Chinese Food In New York - a website project by Jacqueline Miao Life in the restaurant business in Chinatown and Flushing is harsh. According to Gwen Kinkead, author of Chinatown , waiters and dishwashers get paid the lowest and most illegal wages in New York City. Most of Chinatown's restaurant workers come as illegal immigrants from Mainland China, joined by Hong Kongers, Taiwanese, Malaysians, Vietnamese, Cambodians and a few other Asian communities among them. In view of their illegal status, workers accept low, and non-taxed wages, and most often do not mind exploitation.
Most newcomers have enough only to rent a bed in rotation, from the kong xi fong .
Rotation beds are usually shared by two people, whereby two people with different working hours alternate the beds one after another. He is a bachelor, like most workers in the restaurant business are. Although I wake up early in the morning to prepare for the day and there is no guarantee I'll make enough to pay my bills, I am my own boss. Working at a restaurant for somebody, you have to kan mein se . I sat down for a good hour, on a stool by Ah Shan's vendor cart, in which he had offered me and spoke with him about his experiences as an immigrant worker.