luxurious and, by gourmet circles, highly-rated restaurant, SaSaZu, for a two-hour tour of Prague's biggest Vietnamese market. Long ago, the market ceased to have its business function, and sixteen years after its foundation in 1999 it developed into the centre of general economic, social and cultural life of the Vietnamese living in the Czech Republic. Curious and a little insecure, the way in which this group was looking around indicated that the intended entrance into the market complex was going to be a completely new experience for the vast majority of them.

Indeed, with the exception of their researcher and one couple, all people in the group were coming here for the first time. What's more, as it turned out, none of them had visited a Vietnamese restaurant before. This, however, does not mean that they had no experience with Vietnamese cuisine at all. As visitors to SaSaZu, a restaurant that focuses on preparing dishes based on the creative use of recipes and ingredients characteristic of Southeast Asia, they were actually familiar with some Vietnamese cuisine, although most likely unconsciously. All of them were also somewhat aware of the cuisine’s "primary quality", as they had read texts written about it by different food critics, and which is also guaranteed by SaSaZu’s owner and chef, Shahaf Shabtay: SAPA TRIP Explore a hidden Vietnam right in Prague with our chef and his trip to SAPA. Come and discover the mysterious land of Asia… In Prague, just few steps away from you, where you would never expect to find a world so different…

SaSaZu and our chef invites you to explore the wonders of SAPA Asian Market which will treat you to traditional massage and manicure, offer you the best Boun Con made out of fresh exotic ingredients from nearby market, open itself for you to experience the secrets of Vietnamese cuisine. Tease you with the delicious sweets or the best Pho 2000 in town.

Take two hours and get lost in Asia. No passport needed.6

6

https://www.sasazu.com/en/sapa-trip

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Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

Information from the SaSaZu website probably could not be more illustrative. Here, Vietnamese Phở soup, which is beef or chicken broth, thickened with long noodles and spiced by ginger, coriander and star anise, has a distinct semiotic function in being used as a signifier of the locality. The SAPA market itself, which we are invited to by the text, is a presented composite (pastiche) of history, mythology, folklore and Phở lore. There is, however, one more element, which does not stick out much from the above quote, but we consider it even more significant. The quote, as well as the excursion participants’ testimonies, interconnect two processes: the gourmetization of Vietnamese cuisine and the discovery of the Vietnamese by the Czechs.

The analysis of the media coverage concerning Vietnamese cuisine and reporting on the Vietnamese living in the Czech Republic has shown that the Vietnamese and their food has been present in the Czech media space over the long term. We can see an important qualitative change of the transmitted image, shifting from the almost toxic instant soups of people that stay in the Czech Republic only temporarily, to a diet representing a small culinary miracle, associated with people whose presence is enriching us. However, whereas in the case of instant soups, the Vietnamese are standing somewhat in the background - this form of quick and cheap (and slightly toxic) food from Asia, sold in supermarkets, is primarily destined for the table of the Czechs; now this already "ethnic food" and "ethnic people" become inseparable. Food is perceived as good and authentic when it is associated with a concrete ethnic creator.

This is exactly what the participants of the excursion were aware of. These educated citizens of the capital city, presumably possessing substantial cultural capital, who included a translator, a journalist, a person working in advertising, a computer technician, a civil servant, and the owner of a company providing support to foreign film crews, would be most likely labelled as members of Richard Florida’s (2002) creative class. Now, however, we were led into the narrow streets of the marketplace, where the position of the excursion participants was in sharp contrast to our immediate surroundings. From the small comments of the participants commenting on the situations of our immediate surroundings, it was possible to sense a fascination with the nameless "Other", whom we are so familiar with from pages of old travel books or ancient anthropological productions. What we were looking at was the bustle of a modern marketplace, where we were meeting poorer traders beside well-off businessmen with expensive phones in luxurious cars. However, we saw something else: the implicit interconnection of authenticity, geography and history. Our guides, regardless of whether it was Shahaf, Thuy or Mai, were taking us into restaurants and bistros, where we were supposed to taste real Vietnamese food, dishes prepared according to traditional recipes and from the same ingredients as in Vietnam. Our guides and excursion participants (and also many customers of other Vietnamese restaurants located outside of SAPA, with whom we conducted research interviews) were convinced that ethnic food is authentic when it is prepared and consumed by members of a given ethnic group. In relation to these geographic, historical and social qualities, the taste quality of food is almost accidental. Food is good if and only when it meets these characteristics. SAPA is therefore interesting for the participants of the studied excursions due to the fact that Vietnamese people not only work there, but also eat there. Which cannot be said with the same certainty about the Vietnamese restaurants in the inner city.

