The liminal gaze: Chinese restaurant workers gazing upon Chinese tourists dining in London’s Chinatown

Abstract

By examining the host gaze in a third space, this article proposes “liminal gaze” as a concept to study service encounter in light of liminality and cultural hybridity. The dynamics of gaze is examined through the lens of cultural distance with London’s Chinatown as the study area. Gaze in tourism has mainly been studied in relation to two distant cultures gazing upon each other. The study tries to understand what happens to the gaze when two cultures, which are neither distant or proximate nor identical but in-between here and there, gaze upon each other. The focus is on Chinese immigrant workers (the guesthosters) gazing upon Chinese tourists dining in Chinatown. Chinatown represents a third space where natives, tourists, and guesthosters meet, gaze, and perform. The gaze of the Chinese guesthosters upon their Chinese guests is negative despite their cultural similarity/proximity and norms of behavior rooted in Confucian belief. This finding challenges the postulate of cultural distance. The five themes which strongly emerged from the interviews as gaze moderators, including the perceived “boorish” dining behavior of the guests, power distance, acculturation and hybridization, and the perception of the authenticity of the food served, are explained.

Keywords

acculturation Chinatown Chinese cultural distance cultural hybridity gaze liminality service encounter third space

Introduction

Chinatown is a fascinating “third space” to gaze at the multiple configurations of tourism gaze in a liminal place. It is a place where ethnicity is used to celebrate multiculturalism (Santos and Yan, 2008) and imagined as a commodity to be consumed by visitors (Santos et al., 2008). The interactive nature of the place makes Chinatown a space imbued with contradictions and ambiguities, a place where Western imaginaries of the Orient and Orientals (Collins, 2015; Shaw, 2015) are reproduced and challenged ideologically, culturally, socially, politically, and economically (Santos et al., 2008). Although Chinatown has received the attention of tourism studies (Collins, 2015; Santos et al., 2008; Santos and Yan, 2008), little is known about how tourism agents gaze upon each other to give meaning to their encounters and experiences in such a tourism enclave (Diekmann and Smith, 2015). Indeed, Santos et al. (2008) call for “a deep analysis of how individual tourists, tourism brokers, and Chinatown residents negotiate within these dominant discourses to make sense of the phenomenon of Chinatown’s commodification for leisure or of the tourist experience of visiting this enclave” (p. 1011). Such an analysis can shed more light on our understanding of tourism encounters in a liminal consumption space (Cody and Lawlor, 2011) for a positive tourism experience (Maoz, 2006). This article is focused on understanding the dynamics of the gaze, by examining the gaze through the lens of cultural distance with London’s Chinatown as the study area.

Hollinshead and Kuon (2013) argued that the “gaze is conceivably seen to be a highly representative cultural, geographic, economic, political and psychic sense of ‘social flow’ across space, place and territory” (p. 242). London Chinatown exists in a Western territory, in a heterogeneous and vibrant meeting ground (MacCannell, 1992) shared by local and international tourism and recreation agents (host and guests) who mutually form and inform the tourism gaze (Maoz, 2006) and, consequently, shape expected performances (Urry and Larsen, 2011). Chinatown may depict a microcosm of a globalized society, a space where people from different cultures meet, greet, do business, play, consume, gaze, and perform. On this background of liminal space (Turner, 1967) where cultures interact, fuse, “hybridize” (Bhabha, 1994), and where tourism actors embody roles and perform them (Edensor, 2001), it becomes important to gaze at the tourism host gaze in action.

Gaze studies have been limited to the gaze of two different cultures gazing at each other, mostly Western tourists gazing at “Oriental” hosts (Diekmann and Smith, 2015). Not much attention has been given to understanding how, for example, two similar or proximate cultures or two distant cultures gaze upon each other, during tourism encounters (Moufakkir, 2011). Santos and Yan (2008) argued that, despite the importance of ethnic enclaves as tourist attractions and sites of depoliticization of ethnicity in urban space, “tourism research has largely neglected the everyday intra-ethnic relationships involved in constructing and representing the ethnic order in urban spaces of tourism” (p. 879). Research on host–guest encounter in ethnic tourism enclaves is even more scant and deserves the attention of tourism academics (Diekmann and Smith, 2015). The authors explained that “in recent years, the populations of many countries have become much more ethnically diverse as a result of immigration and facilitated mobility. Many subcultures have grown, especially in cosmopolitan cities, to showcase ethnic culture to the visitors’ imaginaries” (Shaw, 2015; Shaw and Williams, 2004).

This article tries to shed some light on the gaze from yet another legitimate but overlooked perspective: that of an immigrant community hosting their nationals abroad. The proliferation of “third space”, as places of ethnic urban and cultural tourism and leisure consumption (Ashworth and Page, 2011), and the growing number of “Orientals” working and visiting the West offer tourism academics an interesting playground to gaze at contemporary gazes of tourists and hosts (Collins, 2015). In an increasingly globalized world where labor mobility is increasing (Baum, 2007), it becomes necessary to understand how immigrant tourism workers gaze upon homeland tourists—be they from the diaspora or from home, for positive encounters. This article specifically examines the gaze of Chinese immigrant restaurant workers upon Chinese tourists. The complexity of the gaze takes an even more interesting turn since the host–guest encounter takes place in a liminal consumption zone (e.g. Cody and Lawlor, 2011)—London’s Chinatown. This begs the following question: What happens to the gaze when two “liminars” (Turner, 1967; in this case Chinese tourists and Chinese immigrant restaurant workers) originating from the same culture (Chinese culture) meet in a tourism environment (United Kingdom) in a liminal consumption zone (London’s Chinatown)? In such a conflated climate, “novel configurations of ideas and relations may arise” (Turner, 1967: 97). In multicultural settings, cultural distance or proximity may affect those encountered and moderate the rules of behavior and expectations (Hofstede, 1991). If not understood, out-of-the-ordinary expectations may contribute to the development of unhealthy host and guest gazes or sustain their negativity. A negative gaze can negatively affect service delivery (Chan, 2006; Maoz, 2006; Moufakkir, 2013) and employee performance (Urry and Larsen, 2011).

