Illustration by Tabitha Walters
What do a British telephone booth, pillar post box, park bench, and two signposts with Chinese and English flags behind the Hot Pot Chen restaurant have in common? Does the Chinese signage on the shipping container behind the objects hold a clue? And why is everything pink?
Regular customers Mary Harvey, Don Kepler, and Gary Harvey admit they weren’t sure what was going on themselves until owner Ivy Huang explained. Huang and her husband, Chen Xu, bought the restaurant six years ago. The installation was Chen’s idea.
With Huang translating, Chen says he was inspired by the enormous popularity of social media photo sets in China, especially among young people. University of Michigan and other college students make up a large part of the restaurant’s customer base, and everything is pink because it’s their daughter’s favorite color.
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Huang says the large characters at the top of the backdrop say “Welcome new students. Welcome new friends.” The smaller ones below them are words of encouragement couched in an allegory:
Fishermen need to go fishing, she says, even when a storm makes it difficult and dangerous: “It doesn’t mean you [can’t] catch any fish. They put their life in [danger to earn] a living.
“So it’s kind of like we [are] doing a restaurant business: We go through all the problems, like [a] few years ago, we go through the pandemic. All the difficult things just kind of encourage you.”
Other texts, she explains, include, “I am in Ann Arbor. Where are you?” and, roughly, “Miss you in Ann Arbor. The same wind blows in Ann Arbor.”
A high Ann Arbor wind recently blew away the Instagram props. Chen retrieved them and anchored them to the ground. Winter will call for stronger reinforcements or moving them inside.
Either way, he plans to regularly change the signage and backdrops. Look for a Thanksgiving theme in November and a Christmas one in December. That one will include, of course, a pink Christmas tree.