It must be added that this understanding of Vietnamese food via the concept of authenticity, historicity and geography, is not something characteristic only for people with whom we met 14

Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

on the thematic excursions around SAPA in Prague. We identified the same interpretative frameworks in the texts of food critics and food bloggers and in the interviews that we conducted with them. We believe that these and other similar terms and phrases can be understood as cultural codes.

Our endeavour is to use empirical data to describe ways in which authenticity is invoked: as geographically specific, "simple", personally and materially interconnected, linked to history and associated with ethnized consumption. Food plays a paradoxical role - on one hand, it takes Vietnamese food out of the environment of marketplaces and brings it to the everyday environment, while on the other hand it emphasises its exoticism and difference.

Gastro‐entrepreneurs Exoticism, authenticity and difference are not only important to the foodies. Vietnamese entrepreneurs themselves respond to this important element that could form the basis of their business. Unlike foodies, they do not relate to these qualities by means of the Orientalizing view of the Other. Rather, they relate to them as signs and qualities of their own self-creation.

However, working with these meanings is subject to change as well. We will demonstrate this in detail using the example of two Vietnamese entrepreneurs.

Chung ‐ Pavel Pavel (52 years) first came to Bohemia in 1982 as one of many Vietnamese blue-collar workers who came to the Czech Republic as part of an agreement between socialist Czechoslovakia and Vietnam. These workers came here in order to work on the construction of Czechoslovakia’s first nuclear power plant, a building that was meant to display both the country’s energetic self-sufficiency, and technological advancement. After the revolution in 1989, employers stopped extending contracts to Vietnamese workers, and Pavel went back to Vietnam. Along with the money earned here, just like many other Vietnamese workers, he also brought his new Czech name with him. Czechs have never been very prone to learning foreign names, and so one of the first things the Vietnamese encountered in the Czech Republic was the practice of their Czech teachers or co-workers granting them names perceived as “normal”, i.e. understandable, common, easy to pronounce. After returning to Vietnam, Pavel got married. He tried to do business in the black gambling market, but after failing to succeed and losing most of his savings, he decided to go back to the Czech Republic. It was 1994. As an employee of a job agency he had little choice about what kind of job he would perform. And he therefore did jobs of all sorts: he sewed trousers, worked in construction, in the forest. Usually without a contract and rarely with a secure wage at the end of the month. Even though it seems unlikely, in those few sentences in which Pavel reluctantly describes this almost two-year episode of his life, he touches on an experience many of his fellow countrymen have gone through. Information concerning the labour exploitation of many foreign workers by job agencies did not become widely known until 2011 in connection with the so-called tree workers case, in which these workers participated in tenders offered by companies under Czech state ownership.7

7

The whole case has been mapped in detail by the Multicultural Center Prague (http://www.migraceonline.cz/cz/temata/kauza-stromkari) and in the documentary by Daniela Agostini, The Tree Workers Case.