Study background

Gaze and performance

The question that is of interest to tourism gaze studies is, “What makes tourism agents gaze upon each other the way they do during tourism encounters?” (Moufakkir, 2013). The tourism gaze can be negative, positive, or mixed (Chan, 2006; Maoz, 2006; Moufakkir, 2011). It is dynamic, and thus, its nature is circumstantial (Urry, 2002 [1990]) depending on who the gazer is and who the object of the gaze is and how the encounter is negotiated with the “Other” and “Otherness” (Edensor, 2001).

Urry (2002 [1990]) has popularized the gaze in tourism in his seminal work The Tourist Gaze, arguing that tourists’ ways of looking at tourism objects are not passive but have meanings. Tourism experience is shaped by the imagination of the tourist and the professional efforts of destination branding (Edensor, 2000). Tourists and hosts mutually gaze at each other to give meaning to their tourism experience (Maoz, 2006).

Gaze precedes attitudes and behavior, and therefore may predict or regulate the performance of the gaze and the gazed upon. That is, while gazing is different from performing (Perkins and Thorns, 2001), “gaze is always present within the tourism performances” (Urry and Larsen, 2011: 15). Gaze shapes the ways of interpreting and assigning meaning to the object of the gaze, hence the multitude of gaze. “Gazes organize the encountering of visitors with the ‘other’” (Urry and Larsen, 2011: 14). The liminal space where the gaze is activated becomes a theater wherein tourism agents perform respective acts and roles and expect certain performances from each other (Edensor, 2000). This being said, the article is, therefore, not about the production of the tourist experience per se as it does not assess the performance of the worker. However, the importance of gaze to performance lies in how Urry and Larsen metaphorically put it: Gaze and performance “should dance together” (p. 189) for a successful “show.” Edensor (2001) identified tourism agents as performers, actors, site and stage managers with rules to observe, roles to play, and scripts to follow, supporting that their performance can be disciplined and improved (Edensor, 2001).

Immigrant tourism workers

Like many others (e.g. Lugosi et al., 2009; Ottenbacher et al., 2009) who have argued for hospitality to be studied as a lived, embodied, and experienced phenomenon, Duncan et al. (2013) suggested that the heterogeneous nature of tourism and hospitality labor force necessitates a re-conceptualization and re-consideration of those who undertake tourism and hospitality work.

Immigrant workers, who are the concern of this article, maintain social, cultural, economic, and political ties with the home country through the mediation of what Jacquemet (2005: 265) called “deterritorialized technologies”—for example, diaspora television broadcasting and programs and social media platforms. They also keep social ties with their people through visiting their home country during the holidays or when their families and friends visit them in the country of residence. From this perspective, immigrants are seen as straddling two cultures, and their cultural identities have been problematized in terms of hybridity and liminality. They are, psychologically and physically, in-between here and there (Turner, 1967) in constant negotiation of cultural elements of the homeland culture and those of the country of residence (Bhabha, 1994).

Immigrants, in general, constitute an important labor force in receiving countries. According to a United Nations report on world immigration numbers, about 232 million international migrants are living in the world today, of which 6 out of 10 reside in the developed regions (UN, 2013). The hospitality industry attracts a considerable number, as shown in Table 1. These numbers are expected to grow because of the demands of the industry, labor shortage, and high employee turnover (Brown et al., 2015).

Table 1.

Proportion (%) of hotel and restaurant employees within total migrant worker population.

Number of immigrants	Immigrants as percentage of national population	Country (European)	Portion %
4,790,000	10.79	Spain	14.7
4,097,000	19.93	Austria	12
5,408,000	8.982	United Kingdom	8.6
10,144,000	12.31	Germany	8.4
2,519,000	4.288	Italy	8.1
719,000	6.901	Belgium	8
1,660,000	22.89	Switzerland	7.4
6,471,000	10.18	France	6.9

Source: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2009: 56).

As cultural “hybrids” (Bhabha, 1994) and “liminars” (Turner, 1967) who exist in a physical and emotional state of being in a “home” away from home, immigrant workers problematize the duality of host and guest agents (Bell, 2007; Sherlock, 2001). Immigrants working in the hospitality services are guests in the receiving country and hosts at work. They are the liminars.

The liminars

In Liminality and Communitas, Turner (1969) defined liminal individuals as “neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremony” (p. 95), alluding to that psychological state wherein an individual finds himself during his passage from an initial state to another state. During that transitory period when the “passenger” (Turner, 1969) enters that period, a liminal identity is forming, toward becoming as it is exiting that period to enter into the new period. Like a hallway which separates two spaces, liminality refers to the state that exists between two spaces, whether coming from a dark side transiting toward a light side or the reverse; it is that state in the grey-shaded area that constitutes what liminality is. It is the state of being of the liminar during that transitory period inside the grey-shaded area which constitutes the passenger’s liminal state of being.

