To see pictures of the different locations please click the marked text

Before we are leaving Oslo I will have to explain the reason for this journey.
We are looking for Chinese restaurants.
We are following the assumption that no matter where you travel on the western hemisphere you are likely to find a Chinese restaurant. That if you leave the periphery of the periphery and sets out, you might find something unexpected , but what you can expect to find is a small location , run by some small south-east Asian family serving Chop-suey.
Why this assumption?
I have been interested in the phenomena for some time. I remember travelling the west coast of Norway with my father some years ago, how the impression of white wooden towns and picturesque scenery was blended with taste of sweet and sour sauces and red paper lamps. That was where we ate, not only because we liked it, or because they were affordable, but mostly because it was the only places serving food after 4.pm.
I started to wonder about where they came from, why they came, how do they fit in.
I went to the library.
In a text in a database containing all articles from the major Norwegian newspapers the last 16 years I got 258 hits. Mostly restaurant reviews, or articles on rather ordinary events taking place in a Chinese restaurant: some local folk music band gave their first concert; a woman was spotted naked, Per-Kristian and Veronica's alibi at a particular night. That kind of stuff. Or there are articles with titles like : “The Grorud valley is fast asleep, a place God have forgotten!” About Hokksund, ”The hotdog kingdom” -a somewhat grumpy culinary journey through Hallingdal. Commonly the presence of a Chinese restaurant is associated with the absence of world events.

How far from the “world” can you get in western Europe? We left the main road to Trondheim at Kløfta about 60 kilometres north of Oslo and headed east towards Kongsvinger. The fertile land and wealthy farmhouses along the river Glomma indicates that you are still in a cultivated part of Europe, but on each side of the river valley are the dark boreal forests which starts somewhere outside Oslo and stretches all the way through Russia until it ends at the Russian Pacific coast.

Kongsvinger is located where the river bends by an old fort. Once it was an outpost towards the Finnskogen wilderness and the Swedish border with a garrison and a 18.century fortress , a Norwegian equivalent of El Alamo. Now it is a centre of forest industry with an aging population of about 8000 innhabitants. Kongsvinger is not exactly a melting pot, but a young couple has travelled from the far east to there in order to offer its dining citizens and travellers an option to pizza, kebab, and burgers. It’s funny how the last twenty years have changed peoples expectation to a meal.

The Chang-Ching House is located in a traditional “Kafeteria” where you used to get meatballs and sausages with mashed potatoes in a linoleum and respatex interior, -authentic Norwegian sixties boredom. You can still get meatballs, if that is your preference, and the interior is nearly intact except for some red rice lamps and a shrine of Chinese glitter. I guess that is partly the reason for their success, their gold painted Buddha and spring rolls offers a welcomed opportunity for escapism, for some hours wage you can get a sense of voyage.

We are travelling north, along the river Glomma , after a cold and rather uncomfortable night in the camping wagon (The Mobile Gallery) , we arrive at Flisa . You are not likely to find Flisa on the map, and unless you are a local you are not likely to have heard about it.
Haiping Pang (31) and his wife Lin Jie (29) heard about it, they settled there in 1997 and opened their Qui-Qui Restaurant (and bar) next to the gas station. Haiping has followed a seemingly well trodden path into Norwegian communities. He arrived in Oslo eight years ago as a cook at a Chinatown restaurant since then his plan was first to learn Norwegian, then to get his driving license, while working as much as he could. The final step was to open his own restaurant.
When he lived in China Haiping used to see outlandish movies, American movies. They were filled with neon lights. Haiping points out that there are not many neon lights at Flisa, but after all Flisa is a quiet place, and he has loyal customers which he drives home after closing time and a daughter in kindergarten. It did’t matter to him which country he settled in, as long as he could earn a living there.

