Why does every town in Australia have a Chinese restaurant?

Your local Chinese restaurant isn’t just a delicious place to eat, it’s also a historical symbol of immigration and cultural diversity in Australia.

These are the reasons why you don't have to go very far to get your fried rice fix. Source: Phaidon Press

No matter how far or wide you travel throughout the Australian expanse, it’s pretty likely that you’ll see one common sight: the local Chinese restaurant.

Yet Chinese restaurants in Australia are not just dining destinations. They are a symbol of cultural diversity that reveals a story about our immigration history and a long tale about our acceptance and rejection of foreign peoples and foods.

Author of A Timeline of Australian Food, Jan O’Connell, explains that the presence of commercially available Chinese food in Australia dates back to the 1850s when the first major wave of Chinese migrants worked in cookhouses on the goldfields.

Read the full article in English here.