In cultural anthropology, the formation of an in-between identity in a third space can be referred to as “cultural hybridity” (Bhabha, 1994), or perhaps what Turner defines as “another state.” Turner explains that the term “state” may be “applied to ecological conditions, or to the physical, mental or emotional conditions in which a person or group may be found at a particular time” (p. 46). To Bhabha, an immigrant acculturates to the norms of the place where he\she lives and adapts to the new environment. Cultural hybridity can be used to describe the construction of culture and identity in that environment, which is “betwixt and between” (Turner, 1967) home and away. Both the immigrant and the tourist are liminars, as they both share the experiences of mobility of being away from home (Duncan, 2007). The complicity of liminality and hybridity in shaping human behavior is important also to inform us about the notions of mobility and their effects on tourism encounters and the outcome of host–guest behavior. Foster and McCabe (2015) argued that “liminality can contribute to a sense of uncertainty about identities, positions and routines since beyond normative social structures individuals are separated from conventional behaviors” (p. 48). This separation may reflect the identity of the immigrant worker and affect his or her attitudes and behavior toward customers during the service encounter.

Immigrant tourism workers problematize the traditional notion of guest and host (Bell, 2007; Sherlock, 2001); they are guests hosting guests in their country of residence: they are “guesthosters.” How and why do guesthosters gaze at their hosts the way they do is an interesting question, as it simultaneously involves Turner’s liminality and Bhabha’s cultural hybridity. Both liminars—Chinese hosts and Chinese guests—are participating in the production of liminal products and services.

The liminal space

According to Bhabha (1994), “in-between spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood—singular or communal—that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative signs of collaboration, and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society itself” (p. 2). Consumer culture research has acknowledged the importance of spaces and places and their effect on service encounter and consumer behavior and experience (Cody and Lawlor, 2011). Liminal tourism experiences (Foster and McCabe, 2015) occur in many places, including in hotels (Pritchard and Morgan, 2006), resorts (Shields, 1991), on residential campgrounds (Foster and McCabe, 2015), cruises (Yarnal and Kerstetter, 2005), charter yachts (Lett, 1983), on nudist beaches (Preston-Whyte, 2004), during long-term travel (White and White, 2004), or in strip clubs (Ryan and Martin, 2001).

For example, Pritchard and Morgan (2006) explored hotels as liminal sites of transition and transgression. Hotels can be open, yet closed and negotiated space, where opportunities for transgressed behaviors are offered. Ryan and Martin (2001) focused on strip clubs as liminal tourism spaces where the liminars are playing roles of power and subordination, in a context where the normal is made strange and the strange normal. McIntyre’s edited book The Psychology of Liminal Consumption set a discussion on how tourist retailing is a characteristic of liminal space, where both tourists and residents meet. Chinatown is a space that attracts tourists, residents, and agents who cater for them, most of whom are immigrants (Santos et al., 2008) who are also part of the décor and staged performances (Edensor, 2001).

The growing number of immigrants and ethnic groups in cities and the policy of place gentrification have led to the touristification of ethnic neighborhoods for the tourist gaze. Chinatowns, Little Italies, Jewish quarters, African quarters, Banglatowns, Little Turkey, slums, favelas, ethnic ghettos, and gay quarters are promoted by Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) as modern urban attractions, different from the classic urban heritage (Diekmann and Smith, 2015: 1–2). These oriental enclaves exist in many parts of the world, especially in cosmopolitan cities. They have been imaged to appeal to a global audience (Shaw, 2015). They attract guests from the dominant part culture and also co-ethnic, co-social, and other minority groups. Such meeting ground allows us to recognize the notion of space, place, and community which have become more complex (Shaw, 2015).

In this study, London’s Chinatown represents another tourism setting in which to advance understanding about service encounter in a liminal (Turner, 1967) hospitality zone: a distinct time and space where the practices and experiences of liminality may provoke transformations in identities and agency that need careful management (Bhabha, 1994). Chinatown can be contextualized as “a location of emergent cultures” (Hatziprokopiou, 2012; Santos et al., 2008; Santos and Yan, 2008), a “third space culture, where new identities and affinities are relentlessly forming” (Amoamo, 2011: 1255). For the Chinese immigrant, Chinatown represents a home away from home or a challenging home whose culture is neither authentic nor mainstream—an in-between culture.

Culture distance: Chinese and British

According to Hofstede (1984), Chinese culture scores relatively high in power distance, collectivism, and long-term orientation dimensions, while British culture scores relatively high in individualism and low in uncertainty avoidance. This suggests that Chinese people tend to accept inequality in the distribution of power and are more group and long-term oriented. British people value individualism, independence, and tend to take more risk. Based on power distance, Asians tend to expect higher quality service than their Western counterparts because of the emphasis on status (Mattila, 2000). Reisinger (2009) discussed several types of differences in relation to human interactions, such as attitudes toward interacting with strangers and in-group members, the degree of responsibility for other people, accepting compliments, and perceptions of social interactions. Specifically, collectivistic Asians experience greater anxiety in interaction with strangers. People in individualistic cultures help those who are dependent on them, while in collectivistic cultures helpfulness implies reciprocity (Berkowitz and Friedman, 1967). They also maintain social harmony by complaining less often and are less likely to accept compliments than in individualistic cultures (Barnlund and Araki, 1985). The Chinese perceive social interactions in terms of social usefulness, while Western individualistic societies perceive social interactions in terms of competitiveness, self-confidence, and freedom (Kim and Gudykunst, 1988).

The Chinese also emphasize social values in human interactions. They are more interdependently oriented and stress harmony, relatedness, and connection (Reisinger, 2009). People in interdependent cultures regard the self as interconnected and highly value the interpersonal relationships. They tend to gain happiness through socially engaging emotions and will not enhance the self at the expense of others (Kitayama et al., 1997). East Asia is heavily influenced by Confucian values and ways of thought, especially in China, where Confucius lived. Although there are also other ancient values such as those associated with Taoism and Buddhism, Confucianism is regarded as primarily providing guidance for daily living. It promotes human morality and good deeds and influences Chinese culture in a complex system of moral, social, political, philosophical, and quasi-religious thought. Under such guidance, the Chinese stress connection to others, co-operation and humility, and the development of strong and enduring bonds with kin and other “in-groups” (FitzGerald, 1998). In his book Cross-cultural communication for the tourism and hospitality industry, FitzGerald described several distinct features of the Chinese culture that closely relate to their daily lives—harmony, courtesy, politeness, respect, and avoidance of uncontrolled emotion and loss of self-control. Food is also an important factor in Chinese people’s lives, and they think a lot about food when they travel.