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Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

In 1996, two years after his arrival to the Czech Republic, Pavel registered his own trade licence and established his own business. Finally, his family was able to join him. As with many of his fellow countrymen, Pavel also started making a living doing things his fellow countrymen were able to profit from. In the mid-90s this mainly meant selling cheap textiles, including low-quality counterfeit products by global brands. He started to drive around smaller Czech towns selling textiles, and eventually opened his own stand in the Holešovice market. This is also where he first tried to cook. First, only for other Vietnamese men in the market, and later for Czech customers as well. However, this was still 1998. Czech pensioners and people from the poorer strata, who represented the main clientele of the Holešovice market, perceived the price of 80 crowns (3 Euro) for a portion of soup as an inappropriate provocation. "Go to hell with it", people used to say to Pavel back then, having no idea that the Czechs would be willing to pay almost double that price for Phở fifteen years later. Pavel quickly found that by modifying his offer, he could earn more. And so he started to offer his Czech customers Turkish kebab, and later opened a stall serving Chinese cuisine. "As an entrepreneur I do what I feel will sell. If I have a feeling that the Czechs like kebab, I make kebab. If I get the feeling that they want Chinese food, I make Chinese food”, Pavel comments on his journey through gastronomic entrepreneurship.

The turning point for Pavel arose in 2012, at the peak of the Czechs’ interest in Vietnamese cuisine. He responded to the advice of his friends and opened his own restaurant. He walked around the premises almost daily. Originally, it had been a classic Czech pub lasting many years. The pub was then replaced by a Chinese restaurant, an Indian restaurant a few months later, and eventually by an Afghan restaurant. The last one lasted only a few weeks on the premises. The interior of the restaurant was something Pavel did not think too much about.

Tables and chairs were all left behind by previous tenants, a simple bar was put together by Pavel himself. If it was not for the large wall-mounted paintings of the Ha Long Bay, Sri Racha sauce and chopsticks on the tables, one would not even recognize that the restaurant offers Asian cuisine while patronising. None of the plethora of oriental objects one often encounters in similar enterprises were inside, such as Chinese good luck cats with waving paws, altars with offerings for the guardian spirits, or an abundance of red and gold colours.

On the other hand, the first thing a visitor sees when entering the restaurant is a tap with beer from a small local brewery, of which beer drinkers are particularly fond. Pavel likes Czech culture, especially Czech cuisine and Czech beer. "I am a beer drinker. I love beer and I'm picky when it comes to beer", he recounts. If it was only up to him, the composition of his menu would look different from the existing one. At first he tried to offer the results of his own experimentation - an original mix of Vietnamese and Czech cuisine. However, his customers didn’t respond well to the offer, so Pavel changed the focus of his business again.

From that moment on, Pavel's restaurant has solely focused on North Vietnamese cuisine.

Although his is not one of those Vietnamese businesses most frequently mentioned in lifestyle magazines and national daily newspaper supplements, the gourmet community is familiar with it. As a result, Kamila Rundusová, a cook, a food blogger, and a person who according to the Czech edition of Forbes magazine ranks among the seventy-five most influential women in the country, picked Pavel’s restaurant to tape her new TV show.

Hung Cooking was never far from Hung's mind since his grandpa, back home in Vietnam, was a renowned expert of regional cuisines, and his mother, a pastry cook, ran a famous patisserie in the centre of Hanoi in early 1990s. In her shop you could have easily have bumped into 16

Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

famous singers and actors. Despite all this, Hung's path to his own enterprise was quite winding. The beginning of his career was inseparably bound to his parents' professional trajectory. Hung's father came to Czechoslovakia in 1975 on one of the first trains travelling across China and the Soviet Union. His mother followed somewhat later. In the former Czechoslovakia, contact between Vietnamese men and women was subject to relatively systematic restrictions. If one of the Vietnamese workers still managed to became pregnant, she was sent back to Vietnam before childbirth. And this is exactly what happened to Hung's parents in the mid-80s.

Upon returning to Vietnam, Hung’s parents did not lose the important social connections they had built during their years spent in Czechoslovakia. One Czech citizen, who stayed in contact with Hung’s parents, offered to help Hung and his older brother to enrol into a Czech university. In 2005, receiving generous logistic and material support from his parents’ old friend, a person whom Hung refers to as his "second father", Hung started to study in the business finances and trade programme. He started his own business during his studies, starting with tax counselling for Vietnamese entrepreneurs, and worked for a company specializing in importing goods from Asia to Europe. Later, he was offered an opportunity to work in a managerial position for the biggest Cash & Carry wholesaler in the Czech Republic.

