Nishi Kawaguchi, Japan's Cluster of Chinese Restaurants: Four Owners, Four Pasts (Part One)

Welcome to "Yoshii Shinobu's Second Round," a QDaily column by the Japanese Chinese-language writer Yoshii Shinobu. A nijikai, or "second round," is the gathering Japanese office workers move on to after the first bar closes — optional, looser, and where people really talk.

In the south of Saitama Prefecture there is a place called Nishi Kawaguchi. It used to be a byword for the red-light district; in recent years it has quietly gone through a striking change.

Step out of Nishi Kawaguchi Station, look up, and you see signs in simplified Chinese characters everywhere — snack shops, barbecue joints, hair and nail salons, internet cafes, grocery stores. The men, women, and children who pass you are speaking Chinese. The area has turned into a kind of new Chinatown; the Japanese press calls it "Little China." To feed the Chinese customers arriving from all over, Nishi Kawaguchi's food is no worse than what you get in China: grilled lamb skewers, malatang, milk tea, knife-cut noodles, Lanzhou hand-pulled noodles, duck neck, and regional dishes that keep their real flavor instead of being softened for Japanese tastes. People come to eat in a steady stream.

Before I get to the restaurants, one thing needs explaining: in Japan, "chūka ryōri" and "chūgoku ryōri" are not the same thing. The first, often shortened to "chūka," is the small restaurant found on street corners all over Japan, serving ramen, fried rice, pan-fried dumplings, and shredded pork with green peppers, all reworked for local tastes. The second is the upscale restaurant serving dishes with their original flavor — Peking duck, shark fin, abalone, Hong Kong dim sum — though it does not always keep the regional cuisines apart. What interests me is that the restaurants Chinese people run in Nishi Kawaguchi differ not only from the localized chūka ryōri shops, which are run by Japanese owners, but also from what is usually called chūgoku ryōri.

Start with the area around Nishi Kawaguchi Station. It has two exits. The east side looks like any other Tokyo suburb. The west side was the old pleasure quarter: in the 1990s, bars, massage parlors, and sex-service shops are said to have stood packed in row after row. Then in 2004 the Saitama Prefectural Police named Nishi Kawaguchi a "priority district for cleaning up the adult-entertainment environment" and went after illegal sex businesses hard, and the shops closed one after another. The empty storefronts they left behind later drew Chinese people looking for somewhere to start a business.

Cheap rent is not the only draw. Nishi Kawaguchi is very close to Tokyo — half an hour or less from Shinjuku or Tokyo Station, about 15 yuan one way. And Kawaguchi, the city it belongs to, is a commuter suburb between metropolitan Tokyo and the rest of Saitama, with everything daily life needs: schools, hospitals, shops, transport. One stop on from Nishi Kawaguchi is Warabi Station, home to the Shibazono public housing estate, which has its own nursery, supermarket, dental clinic, and fitness park. Chinese residents now make up half of the people living there, roughly 2,500 of them.

With this many Chinese residents, the Chinese food here cannot be careless, and the prices cannot drift far from Japanese norms either. There are reasons behind the standard Nishi Kawaguchi's Chinese food manages to hold. Migration around the world is now at a scale never seen before, and more and more young Chinese people will likely go abroad to do business.

For this piece I interviewed four Chinese owners in Nishi Kawaguchi, each from a different part of China, and listened to what they had learned from making a life somewhere else. I hope this modest article is of some use to readers.

The stories will run in four parts. This is the first: Satō Tsuyoshi (Mr. Zhang), founder of the Northeastern restaurant Ruixiang Fandian.

This series is personal sharing. All the food photographed here was paid for by the author. It is not sponsored content.

Driving Across Japan in Search of a Place to Start a Business

Come out of the west exit of Nishi Kawaguchi Station, walk along the main road for thirty seconds, and at the first crossing you will see the sign for Ruixiang Fandian. This Northeastern restaurant sits on the second floor of a concrete building right on the street, up a staircase next to the ground-floor izakaya. The stairwell works like a tunnel through space and time: push open the glass door, see the room full of raised glasses and clinking toasts, and for a moment you could believe you were in northern China.

The place is about 190 square meters and seats more than 100. The first night I went was an ordinary weekday, but nearly every seat was taken, and from the accents, most of the diners were Northeasterners. At the next table a Chinese woman sat with two young Japanese men who kept looking around them; she explained the menu to them in fluent Japanese. The loudest table was an eight-seater at the back, where a group of young Chinese people were drinking happily while a server hurried between the kitchen and their table. On the server's recommendation I ordered dry-pot lamb and potatoes, Northeastern dalapi, a few lamb skewers, and a beer.

The owner, Mr. Zhang — Satō Tsuyoshi in Japanese — was born in 1987 in Fangzheng County, Heilongjiang Province. Ruixiang Fandian's Demoli braised fish (see note) is a specialty of his hometown. His mother was a teacher, he told me, and his father was out of work for long stretches, so the family was "pretty ordinary." He finished middle school at home, then borrowed money and opened a furniture factory with his older brother. The business failed, he lost money, and he decided to go and work in Japan.