Gesteland (2005) also found distinctive features of Chinese culture in the business area. Chinese regard open displays of anger or impatience as rude and emphasize calmness. Other details are mentioned by Gesteland (2005), such as the difference in expectation between young and older, as well as the perception of hierarchy. Generally, the Chinese are relatively reserved and formal, tend to speak rather softly, and avoid interrupting other people. To them, a laugh or giggle may also represent stress, nervousness, or embarrassment.

Culture differences and consumer behavior

As indicated by different authors (e.g. Mattila, 2000), culture accounts for different consumer behavior. Reisinger (2009: 279) defines consumer behavior as “the behavior that consumers display in selecting, purchasing, using and evaluation products, services, ideas, and experiences that they expect will satisfy their needs and desires.” Many studies of culture and its impact on consumer behavior are based on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. Studies focusing on the uncertainty avoidance dimension indicate that people from high uncertainty avoidance cultures are less likely to complain, which can also be inferred from the Confucian stress on harmony and avoidance of losing face as in a public argument by the Chinese (Gao et al., 1996). Studies which focus on power distance dimension suggested that Asian people expect high service quality because of the stress on status, while Westerners from their low power distance dimension pay more attention to efficiency and private space (Mattila, 2000).

Liu and McCLure (2001) found that consumers with low individualism or higher uncertainty avoidance tend to frequently compliment if they receive superior service. They will avoid negative word of mouth or complaints, even if they receive poor quality service. In terms of communication, Asian cultures prefer high-context communication and thus focus on the quality of interactions between service providers and customers. Western cultures prefer low-context communication and focus on task completion and efficiency. Based on the literature about different consumer behaviors, compared with British guests, Chinese tourists are less likely to complain, expect higher service quality, and tend to give more compliments to service providers than their British counterparts.

Method

Our naturalistic inquiry takes a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to study the lived experience of immigrant Chinese tourism workers. The phenomenon of Chinese hosting Chinese in a “Westernized” Chinatown (Santos and Yan, 2008) has not received the attention of tourism academics (Diekmann and Smith, 2015); hence, the exploratory nature of the research necessitates a qualitative research approach. We used in-depth interviews to construct meaning, bearing in mind that our interpretation of the interview is based on our understanding of the participants’ realities. To ensure trustworthiness, based on Guba (1981)’s criteria, we randomly selected participants, introduced ourselves as university researchers conducting a study on service encounter in Chinatown and informed participants about anonymity and the unconditional right to withdraw. We used probes and iterative questioning to elicit detailed information and invited them to reflect openly and honestly on their encounters with customers.

London’s Chinatown has about 180 Chinese businesses, including restaurants, cafes, cake shops, bookshops, grocery stores, travel agents, banks and money transfer businesses, mobile phone shops, traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, doctors, dentists, beauty salons, newsagents, solicitors, and accountants (for the history of London Chinatown, see LCCA, 2012). The field research in Chinatown was undertaken between 4 and 14 July 2012. Our sampling frame consists of the 55 Chinese restaurants in the Soho area, most of which are owned by people from Hong Kong and Fujian. We visited all the 55 restaurants, but we were able to interview only in 11 because of the busy Olympic Games’ period. Restaurant workers of the consenting restaurants were randomly approached and were asked to participate in the study. The results of the study are based on 11 participants. Our in-depth interviews involved six males and five females aged between 22 and 30 years. Four were part-time employees, and the rest were full-time. None of them had received formal training in hospitality. All indicated that they came from the Fujian Province, and their residency tenure ranged from 3 to 12 years.

The restaurants in Chinatown open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Since the sampling period was right before the opening of the 2012 Olympic Games, it was difficult to conduct interviews because the restaurants were very busy. After a few failed attempts, we decided to contact Chinese restaurant workers right after their shift. A successful strategy was to eat late at a restaurant and ask for the opportunity to interview. Another strategy that worked well for us to optimize the time of the interview was to walk with the participants to the bus station or to even ride the bus with them. Another “incentive” was to invite the participants for a drink after work. The interviews took an average of 35 minutes to complete. We stopped interviewing when we achieved theoretical saturation. The interviews were conducted in Chinese, phone recorded, transcribed verbatim in Chinese, and translated into English. The participants were simply asked to talk about what they think about Chinese tourists and British patrons eating in their restaurant and reflect on their experience serving them.

Relatively little research has been published on visitors to Chinatown as tourist attractions, probably because of the “extreme” diversity of visitors to these districts, and thus, identifying them based on their cultural background is problematic (Diekmann and Smith, 2015: 129). In the case of this study, all the participants spoke Cantonese and could easily distinguish locals from tourists, including Chinese tourists from non-Chinese tourists based on patrons’ demeanor, behavioral cues, and consumption patterns. For example, one participant explained that local Chinese “shop here but hardly eat here.” This assumption is supported by Collins (2015) who reports that Chinatown is used differently by different visitors or groups.

Notes were taken simultaneously during the interviews. Transcripts were analyzed by searching “for the themes common to most or all of the interviews as well as the individual variations” (Hycner, 1999: 154). They were independently screened by the author and a research assistant, who separately identified emerging themes. Following a color-coding scheme, five themes strongly and inductively emerged in all the interviews as gaze moderators. These include the negative perceptions of workers, power distance, acculturation, cultural hybridity, and food authenticity. These themes were informed by the literature and allowed us to structure our findings and make sense of the interviews.

