Making of Vietnamese food in Seoul: forms of capital and the intra-diversity in framing taste and menu

ABSTRACT

This study explores the intra-diversity in the taste and menu items of Vietnamese food served in Vietnamese restaurants in Seoul, South Korea. Acknowledging the calls for the inclusion of immigrant producers in theoretical discussions of taste, we utilized mixed ethnographic research methods including participant observation and in-depth interviews with Vietnamese immigrant restaurateurs. Employing the forms-of-capital approach, our study shows how each immigrant utilizes their human-cultural, social, and economic resources in deciding their food menus and devising their food flavors. We found that, based on their sets of capital, each immigrant develops their own strategies in presenting Vietnamese food to their targeted customers. Our study highlights the intra-group diversity of ethnic entrepreneurship as well as the link between immigrants and members of the host society in ethnic businesses.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnic restaurant
• ethnic food
• forms-of-capital
• authenticity
• intra-group diversity

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to extend their sincere thanks to all the interviewees who volunteered their valuable time in this research. We are thankful to our colleagues at SNU Geography, two anonymous reviewers, and the editor, Megan Elias, for their valuable feedback on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Seoul National University BK21 4-Plus Innovations for the Future Land Space, and the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2018S1A6A3A03043497).

Notes on contributors

Thi My Hang Bui

Thi My Hang Bui is a Ph.D. candidate at the department of Geography, Seoul National University, South Korea. Her research interests include migrants and cities. She has been working on migration decision-making and settlement processes of Vietnamese marriage migrant women in South Korea. She is currently working on her dissertation titled “Transnational Place-making of the Sister City Regime between South Korea and Vietnam.”

Jurak Kim

Jurak Kim is a Research Professor of the Academy of Mobility Humanities at Konkuk University, South Korea. His research interests lie in tourism, social and cultural geography. His recent publications focus on the role and characteristics of locals, including migrants in tourism. He is imagining, researching and writing with #local #tourism #place as keywords while wandering all around the world.

Kwon Heo

Kwon Heo is a Ph.D. student at the department of Geography, University of California, Los Angeles. His research on immigrant communities in South Korea focuses on the multicultural governance network formed by immigrants and residents. He is also interested in the dynamics of Korean communities in the United States and Southeast Asia.