Starting With a Chūka Ryōri Shop

"I've been in Japan about ten years — I came in 2008. At first I worked at an auto-parts factory in Nagoya (in Aichi Prefecture, about 360 km from Tokyo). Then I opened a chūka ryōri shop in Kitakyushu (in Fukuoka Prefecture on Kyushu, about 880 km from Tokyo), aimed at Japanese customers, serving things like karaage (fried chicken) and subuta (sweet-and-sour pork). I'd worked in restaurants in Nagoya, so I knew the basic dishes. But that Kitakyushu place didn't do well. It was early days, I didn't know the local situation, and after two years I closed it. Then I opened a restaurant in Izumo, in Shimane Prefecture (in southwestern Japan, about 600 km from Tokyo) — another chūka ryōri shop, mostly Japanese customers. It's still open. The manager runs it day to day, it's steady, and I only look in once in a while."

"When I first came to Japan I wasn't thinking about opening anything. I just wanted to work here a while and see. Why Japan? Because I'm a Northeasterner, and my hometown, Fangzheng County, has a lot of Japanese orphans left behind after the war — you could say almost every household there has some blood tie to Japan. I only know this secondhand: after the Second World War ended, a lot of Japanese people tried to get on boats home, and many missed their chance. The roads were lined with Japanese people. A lot of those left-behind orphans were taken in where I'm from. So for us, coming to Japan was a natural choice. Relatives and friends were already living here, and if I ran into trouble I could ask them for advice. That made it easier."

Mr. Zhang's decision to come to Nishi Kawaguchi and open a Northeastern restaurant for Chinese customers grows out of all this. First, he had been running chūka ryōri shops for Japanese customers for too long. Second, he felt the competition in that business was getting fiercer.

"I mean competition among Chinese people. There are a huge number of Northeasterners in Japan running chūka ryōri shops for Japanese customers. Take Izumo. Given the population density, one or two shops do fine, but by the time a third opens, the number of customers each one gets slides, more or less. When I opened there, mine was the only one in Izumo; now there are six or seven. That Izumo shop has stayed steady, though, and I later handed it to a manager. After that my wife and I opened another one in Okinawa (Japan's southernmost prefecture, about 1,550 km from Tokyo), also a chūka ryōri shop for Japanese customers. Once the Okinawa place was open, I felt I'd done enough chūka ryōri and wanted to try something new, so I opened this one, Ruixiang."

"When I first came to Nishi Kawaguchi about three years ago, there weren't many Chinese people running Chinese restaurants here. Two were fairly big, and mine was the third. Now the competition is pretty fierce. Just look at last year, 2018: four iron-pot stew places opened within 200 meters of here, four in one year. And they're all aimed at Chinese customers — iron-pot stew is a Northeastern dish, and the Northeasterners around here love it. My place is Northeastern too, but we don't do iron-pot stew. Either way, I have a lot of repeat customers, so business hasn't suffered. This restaurant, Ruixiang Fandian, opened in 2016, so this is its third year. I have another barbecue place in Nishi Kawaguchi that's only been open a bit over four months."

In Nishi Kawaguchi, "Authentic" Matters More

Mr. Zhang says the chefs in his restaurants were "poached" from China. The chef now at Ruixiang Fandian is from Liaoning, where he had both experience and a name.

"In Japan, chefs who can cook real Chinese food — real Northeastern food, say — are hard to find. Chefs for Chinese food aimed at Japanese customers are easier, because Japanese diners don't really understand Chinese cuisine anyway. As long as the taste is roughly right they're happy, and they don't know what authentic Chinese food is supposed to taste like. So almost any chef can do it; anyone who has worked a kitchen can stir-fry that, and so can I. Cooking for Chinese customers is harder. Especially in Nishi Kawaguchi, where there are so many Northeasterners — if I cook them Northeastern food, they can taste right away whether it's the real thing. And you can't learn to cook Chinese food in a year or two, so you have to know who your customers are before you open. These days we get customers from southern China too. At first they thought our food was too salty, but after a few visits they get used to it and end up liking it. Around the holidays plenty of people line up here for takeout, because Chinese people like eating hometown dishes at home over New Year."

Opening a restaurant in Nishi Kawaguchi has advantages beyond low rent and a ready supply of customers. Language, for one: here you can get by in Chinese alone. Mr. Zhang's Japanese is fluent, and it is still easier for him to do business in Chinese. As for ingredients, there are Chinese-run butchers, seafood shops, and grocery stores here — everything you need. And twenty minutes away by train, in Ueno, several wholesalers supply Chinese restaurants with a full range of ingredients at wholesale prices, cheaper than retail.

