"After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town," by Ha Jin

            “After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town” by Ha Jin is a story about an American restaurant chain known as Cowboy Chicken that has set up shop in China.  The American manager, Kenneth Shapiro, operates the restaurant, seconded in command by Peter Jiao, a very well educated Chinaman who studied business in America.  The narrator, Hongwhen, is one of several fulltime employees at the restaurant.

            The restaurant goes through several stages in development as it struggles to find its place in Chinese culture.  The store struggles with everything from disgruntled costumers (one costumer claims to have gotten a fly in his food while another wants a refund for the food he has eaten saying that it is a rip-off) to low profits (the store tries to implement a buffet that goes flop because the costumers eat more chicken than the store can afford).  The store finally finds where it belongs due mainly to the efforts of Peter Jiao.  Peter convinces several businesses to hold their business meetings in the Cowboy Chicken restaurant where “because their companies would foot the bill, the business people would order table loads of food to treat their guests to hearty American meals, and then they’d take the leftovers home for their families.  By and By our restaurant gained a reputation in the business world, and we established a stable clientele.”

            Peter also orchestrates a wedding feast in the Cowboy Chicken.  Ice cream and cheesecake is served causing one third of the guest to become ill.  Peter claims it is because the Chinese stomach can’t handle lactose.

            The story concludes itself when the fulltime employees become jealous of Peter’s salary, his large, three story house, and infuriated at the fact that he burns all of the leftover chicken instead of giving it to the hungry.  “Manyou said he had read in a restricted journal several years ago that some American capitalist would dump milk into a river instead of giving it to the poor.  But that was in the U.S.; here in China, this kind of wasteful practice had to be condemned.”  Because of their feelings toward Peter they demand he be fired.  Their request is denied, and they strike the restaurant; when they return to negotiate their wishes, they find that the restaurant is managing just find without them and that they are out of a job.

Vocabulary:

Urbane- suave, courteous, and refined in manner

Countermeasure- an action taken to counteract a danger or threat

Incessantly – without interruption; constantly

Loon- large diving water bird that breeds by lakes in northern latitudes and has a wailing call.