This was an important experience for Hung. As he says, it was there that he learned about the way Europeans run their companies and their employees. And although he still offers tax counselling to Vietnamese entrepreneurs in addition to his current job, ("We had to explain to them, for example, that they must pay VAT"), he did not find these activities fulfilling. In 2015, five years after finishing his studies, and ten years after his arrival to Bohemia, he is opening a bistro in a location that constitutes one of the central spots on Prague’s gourmet map.

Judging by the frequency of articles about Vietnamese gastronomy published in the media, the boom of interest in Vietnamese enterprises was pretty much past its zenith by the summer of 2015. With the contribution of entrepreneurs who turned the word Phở into a synonym for Vietnamese cuisine by adding it to the names of their enterprises, the soup Phở became a generally known term for a considerable part of Prague inhabitants. Hung, however, did not want to parrot this model. The strategy used by many Vietnamese, along with Pavel for instance, who named his restaurant using a word combination containing the soup's name and the sound of satisfied smacking, is an approach that Hung finds annoying. Inspiration for his menu comes from Hung's brother’s trip to California. Bánh mì, a Vietnamese filled baguette similar to the soup Phở, is a Vietnamese innovation of French colonial heritage. Hung built his bistro around this dish, at that time served by only three other Vietnamese enterprises in Prague. Along with other entrepreneurs in Vietnamese gastronomy, Hung also presents his cuisine in connection to authentic ingredients and tastes anchored in Vietnam, and the opportunity to originally and directly provide this authenticity. One of the flyers inviting guests to his bistro, for example, reads: “My grandpa travelled all across Vietnam. He made a living by tasting food. He knew exactly what things were supposed to taste like. And I really liked him telling me about that. How does the story continue?” – next comes the web address of Hung’s enterprise. Despite the fact that the composition of Hung's baguette filling, and the fine-tuning of their flavours, is the result of long experimentation and testing (Hung, just like other restaurant owners, can talk about it for a long time), the element of taste innovation is a bit side-lined in the promotion of Hung's enterprise. Hung knows that his customers are looking for the authenticity, and he is able to offer it to them.

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Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

Photo: Facebook https://www.facebook.com/banhmibacz/photos/pb.473665256115140.2207520000.1448201432./503878913093774/?type=3&theater However, unlike many other Vietnamese kitchens and restaurants, Hung's place is very strongly de-ethicised, which can be seen all throughout the establishment, starting from the name of the bistro, which carries the name of the baguettes with the accents missing, making the name more readable even for people not skilled in the language, but not for the Vietnamese people themselves. In running his business, Hung uses skills from his previous job, running it like a European company. He refuses to hire his relatives, fellow Vietnamese, because it could spur his ability to push forth new and innovative products. Instead, he indirectly prefers to hire people from different social circles. "This is how I came to learn from one lady in my kitchen that back in her homeland of Ukraine, they cut the carrots differently. And the other technique proved more suited to our needs", Hung explains. When reflecting upon the inspiration that led to the final design of his entire establishment, Hung 18

Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

often mentions foreign influences. For instance, the fact that his entire menu is inspired by California, and the restaurant's interior design is cloned from his favourite establishments in Berlin. You see: everything must fit in its place, to be in harmony with everything else - the dish, the interior as well as the exterior of the restaurant, the colour scheme of the bistro sign, even the appearance of the staff. The stress towards simplicity and purity of form is visible in every single detail and it radiates through the entire environment. There should be a pristine oneness between the food, the service and the establishment, and it should not be torn apart by any ethnic or cultural barriers. Hung's enterprise perhaps fits into the joke, which makes fun of the boom in foodie culture, describing the trend in the following way: all a customer has to do is open the door and he's flooded to his knees in concept.

