Is the Ching Chong Ling Long Food Delivery Service Racist?

"Ching Chong Ling Long" means many things: It means you're an airheaded UCLA student ranting about Asian schoolmates in the library. It means "I love you" to one songwriter. It means a clever marketing ploy for a Chinese food delivery service in Westwood. But when it comes to the latter, one politician says it simply means "racist."

Assemblyman Mike Eng (D-Monterey Park) expressed his concern about the business in a letter sent to UCLA Chancellor Gene Block this week, reports San Marino Patch. Eng wrote:

“Numerous student groups and faculty members from UCLA have expressed to me their outrage over the name and have deemed it both racist and offensive. Stereotypical phrases such as these perpetuate misunderstandings about Asian Americans and intensify hurtful sentiments toward this community.”

Ching Chong Ling Long (a bitch to fit on business cards and signage, no?) for their part has said from the get go the name is all in good spirit, and say on their website: "We believe that the best way to combat intolerance is through a positive cultural experience mixed in with a healthy serving of humor."

Co-founder Rachel Lee says she was hesitant at first to use the controversial buzz words as the business name, but claims the UCLA students "convinced her otherwise," notes one Chinese news site. (Incidentally, that site has a totally unbiased headline about Eng's letter to Block: "Racist behavior toward Asians arouses concern in L.A.")

So is Ching Chong's chow mein racist? Or is this much ado about mushu?

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By Lindsay William-Ross in Food on July 14, 2011 11:40 AM

Comments [rss]

cookiebandit

Is it racist if it was Asian-Americans who decided to use the name as for the takeout service? The four students from UCLA are of Asian descent (Indian subcontinent and east Asian). Mike Eng needs to find an actual issue to target. And why on earth would faculty and student groups be contacting Mike Eng (whose district is nowhere near UCLA) to express their outrage? Wait, is it because he's Asian and of course he must be upset too?

Nick Mecca

But I agree with people being too damn sensitive.

ValleyTrash

It's comedy. Get over it, morons.

Spokker

Asian languages don't really sound like ching chong ling long to me anyway. I hear a lot of strong "sh" sounds and everybody sounds angry.

RedMercury

To me, it's a free speech issue. The last thing I want to see is a politician telling me what I can and cannot call my business. If you're offended by the name, don't order from them. I'll bet they'll change the name.
You don't have the right to not be offended.

Keith Hammons

Not sure how it is any better than her saying it in the first place. Because it is now an in joke? If so, not funny enough to justify.

E

People are to damn sensitive these days, we're raising a nation full of high self esteem, insecure, entitled pussys!

Nick Mecca

You can't have high self esteem AND be insecure...

Anthony

high sense of entitlement

Elson Trinidad

Full disclosure: I'm a Trojan alum, so I really don't give a crap about what goes on in bruinville. :)

But as an Asian American myself, given the context of the business' location and the reference to the Internet meme, no, I don't think it's racist at all (though no two people in the world can give a consistently-identical definition of "racism" in the first place). One can also argue that it's "taking back" and redefining an oppressive phrase, much like how the gay community took back the word "queer."

Although I'd have to say that by referencing a short-lived Internet meme, the "in-joke" of this business' name relies heavily on the meme itself. If the business intends to last much longer than the viral attention of Wallace's racist YouTube rant, then it need not reference something that doesn't deserve to remain in people's collective consciousness. So while the contextual reasons for naming CCLL Food Delivery as such aren't racist, the fact that it heavily depends on referencing something that is racist might not be in the best long-term interest of the company.

But then again, what do bruins know? :P