Findings

Chinese tourism workers’ negative perceptions

Chinese restaurant workers in Chinatown hold rather negative views about Chinese tourists. When asked “What do you think about Chinese tourists eating in your restaurant?,” 9 out of the 11 respondents express negative thoughts and use descriptors such as “impolite,” “noisy,” “complains a lot,” “demanding,” “not giving compliments,” “difficult to deal with,” and “cunning.” However, when asked their opinion about the British guests, their remarks are generally positive and include terms such as “polite,” “responsive,” “willing to compliment,” and “funny.”

Chinese tourists often complain about “food quality,” “the physical appearance of the restaurants,” “service quality,” and “price.” British guests tend not to complain so often. As one respondent says, “sometimes even when the food is not good, the British guests will still compliment us about the food when asked.” In addition to the nature of the complaint, the ways of complaining also differ. For example, a male respondent says,

If the Chinese tourists are not satisfied with something, they will first complain about this to me, and then they will also tell the manager. The British, they will not complain to me. If they have some complaints, they will just express them to my manager.

This is contrary to the custom in China, where the customer mostly complains only to the waiter as the manager is usually unreachable because of the size and capacity of the restaurants. The restaurants in Chinatown are comparatively smaller, and hence, the manager is visible and contactable.

Another example is the perception of the Chinese guests as being “difficult to serve” and “too demanding.” One female respondent explains, “Chinese guests here will ask for more and more during their meal. They cannot finish their order within one time, which is so annoying for us. And they will ask for this and that.” Another one comments,

Chinese tourists ask us to serve the tea for them, or ask for more and more napkins. But the British guests, they just want to enjoy the food there, so what they want is just the food, it is simple to serve them. British guests will just serve the tea themselves. Actually, while the teapot is already on the table, Chinese tourists will ask us to serve them tea whenever their tea cup is empty.

Another example of irritability revolves around “too many complaints” from the Chinese and “fewer compliments.” One respondent reports, “Chinese tourists compliment less often than British guests.” The British compliment on the taste of the food and the quality of the service, whereas as one male respondent puts it, “The Chinese tourists seldom express good feelings, they tend to express their complaints more, or they remain silent. British guests tend to express their compliments about our food or our service, which makes us also happy to serve them.”

The Chinese complaints about the food are mainly linked to the perception of its authenticity. Most Chinese tourists will complain about the food quality and compare it with that in China. One male respondent explains,

They will ask me about the specialties and the delicious food here. After my recommendation, they will say, oh, this is too salty, or give some bad comments like that. They will complain that the food is not “pure” Chinese.

Their perception of food authenticity is associated with food quality, quantity served, and availability of food choices in the menu. Some respondents comment that, sometimes, the food that Chinese guests order is difficult to cook because of the time needed for preparation as well as the availability of authentic products and ingredients. One female respondent attests, “Chinese tourists will always ask for more complicated dishes which are difficult to make.” On the other hand, the British guests will just select the dish that they like and with which they are familiar, and will try different restaurants. “The British guests tend to ask for simple dishes which are mostly vegetables based.”

While food can be a cultural attraction, it can also be an impediment to a tourist experience (Cohen and Avieli, 2004). According to Chang et al. (2010), although Chinese tourists like to try local cuisine, Chinese food remains the dominant “core” preference for many Chinese tourists despite being in a new cultural environment. A male respondent mentions,

For example, once there were six Chinese tourists from Beijing, two families. During the dinner, the father of one family asked me to come to him. I thought there was something that he needed, but it turned out that he just wanted to have a chat with me. He spoke with me with smiles from the beginning to the end, without a dirty word, but he totally criticized our food from top to bottom. For example, I remember him saying, “this dish only contains two pieces of beef, the rest is all water. You are making good money (with a smirk on his face).” The exact words I cannot remember clearly, but the general message was that the food is for the pigs, not for humans. And he expressed it with smiles and jokes, sarcastically, which makes me so sick.

While waiters are irritated by the customers’ sarcasm and behavior, they nevertheless seem to understand the origin of such a behavior through their own dining experience back home. One female respondent argues,

I know how big the difference is between the service, the environment, and decorations of the restaurants here and the ones we have in China. And most of the Chinese tourists here are rich, so they must have tried those high-class restaurants back in China, with private rooms and private service. So it is natural that they will complain.

Nevertheless, the familiar becomes intolerable, and to some extent disgusting, as it is supported by these quotes:

Chinese tourists will make a mess on the table. And during the meal, they will be noisy and loud. I know that this is a Chinese table and dining tradition. It is a get-together and everyone is relaxed during the meal, so they like to talk. But you know, here it is different. And as the saying goes something like: when in Rome do like the Romans.

Another male respondent argues,

They speak loud regardless of other guests. Some of them speak in an air like they are the real bosses and we are only the servants. They will always take your good service for granted. They are very difficult to satisfy.

Another one comments,

And they will always order a dish with many bones like Chicken wings, and they will always leave the bones on the table without putting it on their own plates when they are finished. It is complicated to clean, and you know, the bones come out from their mouths, and it is really bad feeling to clean it. Yuck.