We approached Elverum with high expectation. We had heard from the man at the gas station next to Qui-Qui that Haiping and Lin sometimes went there to meet other Chinese, and wage rumours about some mind blowing karaoke parties with the local Chinese, and that there were at least two Chinese restaurants in town.
Wildlife. We are trying out hunting garments and drink coffee in a 19th. century inn, but we can’t find any restaurants. The streets are crowded with soldiers participating in an exercise where Elverum is supposed to represent a Kosovo-Albanian town, and that is basically how I feel about; grey, dull and rainy like the pictures on CNN.
A woman in a camera store explains that there used to be a place at main street, but the couple who owned it left a year ago, most likely for China. With the changing political and economical climate in China, most exile Chinese are welcomed and are actually counting for a main part of the investments in the booming Chinese economy.
But there were this other place; Graaberg, it is not exactly a Chinese restaurant , until February it was actually a Kafeteria frequently used by the local students, and it still is, only the owners and some rice lamps are new.
Maipin (30) and Zhuge (30) came from Shanghai to Norway 8 years ago, they have been working at a Chinatown restaurant in Oslo until they came to Elverum to fill the gap and fulfil my assumption about a Chinese presence in every nowhere in Norway.

Next stop is Rena, known from a ever ongoing wolf debate in Norwegian media and a heavily subsidised cardboard industry which was closed down some years ago.
We expected a town with no cheers, but really, there is one place which keeps the spirits up; Shanghai Kafe and Restaurant. It is located on top of the local SPAR super marked at main street (the street) some blokes are drinking beer at a respatex table by the window under the Chinese lamps, they are laughing as I arrive, they are laughing a lot. A woman enters just after me she asks her husband to come over to the Kafeteria at the other side of the street, but no way if he is going to sit there sipping coffee with the women. Shanghai is the place for blokes. It is most likely the only liberal space for a male in town, the only place where you can come and go as you please.

We are travelling further north, we pass several places; Koppang, Atna, Alvdal, but no luck, the assumption seems wrong, we are several hours from Elverum and there are even more hours till we reach the outskirts of Trondheim. It is as if we have reached a doll drum between two centres of gravitation.
But suddenly out of nowhere, at Tynset, the centre of nowhere; a red paper lamp in the entrance of the Hotel and suddenly our hearts are lifted. The hotel restaurant serves Chinese dishes along with traditional dishes like mountain trout with sour cream, but the china-man has left the kitchen and gone to Langesund to start on his own. The restaurant manager explains; she has had 4 Chinese cooks; first there where Manchu , then Kamwah, Sing, and then there was Ming. They are the best you see, it takes seven or eight years to become a cook in China, the first year they chop vegetables, then meat, then they arrange dishes for a year. They are used to hard work and they never complain.
If she wants another Chinese cook?
O yes, but it’s very difficult to make them come to Tynset you see, all of her cooks came from the Hong Kong region, they know English and make the kind of Chinese food we are used to.
The food is very popular with the local people here, since Ming left they have been trying to make the food themselves, but its very difficult, its all improvised; a little bit of this and a little bit of that you know.
Why they leave?
They get lonely I guess, lonely and bored, there are not many foreigners here, its a very stable community so to speak, even someone from Oslo would sense that he was an outsider here. I don’t know what Ming and the other guys did when they wasn’t working, watching telly I guess, sometimes they went to Trondheim or Hamar to meet friends or play ma-jong or whatever.

”DEAR GUESTS

We allow ourselves to tell you a little about the history of the China House.

This is the first Chinese restaurant in Trondheim, owned buy BOBBY KUI with family, and was opened August 9, 1976. The original China House was located in Oslo, Sofies gate 15”

where Bobby worked both as a cook and a waiter for several years. The desire of opening his own China House was fulfilled by Bobby’s boss when he gave him TRONDHEIM.

From 1976-94 there have been 13 China House Restaurants along the coast of Norway. A Norwegian TV commercial says: “Lotto millionaires are not like other millionaires.

” But one thing is for certain; Bobby is a millionaire, a millionaire in chopsticks…

“We serve Real Chinese courses as you never have tasted them in Norway,

tasteful courses from SZECHUAN, SHANGHAI, & KANTON. The courses are served with new and exciting spices and will always be hot, but not without an experience of taste.

We serve one meal at the time so that you get the maximum experience of taste. If you are in a hurry though, we can of course serve all the dishes at once. Please ask your waiter.

We hope you all have a delicious meal!

With all the best,BOBBY with family.

This Journey through South-eastern Norway was made in September 2000 with spontan.nets Mobile Gallery and

Martin Moe project leader, organizer and author of the article.

Ståle Sørensen driver, handyman and photograph

(to see us on rent an artist, click our names!)