Culinary linguistic landscapes of emerging Chinatowns: the case of Huai Khwang, Bangkok

Abstract

While traditional Chinatowns have been widely studied, less is known about how Chinese diasporic communities become visible in emerging Chinatowns. Since restaurant signage is both prominent and economically driven, the culinary linguistic landscape is an ideal site for examining how multilingual and multimodal resources convey cultural authenticity and commercial branding. This study analyses 109 photographs of signage from 32 Chinese restaurants in Huai Khwang, an emerging Chinatown in urban Bangkok, Thailand, using a multimodal linguistic landscape approach. Four semiotic practices were identified: commodification of regional authenticity; multimodal semiotics (e.g. lanterns and couplets), the (localised) recontextualisation of Chinese semiotic resources, and internet catchphrase-themed fake street signs. Simplified Chinese predominates, suggesting an orientation towards co-ethnic audiences and mainland China, while Thai and English function as access, regulatory, and marketing resources. Huai Khwang’s ‘emergence’ as a Chinatown is thus characterised by the dominance of Simplified Chinese in combination with recognisable Chinese semiotic resources, in contrast to the prevalence of Traditional Chinese in many long-established Chinatowns. Restaurant signage therefore functions as a multimodal semiotic resource communicating Chineseness while serving commercial goals. These findings extend discussions on commodification and diasporic place-making and offer insights relevant to urban governance in rapidly transforming migrant commercial districts.