ROUSES_JulyAug2019_Magazine

By the 1920s, groceries had become the only occupation of the Delta’s Chinese, with family members joining their kin in the Delta and taking advantage of hui , or the pooled capital of relatives, to open their own nearby stores.

Students at the Cleveland Chinese Mission School, circa 1937 • photos provided by the Mississippi Delta Chinese Heritage Museum

native to Southern China that grew well in the Delta’s warm climate and was prized for making into winter melon soup. This changed in 1968, when Raymond Wong’s father opened the first Chinese restaurant in Greenville, naming it How Joy, which translates loosely to “good luck.” And luck was important: There was no guarantee that the town was ready for moo goo gai pan, shrimp in lobster sauce and green pepper steak. Wong, who had first considered moving to Atlanta before deciding to make a go of things at home in Mississippi, soon learned that Greenville was “starved for something different.” The number of Chinese living in the Delta peaked in the early 1970s, when a downward pivot in the local economy motivated many to seek their fortunes elsewhere. With adult children moved away and the growing economic challenges, a generation of aging Chinese grocers began closing the stores that had once sustained their communities. Today, one is hard-pressed to find any left, with long-time holdouts Min Sang in Greenville and Wong’s Foodland in Clarksdale both closing in 2018.

The landscape may look different today, but the imprint of the Delta Chinese has not been forgotten. As early as 1987, Raymond Wong recognized how much had changed, motivating him to host a reunion of his countrymen at How Joy. “I told them... let’s have a party that is separate from a wedding and a funeral…where everybody gets together, just people that want to come home.” Many replied, “Oh, I’ve been to Mississippi; I grew up in Mississippi. I’ll never come back.” But Wong’s appeal proved persuasive, and the event drew over 600 attendees back to the Delta from homes in Houston or Los Angeles. More recently, a colleague of Frieda Quon at Delta State, archivist Emily Jones, helped to start a foodways collection project called Delta Wok that is gathering family recipes from Chinese people with roots in the Delta. In 2017, the university hosted a reunion that attracted over 400 people who shared stories and photo- graphs from their time in the region. The response reflects the deep affection the Chinese harbor for the memory of their Delta upbringing and the place where their grandparents once came in search of the Golden Mountain.

China Rose, Metairie "There are several good Chinese restaurants scattered throughout Metairie; my friends Jodi and Peter got engaged at their favorite, “Miss Shirleys” (Royal China), but this is the only one rumored to have a secret menu. There are exotic offerings like pork tripe with green peppers (or pickles), and soft tofu and pork intestines, but for me the draw is more nostalgic. They serve the same special soup at this Fat City location as they did at their original in Lakeview." - Marcy, Marketing

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