On the other hand, however, host and guest encounters also generate feelings of homesickness, nostalgia, understanding, empathy, and belonging. Examples of this ambivalent attitude are captured in the following comment:

You know life is a little bit hard for people like us, who go abroad and work here in a Chinese restaurant. We work long hours and have no foreign friends here. So we can only communicate with our own nationals. As for the Chinese residents here, actually some of them are good and some of them are not. But most of the Chinese tourists here are good. And some of them will ask private things about me … how long I have been here, and from which part of China I come from, which makes me feel a little bit closer to China. It shows that they have concerns about me. And some of them may also bring me news from my homeland, and have a small discussion about their traveling around and how they think about being here. This is interesting. And some of them can empathize with my situation as an immigrant worker. For example, they can understand how living here is hard for me. I am, living abroad here and without relatives. It is really nice to talk with them, because they can understand me. So I think I have more communication with Chinese tourists. It can bring me a feeling of being at home. And this is very important for me. I feel closer to them and also feel a sense of belonging.

Similarly, another one advances,

When I am working, all the communication with British is only on the surface, for example, greetings, saying goodbye, so there is no true communication. But with a Chinese tourist, I can talk more. I don’t communicate so much with the English speakers. Our relations just remain as guest and waiter.

An analysis of the whys of such perceptions is presented in the remaining of the article to capture the essence of the liminal gaze.

Power distance as a moderator of the host gaze

Chinese tourists are perceived negatively by Vietnamese tourism workers (Chan, 2006), despite cultural proximity. They are perceived positively by Dutch tourism workers (Moufakkir, 2011), despite cultural distance. In this study, they are perceived negatively, but this time by their own nationals. Both host and guest contribute to this perception. Hence, the gaze is mutual (Maoz, 2006). From the tourist side, since China scores highly on power distance and uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede, 1984), the Chinese tend to accept inequality in the distribution of power. Based on power distance, Asians, in general, tend to expect higher quality service than their Western counterparts because of the stress on status (Mattila, 2000).

In a tourism service encounter, when Chinese tourists feel they are in a “superior” hierarchical position, as customers, they tend to keep high power distance in order to stress and maintain status. In a context of power and status, Chinese tourists tend to expect high-quality service, especially from their own nationals who share to same values and expectations. They must fulfill their obligations as employees. Since the Chinese experience greater anxiety in interaction with strangers, they tend to be less demanding in a low power distance situation to avoid risk and loosing face. Generally, they prefer harmony and thus avoid direct confrontation in conflict management of situations and prefer avoidance or obliging management styles (Barnlund and Araki, 1985; Gao, 1996; Gao et al., 1996). However, the tendency to mark clear distinction between insiders and outsiders, and consequent predisposition to show aggressiveness toward out-group members, must not be overlooked in Chinese conflict situations (Chen, 2002).

This observation applies to a tourism situation, where power distance is low and status is not so obvious, as explained in the case of the Dutch workers in Moufakkir’s (2011) study. Uncertainty avoidance tends to be dominant in guiding Chinese tourists’ behaviors. With their national tourist workers in Chinatown, power is maintained and the risk of losing face is low, hence the complaining and demanding behavior. This analysis supports Lee and Sparks’ (2007) proposition that Chinese tourists tend to behave differently in different tourism situations. Chinese workers perceive the demanding and critical behavior “patronizing,” thus further resulting in a negative host gaze. The host gaze, then, is dependent on the behavior of the guest and how this behavior is perceived by the host. A behavior which is normalized and internalized back home becomes irritating and, to a certain extent, intolerable in Chinatown. The concept of acculturation may explain this ambiguity.

Acculturation and hybridization as moderators of the host gaze

Acculturation is “a widely studied concept that broadly describes the adoption of beliefs and behaviors of one’s surrounding culture based on persistent cultural contact and emersion” (Ho, 2014: 145). Acculturation can be measured (Cuellar et al., 1995) on four dimensions: behavior, values, knowledge, and cultural identity (Kim and Abreu, 2001). The acculturation of Chinese tourism workers underlies a degree of change within the workers’ values, including perceptions, expectations, and attitudes. According to Berry (1994), the sojourner can adapt different relationship strategies in the new cultural setting. They may adopt a monocultural strategy, cling to their own culture; become bicultural, adopt cultural elements and adapt to the new culture; become marginalized, contesting both cultures; or become multicultural, retaining own and learning several other cultures (Janta et al., 2011). Selective acculturation also explains that sojourners can be selective in what cultural elements to adopt from mainstream culture (Deng et al., 2006).

It is, thus, suggested that, coming from a high power distance culture (Hofstede, 1984), Chinese workers might have been influenced by the British host culture, where low power distance is observed. One Chinese restaurant worker comments, “When they [Chinese tourists] come inside, they will shout ‘waiter’ loudly as if they want everyone to know that they are here and need to be served.” This behavior does not conform to the rules of hospitality and service in British society and is therefore perceived negatively by the workers even when they are serving their own nationals. Acculturation mediates perception of power distance, which in turn mediates the host gaze. Being “between and betwixt” two cultures (Turner, 1967) engenders cultural hybridization (Bhabha, 1994). Hybridization of culture resulting from exposure to a new environment may shed more light on consumer attitudes and behavior in a liminal zone. For example, a worker comments, “this is the UK. We are in London and not in Beijing. Even in this Chinatown they want to behave like in China.”

Bhabha (1994: 215) maintains that hybridity theory problematizes the inherent purity and originality of cultures as “untenable” which represents a “non-sense,” a discourse and praxis that is locked within totalized and historic visions of peoplehood. The immigrant worker has become acculturated to the consumptive patterns and behaviors of the local population, hence their negative attitudes toward the liminal consumption of their nationals. Jervis (1999) defines “hybridization, [as] the mixing of categories and the questioning of boundaries that separate categories” (p. 4). In a tourism liminal zone, rules and norms of consumer behavior are questioned (here by both liminars, in that neither accepts the “abnormal” behavior of the other, as they both interface with multiple cultures), transgressed (in that the normal has become abnormal and the abnormal normal to the liminars), or maintained (with Chinese guests, in the sense that they did not change or adapt neither their consumption behavior nor attitudes toward their acculturated national workers or the new cultural environment of the host country).

