No Successors? For Chinese Restaurant Owners, That's a Success

没有继承人？对中国餐馆老板来说，意味着成功

KINGSTON, N.Y. — More than 40 years after buying Eng’s, a Chinese American restaurant in the Hudson Valley, Tom Sit is reluctantly considering retirement.

纽约金斯顿—在买下哈德逊谷餐厅Eng 's 40多年后，美籍华人餐厅老板汤姆·西特终于不情愿地考虑退休了。

For much of his life, Sit has worked here seven days a week, 12 hours a day. He cooks in the same kitchen where he worked as a young immigrant from China. He parks in the same lot where he’d take breaks and read his wife’s letters, sent from Montreal while they courted by post in the late 1970s. He seats his regulars at the same tables where his three daughters did homework.

在他这辈子的大部分时间里，西特每周工作7天，每天工作12个小时。他年轻时从中国移民到美国，就在这个厨房里做饭。他把车停在同一个休息的地方，读他妻子从蒙特利尔寄来的信件，他们从20世纪70年代末起就通过信件互诉衷情。他让常客们坐在他的三个女儿做作业的那张桌子旁。

Two years ago, at the insistence of his wife, Faye Lee Sit, he started taking off one day a week. Still, it’s not sustainable. He’s 76, and they’re going to be grandparents soon. Working 80 hours a week is just too hard. But his grown daughters, who have college degrees and well-paying jobs, don’t intend to take over.

两年前，在妻子李菲的坚持下，他开始每周休假一天。但还是无力维系。他已经76岁了，他和妻子很快就要当爷爷奶奶了。每周工作80个小时对他们来说太辛苦了。但是他几个长大成人的女儿们，都有大学学位和高薪工作，并不打算接手父亲的餐馆。

Across the country, owners of Chinese American restaurants like Eng’s are ready to retire but have no one to pass the business to. Their children, educated and raised in America, are pursuing professional careers that do not demand the same grueling labor as food service.

在美国各地，像Eng 's这样的美籍华人餐馆的老板都准备退休了，但找不到人接手。他们的孩子在美国接受教育、成长，他们对餐饮服务行业这样辛苦的行业并不感兴趣。

According to new data from the restaurant reviewing website Yelp, the share of Chinese restaurants in the top 20 metropolitan areas has been consistently falling. Five years ago, an average of 7.3% of all restaurants in these areas were Chinese, compared with 6.5% today. That reflects 1,200 fewer Chinese restaurants at a time when these 20 places added more than 15,000 restaurants overall.

根据餐馆点评网站Yelp的最新数据，中国餐馆在前20大城市的份额一直在下降。五年前，这些地区平均有7.3%的餐馆是中国餐馆，而现在这一比例仅为6.5%。这反映出，在这20个城市新增1.5万家餐厅的同时，中餐馆却减少了1200家。

Even in San Francisco, home to the oldest Chinatown in the United States, the share of Chinese restaurants shrank to 8.8% from 10%.

即便是在美国历史最悠久的唐人街所在地旧金山，中餐馆的比例也从10%下降到了8.8%。

It doesn’t seem that interest in the cuisine has faltered. On Yelp, the average share of page views of Chinese restaurants hasn’t declined, nor has the average rating.

人们对中餐的热情并没有减退。在Yelp上，中国餐馆的平均浏览量并没有下降，平均评级也没有下降。

And at the same time, the percentages of Indian, Korean and Vietnamese restaurants — many of which were also owned and operated by immigrants from Asian countries — are holding steady or increasing nationwide.

与此同时，印度、韩国和越南餐馆的比例——其中许多餐馆也是由亚洲国家移民拥有和经营的——在全国范围内保持稳定或上升。

The restaurant business has always been tough, and rising rents and delivery apps haven’t helped. Tightening regulations on immigration and accounting have also made it harder for cash-based restaurants to do business.

餐饮业一直都很艰难，不断上涨的租金和送餐程序都帮不上忙。对移民和会计的严格规定也使得现金交易为主的餐馆更难开展业务。

But those are not Chinese-restaurant-specific factors, and do not explain the wave of closings. Instead, a big reason seems to be the economic mobility of the second generation.

但这些原因并非针对中国餐馆，也无法解释餐馆关闭浪潮的原因。相反，一个重要的原因似乎是第二代人的经济流动性提高了。

“It’s a success that these restaurants are closing,” said Jennifer 8. Lee, a former New York Times journalist who wrote of the rise of Chinese restaurants in her book “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles” and produced a documentary, “The Search for General Tso.” “These people came to cook so their children wouldn’t have to, and now their children don’t have to.”

“这些餐馆的关闭是一种成功，”珍妮弗说。李曾是《纽约时报》的记者，她在《幸运饼干编年史》一书中记录了中国餐馆的崛起，并制作了一部纪录片《寻找左宗棠鸡》。“这些人来美国从事餐饮业，这样他们的孩子就不用这么做了，现在他们的孩子没有这个迫切必要了。”

“In some ways, the children are regaining the status of the first generation that they have lost while migrating,” said Jennifer Lee, a professor of sociology at Columbia University and co-author of “The Asian American Achievement Paradox.” (She is not related to Jennifer 8. Lee.) “The goal has never been to continue those businesses.”

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