F8 THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2019 LATIMES.COM/FOOD
In director Lulu Wang’s movie
“The Farewell,” a lie eats away at a
Chinese family: Instead of telling a
beloved matriarch that she has
cancer and only weeks to live, her
family plans a fake wedding as an
excuse for everyone to gather to
say their goodbyes.
Released in July, “The Fare-
well” has quickly become one of
the summer’s must-see films. In it,
food — and family dynamics
around the dinner table — play a
central role.
We recently took Wang to eat
some of the dishes from the film,
including meat pies, roast duck
and dumplings. We visited three
restaurants in the San Gabriel
Valley: Beijing Pie House, Duck
House and Kang Kang Food Court.
This interview has been edited
for length and clarity.Tell me about the role food plays
in “The Farewell.”
I wanted food to be part of the
texture of the film, but I didn’t
want it to be romanticized. I feel
like that’s a very Western gaze, to
sort of romanticize and exoticize
the food. For Chinese people, we’re
not like, “I’m a foodie, let’s get
obsessed about it and call myself
this name because you like food.”
Of course you like food. Everybody
likes food.Why was it important to havecertain scenes take place around
the table or in the kitchen?
Because it’s reality. That’s
where the whole family comes
together. And it’s just like growing
up, where, especially the women,
that’s the action around which the
drama or conversation occurs.
The entire day revolves around
meals. Whether it’s picking up
groceries or prepping and every-
body doing different parts almost
like an assembly line. Some people
are washing, cutting — there’s a
real system to it. And it just feels
authentic to the texture of life.Why did you choose to feature the
dishes you did — like meat pies
and roast duck?
I grew up in Beijing and Beijing
roast duck is my favorite. My mom
makes it every year for Christmas
Eve. How crispy the skin is is how
good a duck restaurant is. Now in
Beijing, all the fancy restaurants
separate the skin and you dip the
skin in sugar. It’s probably the worst
thing for you but it’s delicious.
The meat pie is a very homey
thing. I also liked the idea of
Grandma shoving a meat pie in
her mouth.You said food in the movie is a
“visual representation of the lie”
— what do you mean?
The way that Grandma ex-presses her love is to make all this
food and feed you. The way you
would normally express that love
back is to eat all the food. But if
you’re grieving, you lose your
appetite. In addition to swallowing
their grief, they also have to swal-
low the food. They are literally
swallowing the grief.The grandma in the film is based
on your grandma. Does yours
make meat pies too?
She makes the best meat pies.
Usually it’s pork and green onion.
When I grew up we always ate the
round ones, which are almost like
empanadas. But now it’s gotten
really popular to do a layered meat
pie, which is dough, meat, dough,
meat. It’s a better skin-dough ratio.
When they were making the
meat pies on set, I ate so many and
then everybody was trying them.Do you make them?
I never learned how to make
the meat pies. My brother [An-
thony Wang, sous chef at Auburn
on Melrose Avenue] has tried but
it’s hard. Especially the dough.What did your parents think
when your brother said he was
going into the food industry?
They hated it. The first few
years were hard, and my mom
blamed me. I’m working on a TVseries called “Family Meal,” based
on his life, a 19-year-old Chinese
American college dropout.Food is such a central part of
Chinese culture, but when some-
one says they are going to work in
that industry, why is it looked
upon as not good enough?
The old-world mentality is that
cooks are low-income, manual-
labor jobs. They are blue-collar. In
America especially, if you’re Chi-
nese and you work at a restaurant,
there’s a certain connotation
among the Chinese immigrant
community — it’s the first genera-
tion that opens restaurants as a
way to survive, to support your
family, so your kids can become
doctors and lawyers. The last
thing they would think is for my
parents to have a son born in
America whose life-long dream is
to open a restaurant. It’s
backwards for them.
Why is it OK for people to pay
$25 if you call it risotto? But if you
call it porridge, suddenly every-
body is protesting that this is
commoner’s food.
But if you think about feudal
China during times of the emper-
ors, food was a very elevated art
form and you had to be really
skilled. The relationship of Chi-
nese Americans and immigrants
to food is very different.Allen J. SchabenLos Angeles TimesLulu Wang, left; Kang Kang
Food Court’s sheng jian bao.Allen J. SchabenLos Angeles TimesDirector Lulu
Wang takes an
SGV food crawl
By Jenn HarrisAT THE TABLE WITH ...
DUCK HOUSE
Order:Cold summer noodles,
roast duckBEIJING PIE HOUSE
Order:Pork and leek meat pie,
lamb meat pie, pork and green
onion meat pie, egg and leek
meat pie, home-style pork and
green onion meat pie, tripe,
cabbageKANG KANG FOOD COURT
Order:Chinese curry, lions’ head
meatballs, xiao long bao, sheng
jian baoTHETASTEISBACK.
SHOWUPHUNGRY.
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