According to Amoamo (2011), transgression of rules represents an emergent theory of liminal consumption. In this study, conformity to the rules also explains behavior in a liminal consumption zone. Cultural purity, as well as cultural hybridization, is, respectively, contested by the liminars, in that both liminars are contrasting the traditional and modern, authentic and inauthentic, civilized and uncivilized, elite and mass consumer cultures. In a third space, ideas, values, and meaning clash (Wang and Yeh, 2005). Certain cultural elements are negotiated while others are not.

Contact outside tourism contexts also appears to influence the host gaze. All our respondents indicated their likes for British locals and dislikes for Chinese locals (resident in London) despite themselves being Chinese. Chinese tourism workers find the British to be more civil and more helpful to them in daily encounters than the Chinese minority in London. For example, one male participant explains,

Chinese people here in London are realistic. If you have some problems and you need help, you ask the British, they will tend to help you. But if you ask Chinese residents here, they will not help you unless you have some connections. For example, if you are his friend or a classmate. Otherwise they will not help. But for the British, if you ask them, they will help you.

This is in line with the Chinese culture where social interactions are perceived in terms of social usefulness (Kim and Gudykunst, 1988). People in Asian cultures are more interdependently oriented and tend to stress relatedness and connections (Reisinger, 2009). Another respondent explaining his positive perceptions about British locals says,

I remember that once I asked a Briton about a direction, the guy he himself did not know the place. But, then he took me to a building where another Briton was sitting and tried to explain to that person that I was lost and was looking for my way. But the other British person also did not know the place. He then helped me by finding the place on line and explained the way to me. He was afraid that I might be lost, and then he drove me himself to that place. I was so moved.

On the other hand, Chinese residents are not perceived as helpful, for example, one respondent comments,

Some of the Chinese students here, they are studying masters or PhDs; they don’t even know how to say hello and thank you when they need help. They don’t even know the basics of politeness. For example, when they are asking me a question or they need help to show them the direction of where they want to go, they don’t say “excuse me,” or “sorry” when they ask me. And after I tell them, they don’t even say “thank you” to me.

Thus, daily life encounters with locals (British and Chinese) seems to affect the gaze of Chinese tourism workers on their British and Chinese guests. This reaction is well explained by the process of acculturation.

Food authenticity as a moderator of the host gaze

Chang et al. (2010) have found that Chinese tourists in Australia frequently compare local Australian food with Chinese food. Food quality is often a matter of concern for Chinese. Food represents Chinese culture and art. For the Chinese, food can prevent and cure diseases, as well as serve as a business and friendship facilitator (Koo, 1984). Chinese commonly greet each other by saying, “Have you eaten yet?” Chinese people consume a lot of food when traveling (FitzGerald, 1998). Comparing the quality and authenticity of “tourism food” with the quality and authenticity of the food back home is a natural state. One female respondent explains,

For example, they (Chinese guests) will sometimes complain about the food, and they will sometimes compare the food here with the one in China. And say this is too bad and cannot match the quality of the food we have in China.

Nevertheless, the food in Chinatown is “exotic enough” for the Western gaze. In Chinatown, the staged “Otherness” (Amoamo and Thompson, 2010) of Chinese food conveys another Otherness to Chinese tourists: an unauthentic other. In this case, the food served was not the unfamiliar Other but the unfamiliar ours. It is worthwhile to consider the issue of food authenticity in relation to the authentic “othering” other.

Not only do Chinese tourists in Chinatown complain about food quality; they also complain about food presentation and the physical setting of the restaurant. Cohen and Avieli (2004) explain that overall satisfaction with food consumption includes food quality, service quality, and appearance of the restaurant. One male respondent explains,

But the food here is not what I expected. And I understand that they have limitation of materials here, so it is ok. But the taste is too sweet and there is too much oil. I can even find chips in a Chinese buffet. Chinese buffet in China will never put potato chips in their offers. Of course, the food here cannot match the taste of the one in China because they do not have enough materials here. And most of the food here is sweet and sour, which the British like the most.

Perceived inauthenticity of the food and also the perception of being rushed to leave the restaurant negatively affect the tourist gaze, and simultaneously that of the host. These service elements invite tourists to be more critical and complain more. This behavior reciprocally irritates the tourism workers and consequently shapes their host gaze, as their “identities of difference are [being] constructed” (Bhabha, 1994: 5) as Chinese-immigrants.

Conclusion and discussion

Cultural studies have indicated that high uncertainty avoidance cultures avoid ambiguity and taking risk and look for harmony (Reisinger and Turner, 2002). There is the argument that, despite perceived incongruity between service delivery and expected service, Chinese customers tend to cushion service failure by conforming to keeping face, maintaining good manners, and projecting social harmony, which is rooted in Confucian teaching (Gao et al., 1996). In this study, however, Chinese tourists are perceived to complain a lot. Their dining behavior in Chinatown restaurants is contested and criticized by Chinese immigrant workers as “unacceptable.” Chen (2002) argued that, in recent years, a number of alternative approaches to conflict management in the Chinese culture have appeared in books and training courses. These new approaches incorporate people’s emotions and how to deal with them in their direct confrontational context. Chen (2002) pointed out that

A great deal of research, while informative tends to focus upon relational structure as a key cultural mechanism to explain Chinese conflict behaviors, principally because this research is guided by concepts such as collectivism and Confucianism. Rather than discussing how the content of Chinese relationships shapes their views on interpersonal conflict, this line of research tends to see Chinese verbal indirectness as the result of relational hierarchy. (p. 25)

That is, the Chinese have responded to modernization and globalization in various ways, including the way they gaze in global tourism. According to Prayag and Ryan (2012), understanding people’s gaze can shed light on the reasons behind their attitudes and behaviors during the service encounter. Whether the gaze is positive or negative, it is shaped by cultural factors (Urry, 2002 [1990]).

