Spicy Village: Short Film Review
The pandemic is old news. Everyone has back pain from sitting at home all day, virtual schooling is the norm, and gatherings are all but historical events. To say that small businesses have been affected would be redundant; so last year, yet for many people it is easy to underestimate just how severely Covid-19 has impacted small businesses. Nearly 100,000 have been closed in the past year, and the pandemic is hardly close to being over. Of the various types of small businesses, the Chinese restaurant industry has been hit especially hard. In a short film from the documentary collection HiLo, director Jia Li highlights the trials one restaurant has had to face due to the pandemic.
Spicy Village, originally named He Nan Flavor, is a cult-favorite, hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant in Manhattan, NY. Before the outbreak of Covid-19, it had gained attention in its area through articles from renowned magazines such as Village Voice and New York Times and was featured on Eater: New York’s “Eater 38.” Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, because of the pandemic, the restaurant struggles to stay afloat.
In the short film, one of the owners, Wendy Li, speaks to how discrimination has been one of the leading causes for the restaurant’s falling business. She notes, “[guests would] say we Chinese people have the virus. So they stopped coming…. Their first reaction was, ‘Oh [the virus] is from Chinese people. As long as you stay away from Chinese people you’ll be ok.’” On screen, we see a forlorn shell of the once lively Spicy Village, standing quietly and a similarly empty street. This is then juxtaposed with footage from before the pandemic, of an animated and vivacious Manhattan, and of Spicy Village absolutely filled to capacity with hungry guests of many different races lining up outside the door.
According to a survey conducted by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, over the course of the pandemic, the number of hate crimes against Asians and members of the AAPI community has risen by nearly 150%, largely as a result of racially-driven language concerning the virus. Covid-19 has often been coined as the “Chinese virus” or the “Wuhan virus” due to its initial discovery in Wuhan, and these labels have subsequently encouraged the scapegoating of the Chinese community, leading to both acts of violence and highly detrimental microaggressions. The damage done by this language manifested within restaurants like Spicy Village, as Wendy notes, when customers stopped supporting the business out of fear for the virus.
That said, Wendy’s story is not simply one of hardships during the pandemic, for as an immigrant she faces another plethora of obstacles, the most prominent issue being that of language. In her interview, she recalls that upon immigrating to the U.S., she barely knew the alphabet, and had to overcome a significant language barrier in order to adequately interact with her customers. She was able to learn by focusing on the words necessary to function in her industry, i.e. in the restaurant business, but regrets that as a result of this learning method, her knowledge of English limits the scope of her work to that very industry: “all my English and skills are only enough to make a living in a restaurant. I don’t think I could do anything else.”
Thus, the pandemic was an added trial, another monster to fight on top of a long list established by virtue of her immigration in itself. In addition to putting serious strain on Spicy Village, Covid-19 got in the way of cultural activities that Wendy and her community hold dear. For the Lunar New Year, instead of having large feasts with many family members, we see her having a humble dinner of four. Instead of giving offerings to ancestors at the front of her shop, she has to make do quietly in the back. It is a time of anxiety when it ought to be a time of grand celebration. Yet, while she battles a dwindling business and the ever-present worries of paying rent, somehow Wendy remains grateful. Sitting before a warm and crackling fire, crouching in the backroom of the restaurant, she has the patience to thank the people supporting her business.