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I'm white, but I grew up around a fair number of Chinese people and I agree that the "fa-ra-ra" thing never struck me as natural based on how Chinese people actually talk

I am in Chicago. We used to go to King Fong in Oak Park. It was on North Ave by Austin Blvd. Long gone now. Building it was on is not part of a bank. Anyway, the interior was very similar to Bo Ling. Booths along the right side aka west. Tables on the left. Even the door to the kitchen was on the left aka east just like in Bo Ling. Food was always good. I remember the egg rolls were huge and delicious. Almost looked like burritos. I believe they were made in house. Including the wrap which I think had peanut butter in them. My go to picks were always egg rolls, chop suey, and the egg rolls. Now the egg rolls were unique, I have never seen egg rolls like that anywhere outside of Chicagoland area. I have never eaten in a Chinese place in NYC, but I am thinking/ hoping they may have something similar. King Fong I believe moved to Roosevelt and Austin closed some time after. I think Peking Garden on Belmont had similar but smaller one. There was a place that the Chicago personality Bob Serot used to talk about farther north in the city but I am not sure. Closed I have come to those egg rolls is not Gilbert's in West Dundee. Gilbert's Chinese. I think Gilbert is the Americanized name the founder called himself. Anyway, the son retired, sold the place, new owners got new cooks and changed everything up, business dropped. They had to rehire the cook. I tried the egg rolls under the new cooks and it wasn't the same. With the original cook back, they are the same though I think they are not a long as I remember. Back then lots of length and girth. LOL. #quadstatecameras

They must have scouted Toronto and Cleveland very thoroughly, since the movie looked like it was filmed in one of the parts of Hammond built for industrial workers. They even included the train horn, which was part of the background noise.

"A fictional town in Indiana" I thought it was set in South Bend, which _does_ exist.

I thought it was Chop Suey because when I watched the movie I noticed that most Chinese Restaurants are not called Chop Suey anymore when it use to be common before the 1970s.

They wouldn't get away with making this scene today. 😅 It's not PC by today's standards. I tried duck once. It was muddy. Never had duck again.

I grew up in St John Indiana in the 1950s and early '60s. We would get dressed up and during the holidays he would take us for a Chinese meal! I remember it being dark, lots of wood and red lanterns... But of course I was in 1960 8 years old. What wonderful memories.

Absolutely love this channel, I have always been fascinated with American chinese restaurants, so nostalgic to my younger years, keep up the great work!!

I believe NYC restaurants brought the Egg Roll from California, where they were not restaurant food, but rather popular worker's meals put in the pocket of miners and railway workers for lunch in the late 19th C. They later became SF street food. In the 19th C, the Chinese saw their Welsh, Cornish and Mexican counterparts bringing empanadas and Cornish Pasties from home or from the railways camps to stick in their pockets in the mornings and to keep for lunch, and realized if they used water chestnut flour they could get the same tougher texture that would allow the rolls to stay safe in their pockets of overalls whilst they worked. So it was an adaption from the spring roll. Filling was some egg alongside a mix of leftovers from the last night's meal. Water chestnut flour turned spring rolls from something refined into something practical and yummy for workmen. Butte Montana (a big mining city in the early 20th C) had cook-books from the 1920's that feature both Cornish Pasties and Egg Rolls as "miner's foods". Butte was very multi-ethnic back then.

I just found your channel and I really enjoy it. Thanks and have a wonderful New Year. Take care. 👍

I'd say that L as R is more Japanese. Like how in One Piece some characters will call Luffy Roofy.

Set in 1950s ,,,,,

This was a super fun watch! Thank you for making this. I love your voiceover as well, relaxing and informative :D

This movie holds a special place in my mind because it's very similar to my childhood in the 1950's. And I first saw it on an airplane as a young worker traveling alone on the holidays. But the duck scene rang true for me too. Growing up in the Hudson Valley (north of New York City) I would often take the train into the city. And before I would catch the train home, I would always go down to Chinatown to get what I called a "murdered duck". The Chinese restaurants would all have the ducks hanging by their necks in the windows, you would point to the one you wanted, and the guy would "murder" it. (Chop it into bite sized pieces and stuff it into a big white takeout container with a wire handle.). I'm a west coaster now, but oh the memories this movie and Chinese ducks bring back to this old man.

I spent the last 40 years thinking to myself, how the hell could they fit a bowling alley in that tiny little building? Lol.😂

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As I noticed by the sign of that restaurant, it looked like the space used to be a bowling alley and when the Chinese restaurant took over, they reworked the sign to sound more Chinese.

A duck dinner, beats a turkey one, any day of the year!

Jean Shepherd was a comic genius and a prankster of the most sophisticated level. If you want to hear something completely hilarious search TH-cam for Jean Shepherd I, Libertine

This was such an enjoyable video. Love this movie and I have actually eaten at Batifole a few times. I always try to picture the Peking Duck scene

Speaking of English L and R substitution.... I fondly remember an old Chinese woman who ran the "China Fan" eatery in a local mall. She was a sweet and kind old lady who made the best noodles and fried rice. We would go there often as kids _(a group of 3 or 4 kids, 12 or 13 years old on our first unsupervised excursions to eat)_ and we would order a huge pile of lo mein and fried rice and eat it at a nearby cafeteria/food court table. I distinctly remember her broken english, and as the author suggests, she substituted an "L" for "R" saying "fry lice".... but when our noodles were ready, she would yell out to us "kids! noood-errls are ready! Come now!" with sort of a blended "RL" sound, such as in the word "girls" ... We didn't care, we just liked the happy Chinese lady who was feeding us. But we did find it peculiar. ((and epically hilarious when she would turn and yell at her young cooks in Chinese, she went from beaming a smile to straight-up scary as she scolded her cooks, lord knows why or what she said to them)) Years later I would attempt to learn some basic Chinese, and now it's just a complete miracle to me that ANYONE from other side can learn to speak to the other. The languages (Mandarin and English) are so extremely different. I eventually just taught myself the one and only phrase I could reliably pronounce that would probably serve me best: "Dai bu tsi, wo bu hui shuo Zhongwen!" (Lit: "Im sorry, I cannot speak Chinese!") I have taught myself all manner of difficult language, I am fluent in most romance languages, I can even speak Ukrainian and Russian, but Chinese was just a bridge too far for me! I have great respect for people who are bi-lingual in both English and Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese/Fujianese).