Similarly, as the restaurant workers are expected to tolerate the behavior of their tourist nationals as suggested by the dictates of power distance, status, and expected rules of behavior rooted in Confucianism; in the case of this study, the workers are irritated by the perceived “boorish” behavior of their nationals and, subsequently, have developed a negative gaze upon a culture that is their own. This negative gaze is the result of the combination of perceived salient consumer behavioral factors, such as being loud, not tipping, not complimenting, and complaining about food authenticity (see Moufakkir and Reisinger, 2016), and other important but less visible components, such as those reported in this study, which include the effect of acculturation and cultural hybridization on cultural identity, and perceived food authenticity.

Gazing at their nationals abroad in a service encounter makes the gaze of the guesthoster a complex gaze, a gaze that is moderated by Turner’s liminality and Bhabha’s third space and cultural hybridity. Duncan et al. (2013) call for “the need to reconsider tourism and hospitality employees through more fluid, complex and mobile lenses” (p. 5). Such a consideration can contribute to wider societal debates (Janta et al., 2011) about the impacts of globalization and mobility on cross-cultural understanding (Diekmann and Smith, 2015). Chinatown represents an interesting place to gaze upon encounter, mobility, and cultural diversity (Santos et al., 2008). Examining the gaze of immigrant workers as mobile guests, who are also hosts, challenges the binary division of host and guest (Bell, 2007; Sherlock, 2001) and our understanding of commercial hospitality (Duncan et al., 2013) in a liminal consumption space. This combination raises “further questions relating to the nature of the experience or service that such mobile workers deliver when removed from their normal cultural and social environment” (Duncan et al., 2013: 13).

The guesthosters’ gaze can differ from the local hosts. Their gaze becomes entangled in a web of cultural ambiguities, contradictions, and confusion. It is a liminal gaze. This gaze is that of the immigrant worker who, in addition to being in a state of being “neither here nor there,” remains here in-between here and there, in the forming since the passage from his home culture to the culture of his host culture will remain in a liminal period “betwixt and between” two cultures, “unconsummated” (Turner, 1967): hybrid (Bhabha, 1994).

In the context of cultural distance, culture has been studied in relation to distant cultures, proximate cultures, and similar cultures (Moufakkir, 2011). No study has yet examined the gaze from the perspective of this article. The article tried to conceptualize the host gaze by focusing on two fraternal-twins cultures gazing upon each other. Immigrants and their tourist nationals come from the same culture like twins come from the same womb, but unlike identical twins, fraternal-twins physiology is different. Analogically, Chinese tourists’ culture and that of the immigrant Chinese are no longer identical and neither are they proximate or distant—they are what we may call fraternal-twins cultures. The culture of the Chinese immigrant is a hybrid culture—a culture in-between two cultures.

Bhabha (1994) reminds us that

The borderline engagement of cultural difference may as often be consensual as conflictual; they may confine our definition of tradition and modernity; realign the customary boundaries between the private and the public, high and low; and challenge normative expectations of development and progress. (p. 3)

The liminal space where rules and norms of behavior are being contested has given voice to a liminal host gaze. In a diverse cultural space such as Chinatown, certain rules of behavior are transgressed during an encounter between Chinese restaurant workers and their tourist nationals, despite rooted cultural similarities and cultural proximity. As Turner (1969) elucidates, “The attributes of liminality or of liminal personae (‘threshold people’) are necessarily ambiguous since this condition and these persons elude or slip through the network of classifications that normally locate states and positions in cultural space” (p. 359). The third space, according to Bhabha (1994), becomes the terrain for elaborating new signs of identity, collaboration, and contestation. These have an impact on the gaze of the liminars.

Immigrant workers exist in a state of being “neither this nor that and yet … both” (Turner, 1967: 99). The idea of “being both” is a major theme in Bhabha’s hybridity and in-between spaces (Bhabha, 1994: 53). Human Resource Managers, as culture “mediators” (Chen, 2002), can capitalize on the dis/orderliness of in-between spaces as a “dialectic of various temporalities” (Bhabha, 1994: 218), giving shape to a developing cultural phenomenon. In other words, as Karanja (2010) explains, “in this sense, hybridity can be viewed as a theoretical lens for understanding diversity, multiplicity, and conflicting perspectives” (p. 4). People’s gazes are shaped by the cultural dynamics of people and places (Urry, 2002 [1990]). The forces of liminality and cultural hybridity present new challenges to understanding consumer attitudes and behavior and offer insights into the management of third places. As useful as such generalizations are, it is important for the management to realize that cultural values can and do evolve to understand the implications that they may have on service encounter. An understanding of the liminal gaze may also help both liminars (workers and customers) to adopt positive attitudes and behaviors during the “moment of truth.”

Suggestion for future research

According to Edensor (2000, 2001), for example, tourism encounters are performative. That is, the performance of tourism actors is contingent upon a myriad of factors, including the culture of the performers, and the nature, politics, policy, and management of the place. How do guests and hosts in Chinatown embody and enact roles in this enclavic heterogeneous space, and how does each audience interpret the performance of the other, warrant further investigation. Such an understanding may assist in improving performance and can also help guesthosters to better understand the behavior of tourists, cope with it, and internalize it in a healthy manner through the strategies of deep acting. Furthermore, comparing the dinning etiquette/behavior of Chinese who have traveled/sojourned overseas with that of those who have not may add more light on the transformational nature of tourism.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author biography

Omar Moufakkir is an associate professor of Marketing and Head of the Business Administration Department at the Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST) in Kuwait.

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