Conclusion Since 1956, when the first group of the Vietnamese arrived on the territory of contemporary Czech Republic, the character of their presence in the country has changed considerably. In the '70s, war orphans who had been offered education in Czechoslovakia were joined by workers, especially in the engineering and food industries. After 1989, when the Czech Republic terminated its agreement with Vietnam regarding development assistance, the Vietnamese living in the Czech Republic started to focus primarily on stall sales, and later on the retail sale of groceries. Despite forty years of continuous presence in the Czech territory, the presence of the Vietnamese has only increasingly been seen in a positive context for the last five years, and in connection with their national cuisine.

Food, especially national cuisine, has become a means for Vietnamese to positively establish their presence in the public space in two ways. First, it endows the Vietnamese with their own agency. The Vietnamese are starting to perform as individualized acting subjects in media representations. Even though they are still represented as bearers of radical collective difference, exoticness (which does however makes their offer attractive), Czech public space is for the first time entered by biographies of concrete persons. Real names of concrete people and of the cultural artefacts of the culture they carry, can be heard in Czech public space for the first time. Secondly, Czech consumers perceive these first successful entrepreneurs in gastronomy, and especially the food they offer, as a much welcomed enrichment of the otherwise rather dull Czech gastroscape. For many of them they have become evidence that even Prague has its own islands of flavour diversity and variety, as can be experienced in Berlin, New York, or London.

This specific consumerism, which we have witnessed in the last decade, and which is characterized by an unprecedented boom of interest in food and eating as part of the lifestyle of the urban middle and upper classes, also has its dark side. For foodies, food itself is only rarely the means of understanding the Other. Thematic excursions organized for Czech foodies into the SAPA market, or cultural educational events held in squares or restaurants in the city centre of Prague show that the Other is primarily approached as an exotic orientalised subject. What makes Vietnamese cuisine interesting and desirable is its very Otherness, exoticism, ideally evidenced by the authenticity of the ingredients, preparation and taste.

Otherness and authenticity that cannot be achieved by anyone else but the Other, whose Otherness is inherent. For foodies, food is therefore a means of achieving their own experience. The Vietnamese who serve them their cuisine, do not get recognition as original individualized persons, but as typified Others, whose Otherness is a welcomed gourmet experience.

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Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

Like foodies, food also provides the Vietnamese a connection with Vietnam and its history. In recipes and stories about served food, food materializes the ties with their living or deceased relatives. Even for Vietnamese entrepreneurs, the served cuisine is a means of maintaining transnational ties with Vietnam and family members. However, unlike foodies, they are well aware of the key role played by the diversity of particular recipes. While foodies can endlessly argue about which Phở soup or Nem cuốn rolls have the right taste, Vietnamese chefs talk about original family recipes and finding new, interesting flavours. Any taste standardisation towards some ideal template, sought for by foodies, is a priori excluded in their case.

Pavel (and all Vietnamese entrepreneurs he represents in our paper), is aware of this.

Although he himself would probably prefer a different menu, he consistently tracks his customers’ demands and offers them what they want: original (North) Vietnamese cuisine.

Separated from the name he arrived to Bohemia with 33 years ago, in front of his customers, he performs as a creation of an absolute orientalised projection of the Other - the Other to the extent that his original name is unpronounceable for the Czechs. In his restaurant his guests are served dishes, which in their eyes confirm that the culture and the artefacts that symbolize it are encapsulated, along with their bearers, into one entity that resists changes from the outside. The case of Hung’s enterprise (and all others that he represents in our text) is radically different from Pavel’s case. For Hung, food is the means through which his cosmopolitanism is produced. His gastro-enterprise is based on innovations, whose source is a community of foreign foodies and the diaspora. Food and gastronomy is not used as a means of maintaining contact with his country of origin, but as a tool he uses to relate to the broader Vietnamese diaspora in Europe and America.

What helps Pavel and Hung maintain their transnational ties with their country of origin is not only the family ties and economic resources they use to support them, Pavel and Hung maintain their relationship with Vietnam through the production and distribution of flavours.