"Deliberately designed to be funny"?! OMG! 😱

this is some excellent research - thanks!

Such a Classic Movie - Jean Shepard Makes it ALL Come Together...Thanks...Merry Christmas...

I "love" the way sad little people try to say this movie is racist towards Chinese people when it LITERALLY presents them as the people who save Christmas for this one family.

Chinese for Christmas dinner is a great tradition. Seeing as otherwise is practically no different from Thanksgiving

Being born in Hammond and having most of my family from there, I've heard sooo many stories about it being based off living in Hammond. My dad, who grew up there during the time this story takes place had always said he knew this is where the film took place. Even when he never knew anything about the author or the back story of it being semi-autobiographical taking place in Hammond.

I've always been a bit torn on the that scene. As a kid it was just funny. That "Chinese" was the punchline didn't really occur to me; I was too young. As I got older I found it more cringy because it finally sunk in that the humor was making fun of Chinese people. A little older and I got that it was making fun of Chinese people *and* the American family being so insulated and knowing nothing of other cultures. And then I finally appreciated the fact that, while the movie is using Chinese as punchline, it also shows the restaurant manager (I assume) has perfect English and a very nice singing voice, and the whole staff is doing all they can to provide these people with a nice meal. So, it's using Chinese as a punchline while also showing the Chinese staff being friendly, and hard working, and going above and beyond for their customers. It's a mixed bag, I guess.

Wonderful video. Immediately subscribed! I appreciate how you explain the L and R pronunciation. Very interesting!

Didn’t know the movie was filmed in Canada. I tease my wife as she loves Hallmark Xmas movies… and those are all products of Canada. Well, great movie. Thanks, Canada. Thanks, Bo Ling Chop Suey. Correction: Ohio and Canada

I remember growing up in Detroit in the 1960s all the Chinese restaurants were Cantonese Family-run places. They were pretty good. Those big dinner rolls were my favorite.

I have an aunt and uncle that live in Hammond. He owns (or at least used to own) a bar there called Uncle Joe's Tavern.

Oh yes I WILL subscribe. Merry Christmas.

Bo ling actually Bowling with a busted w light 😂.

The documentary, "Road Trip For Ralphie", visits filming locations for "A Christmas Story", including the restaurant scene, and the Cherry St. bridge (just south of what used to be a Knob Hill Farms, and then a T&T Asian Supermarket), where Ralphie said THE word.

Its clearly Bowling, the W light is out.

What a wonderful video. The research was great and the narrator seems very kind. Your channel seems very interesting. I can't be the only one who is fascinated by the cultural import of Chinese restaurants and how the proprietors adapted their native cuisine and worked so hard to become part of the city's fabric.

My father, born in 1930, looked just like the character Ralphie when he was young. When he passed away, I inherited his Daisy "Red Rider". It is among my most prized possessions and it still shoots as straight as any BB gun I've ever seen.

Huh neat

Sorry Hammond was the largest city city in Indiana for decades. Population over 100,00+ due new by steel mills, train manufacturing, oil, and other industries

My family would have chinese food on Christmas eve! Mom wouldn't want to cook because Christmas day was the of family's the holiday meal. Us kids loved the day-glow orange sweet and sour chicken with pineapple chuncks!

What's really funny about this is that "la" and "ra" are clear syllables in both Mandarin and Cantonese, so I always thought that they intentionally sung it wrong to tweak the owner and have a sense of humor.

I always thought the movie was set pre-WW2, since Little Orphan Annie was very popular in the !930s. Also, Ralphie’s father’s car was a 1937 Oldsmobile. Really great video!

In Kansas city, we have a Bo Ling.

Wincing at the clichés in that scene. Ugh!!!

At my workplace the company had Chinese food catered to us employees for Christmas dinner.

I’m so Thankful for all the memories everyone is sharing. Christmas Story is our family’s favorite holiday story….never had the wonderful chance of Chinese food growing up. Pennsylvania Dutch culture. Of course now things have changed. Blessings from Pennsylvania Grandma. John 3:16. 🎄🎚🙏❄️☃️🎅🏻🤶🏻🇺🇸🇮🇱

Wouldn't it be funny if Cam Lan turned out to be a place that was once called Camp Land but the owners shorted out the P and D in the sign to make it work. 😅

Bo ling , fa ra , ra , ra , ra , ra , ra

One year my sister and I both had the flu at Christmas and I didn't want to cook. So since neither of us were having digestive symptoms, we decided to order a Chinese food delivery. Taking care not to be contagious, I carefully accepted our bags, and tipped the delivery man generously. That food was so good. Sadly, several years later, the restaurant closed due to cancer that the wife was battling. Fast forward to a few years ago, we have a Chinese restaurant that like the first has great food, and my favorite is Chicken with Broccoli, and their great egg rolls!❤️I now know what I will get for New Year's Eve!!!