Ding Tai Fung in Korea - A Lucrative Imagination

   

Ding Tai Fung @ Mokdong Hyundai Department Store

As mysterious an imagined Chinese food as fortune cookie to the Americans, Koreans also have their imagined version of Chinese food. Hence, Ding Tai Fung in Korea sells several items that are unseen in Ding Tai Fung in Taiwan, where this New York Time's world's top 10 restaurant originates from.

好比幸運餅乾是美國人對中國食物的一種神祕想像(我曾和外國友人說幸運餅乾不是中國的東西，他們很驚訝)，韓國人對中國菜也有類似想像，所以韓國鼎泰豐 (딘타이펑)有許多道台灣正港鼎泰豐所沒有的東西，也不足為奇。

Korea Ding Tai Fung's menu (source)

Ding Tai Fung,  originally recognized by its non-oily delicate taste, sells various exciting cuisines in Korea, including Dongpo's Pork, Braised Five-Spice Beef, and Sweet and Sour Shrimps. An implication behind such menu, I think, is Korean's unsophisticated understanding of Chinese food; they barely differentiate Szechuan, Cantonese or Jiang-Zhe cuisines, only knowing that things like Sweet and Sour Pork is a kind of Chinese food. So to make money from selling Chinese food to the Koreans, you've got to provide things that meet their stereotyped expectation of Chinese food. Ding Tai Fung's strategies in Korea prove to be successful, and given those cuisines' excitingly rich tastes, Tsingtao Beer also sells pretty well(!).

口味清淡的鼎泰豐，在韓國還賣東坡肉、涼拌蝦仁、五香醬牛肉、鍋包肉、甜辣醬蝦仁、富貴蝦仁等台灣鼎泰豐完全沒有的激動菜色。這說明了什麼呢? 我想，韓國人對中國飲食的認知是很單一的，你跟他說什麼四川、廣東、江浙他們沒有概念；他們只知道糖醋肉那類東西是中國菜，而要靠賣中國菜賺韓國人錢，便不得不賣那些符合他們對於中國菜的刻板印象的菜色。事實證明，這個策略非常成功，鼎泰豐在韓國的生意是嚇嚇叫，喔對了，連帶著熱銷這些好下酒的菜色，青島啤酒也賣得很夯。

So I just checked Ding Tai Fung's menu in the US and Japan, and got to know that besides minor differences, they don't sell those exciting cuisines. I guess it's safe to conclude that, Ding Tai Fung is a successful Chinese restaurant in Korea because it is a Koreanized Chinese restaurant, and that its Koreanization is epitomized by the sale of cuisines that correspond to Korean's stereotyped imagination of Chinese food.

我查了鼎泰豐在美國、日本等的菜單，除些許不同(例如日本鼎泰豐的叉燒麵，還蠻經典的)，並沒有那些激動又好下酒的菜色。也許可以這麼說，鼎泰豐在韓國之所以會成功，因為他是一個韓國化了的鼎泰豐；而他的韓國化，則是體現在販售那些符合韓國人對於中國飲食的認知的激動菜色。