Regardless of whether these cravings result from their own creativity, they are sold as authentic representations of Vietnamese culture and the tastes of its people. But while for Pavel these tastes and people are associated with the territory of the Vietnamese State, to Hung the tastes are de-territorialized. By looking for sources of innovation within the diaspora, Hung expands the boundaries of authenticity. Despite verbal declarations about his products developing the heritage of Vietnamese gastronomy, on a practical level, he experiments with flavours in a way that has proven good outside of Vietnam.

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Appadurai, Arjun (ed.). 1986. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in cultural perspective.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dítko, Jan. 2013. Veřejná debata na Libuši – jak čelit xenofobii tvrdými daty (The public debate in Libuš – how to face to xenophobia using hard data. Migraceonline.cz (12. 8. 2013) Douglas, Mary. 1992. Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural Theory. London: New York: Routledge.

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Douglas, Mary, Wildavsky, Aaaron. 1982. Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technical and Environmental Dangers. Berkeley, London: University of California Press.

Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class: And How it’s transforming work, leisure, community and everyday life. New York: Perseus Book Group.

Gosden, Chris – Marshall, Yvone. 1999. The cultural biography of objects. World Archeology, 31(2): 169-178.

Hage, Ghassan. 1997. At Home in the Entrails of the West: Multiculturalism, Ethnic Food and Migrant Home-building, In H. Grace, G. Hage, L. Johnson, J. Langsworth and M. Symonds, Home/World: Space, Community and Marginality in Sydney’s West. Annandale: Pluto Press, pp. 99–153.

Hirsch, Dafna. 2011. "Hummus is the best when it is fresh and made by Arabs": The gourmetization of hummus in Israel and the return of the repressed Arab. American Ethnologist 38(4): 617-630. hooks, bell. 1992. ‘Eating the Other,’ in Black looks: Race and representation. South End Press, Boston: pp. 21–39.

Johnston, Josee – Shyon Baumann. 2010. Foodies: Democracy and Distinction in the Gourmet Foodscape. London: Routledge.

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Sandercock, L, Attili, G., with Cavers, V., Carr, P. 2009. Where Strangers Become Neighbours Integrating Immigrants in Vancouver, Canada. Springer.

Thompson, M., Ellis, R., Wildavsky, A. 1990. Cultural Theory. Boulder: Westview Press.

Yue, A., 2007. Hawking In The Creative City. Feminist Media Studies, 7(4): 365–380.

Watson, Sophie. 2006. City Publics: The (Dis)enchantments of Urban Encounters. London: Routledge.

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Zukin, Sharon. 1995. The Cultures of Cities. Cambridge MA: Blackwell.

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Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

Appendix The timetable of events with respect to the social history of the Vietnamese diaspora in the Czech Republic

Year

Vietnam

The Czech Republic

Vietnamese in the Czech Republic

1986

Đổi Mới Reforms (renovation). Vietnam reintroduces legalization of market trade practices effecting all of Vietnam.

"At the 6th congress of CPV in 1986, the Vietnamese government adopted the economicpolitical reform Đổi Mới, which prefigured future steep economic growth of the country. Đổi Mới introduced the possibility of private enterprise into Vietnamese law.

Through this legalization, Vietnamese manufacturing and agriculture became open to domestic and foreign competition, and conditions for the origin of markets were created.” (Freidingerová 2014)

Under the influence of circumstances at the international level (especially reforms in Vietnam), the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was forced to re-evaluate its politics towards Vietnamese apprentices and workers, and liberalize it in a certain sense (especially liberalization of restrictions such as forced abortions, a ban on life partners, etc.)

(Alamgir 2014).

Emancipation of the Vietnamese in Czechoslovakia – permitting partner relationships even with the Czechs, emancipation of Vietnamese women – their stand against abortions, etc.) (Alemgir 2014); general liberalization of the relationships between the Vietnamese and the Czechs also influences the development of enterprise: Vietnamese mainly tailor to Czech customers).

3.2.1994

After 19 years, the USA (Bill Clinton) lifted the trade embargo laid on Vietnam.

This significantly influences economic development of the country and future business activities of Vietnam, import and export.

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Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

1997

Asian economic crisis

1999

The SAPA market is created.