"When I was starting out here I had a few worries, one of them the location. A friend took me around to look at a lot of storefronts. I badly wanted a ground-floor space, because the Kitakyushu place had been on the second floor and I knew second-floor businesses don't do as well. I looked at ground-floor spaces, but the rent was over 500,000 yen, and once you add the reikin (key money: a thank-you payment to the landlord when signing a lease, usually one or two months' rent) and the deposit, the outlay got large. So I took a second-floor space instead. The rent here was very cheap at the time, because it had been sitting empty a long while — three or four years, I think — so it started at around 230,000 yen, half of that ground-floor place."

"It's different out in the country, in Shimane. Public transport isn't really an option there; everyone drives. So a shop in a place like that needs a parking lot, and a big one. The requirements are stricter that way — without a parking lot you can't open, you can't make money. Both my Shimane and Okinawa shops have big lots that hold more than twenty cars."

Because Ruixiang Fandian is on the second floor and easy to miss, Mr. Zhang says, business was not especially good at the start. Monthly revenue in the first six months was around 2 million yen — "I couldn't even make payroll." Repeat customers kept coming, and since Mr. Zhang likes making friends and is well liked, monthly revenue now reaches about 7.5 million yen.

"At first my friends all told me not to open a place for Chinese customers, since I'd never done it — everything I'd run was for Japanese customers, and they didn't think I had a good shot. Those friends were older, in their forties, probably more cautious in how they do things, and I was still fairly young and wanted to try. I wanted to change the way I'd been thinking, you could say. Before opening I spent more than a week scouting Nishi Kawaguchi, looking at the restaurants nearby and what they cooked, and I felt I could do better. Even now we're the only restaurant in Nishi Kawaguchi cooking for Chinese customers on a second floor. A second-floor restaurant that lives on passersby is finished. You need repeat customers, and to get them the food has to be good."

When I asked what mattered most for a Chinese restaurant serving Chinese customers, Mr. Zhang answered without hesitating: "The chef." That is exactly what was giving him the most trouble at the time.

Ruixiang Fandian used to have two chefs, a kitchen assistant, and someone who did nothing but grill — four people running the kitchen together. One of the chefs recently left to open his own place, and the new one is still filing his paperwork in China to come to Japan, so for now nearly every dish is handled by a single chef. Mr. Zhang is not the only one losing sleep over chefs leaving; it is a problem the whole restaurant business shares, and all he can do is deal with it case by case.

Mr. Zhang already has two restaurants in Nishi Kawaguchi and is preparing a third. With that many places open, and his whole family — including two children — living here, has he decided to stay for good? Asked about the future, he shook his head at once: "Not necessarily. I've been in the restaurant business eight or nine years, and I have some experience with both Japanese and Chinese customers. I might open a place for Japanese customers somewhere else later on, I just haven't decided. The market for Chinese-oriented restaurants in Nishi Kawaguchi is close to saturated, and there aren't many good sites or projects left." That refusal to settle into comfort, that appetite for the next challenge, is worth admiring.

On going back to China, his mind is clearer. "I've never thought about going back. After more than ten years away I feel out of step with a lot of things there — it wouldn't be easy to fit into that society again, that's the feeling. I'd have to adjust all over. And in Japan I have plenty of friends. Since I came here, almost everyone I've met has been Chinese, from every part of the country, and a lot of them are in the same trade. I hardly ever eat at home; every night I'm out drinking with friends. So on the business side too, I'd rather keep running restaurants in Japan. With chūka ryōri shops for Japanese customers, more isn't better, because local Japanese residents always go to the same fixed places — in Shimane, people like their one or two regular spots. Nishi Kawaguchi is different: there's a lot of foot traffic, and the more shops there are, the more people come. Look at it this way. If there were only one or two Chinese restaurants in Nishi Kawaguchi, it probably wouldn't have drawn as many Chinese people as it has, and business might not be as good either. Once there are a lot of shops, it comes down to strength — whose food is better, whose service is better."

Note

According to Mr. Zhang, "Demoli" is the name of a village in Yihantong Township, Fangzheng County, Heilongjiang Province, and is also a transliteration from Russian. Demoli braised fish is made mainly from carp, tofu, and potato starch noodles. "We can get all the other ingredients in Japan, but the starch noodles come over from China, because you can't buy our local kind here."

Ruixiang Fandian

Marukin Building 2F, 1-23-2 Nishi Kawaguchi, Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture (3-minute walk from the station)

Hours: weekdays 16:00–4:00, weekends 11:00–4:00 (open daily)

Zuiyang Mingfang

1-3-11 Nishi Kawaguchi, Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture (2-minute walk from the station)

Hours: 16:00–3:00 (open daily)

About the Author

Yoshii Shinobu is a Japanese writer who writes in Chinese and currently lives in Beijing. She graduated from International Christian University in Japan with a degree in international relations. She has studied in Chengdu, farmed in southern France, and worked as an economic-news editor in Taipei, Manila, and Shanghai. She now writes full-time, and is the author of Four Seasons Bento and Tokyo Bookstores; she also served as an editorial reviewer for the "MUJI Light Meals" book series, among other titles.

Cover image and all photographs in this article were taken by the author.