SAPA is exclusively designed for wholesale purposes and warehouses. It is possible to entre only with a trade licence (same as in Makro).

2000

Act No. 326/1999 Coll., on the Residence of Foreign Nationals in the Territory of the Czech Republic comes into force. In comparison with the previous era, this act introduced more stringent conditions for entry and residence in the Czech Republic.

Annual decrease in the number of registered foreigners with citizenship from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

1.5.2004

Czech Republic's accession to the EU. Membership in the EU requires changes in immigration law, which now becomes more liberalized. Foreigners can now acquire permanent residence after five years of longterm stay (instead of the original ten years).

Family reunification newly falls under EU law, making long-term residence for the purpose of family reunification much easier in comparison with previous years.

Growing internal age and gender diversification of the Vietnamese diaspora living in The Czech Republic. An increasing number of children, and the ratio of men to women in age categories up to 24 years is becoming more balanced (contrary to older generations, where men predominate).

2004

Foundations of agency employment were laid by the laws 167/1999 Coll., on employment,

As a result, the number of Vietnamese foreigners with a permit to one of the long-term stays, rose 23

Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

and by amendments to the Labour Code 155/2000 Coll., which legalized paid labour recruitment.

The possibility to start and run employment agencies which can also mediate foreign labour was enabled by the new Act 435/2004 Coll. on employment, and by the amendment to the Labour Code 436/2004 Coll. (Čižinský 2009).

between 2006 and 2007 by almost a half (2006 = 10,297; 2007 = 18,411); increase in the number of economically active (EA) Vietnamese in the position of an employee rose from close to zero (2006) to 1/5 of all EA (2007), and 33 % (2008).

Then the number decreased again to the detriment of a growing number of traders as a result of the crisis.

Obtaining a trade license is a strategy used by foreigners in the Czech Republic to avoid losing a residence permit (CSO Foreigners).

The number of registered Vietnamese foreigners rose from 2004 until the onset of the crisis in 2008 (when various regulatory measures were adopted introducing the VisaPoint, more restrictive issuing of long-term visas and permits, suspension of economic migration, MLSA’s introduction of measures against prolonging work permits for foreigners) increased by 1/3, from 34,179 (2004) to 60,306 (2008).

2007 11.1.2007

Expansion of the SAPA market to 35 ha.

Vietnam became a member of the WTO, which meant another important step towards integration into the 24

Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

global market.

The global market significantly started to influence market behaviour in Vietnam (including FDI influx).

2008

SAPA cancels its condition of entry only with a trade license and becomes open to all visitors.

Economic crisis

Economic crisis

(1) Discharging of agency workers. Most of them decided not to leave the country, but searched for another legal basis for the legalization of their stay, often striving to change the purpose of their residence from employment to business.

(2) Slight decrease in the total number of registered Vietnamese foreigners, but a gradual increase in the number of those who have permanent residence. It is evidence of the community’s stabilization and some kind of "becoming domesticated" in the Czech Republic.

November 2008

Fire in SAPA market.

All of Czech society was becoming aware of SAPA’s existence, SAPA was now part of the mental map most Prague citizens have of their city, the topic of the Vietnamese diaspora was receiving a lot of space in the media. The previously invisible are now becoming

(1) Activation of the 1.5 generation of Vietnamese migrants: student petition against a police raid in SAPA (2009), the beginning of public voicing; emergence of events aimed at introducing Vietnamese culture to the majority.

(2) Initiative for the emergence of the so25

Vietnamese Diaspora in Prague: food, consumption, and socio‐material proximity in the making of cosmopolitan city

ubiquitous.

23.1.2012 - 9.2.2013

called emergency programs of the Ministry of Interior aimed at foreigners’ integration. In the beginning they were oriented in a very multicultural way (e.g. in the form of cultural days, food). Such is the case up to now.

Year of the Dragon. An era that is generally perceived as the happiest year of the zodiac in the lunar calendar. In this year there is a general increase in the number of newly founded enterprises, weddings, childbirths, or built houses.

26