As I am also American. I assume you have never met the charming Mr. Lung in person, nor have you apparently met Mr. Rose, who has a delightful sense of humour. Please see the following excerpt from the following New York Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/17/dining/17hanu.html It’s a very nice article and I cordially invite you to read it in its entirety.

“My landlord is Jewish, my neighbors are Jewish and it is safe territory in this neighborhood,” he said. When his neighbors learned he was Jewish, he said, they began to open up to him. The chocolate maker invited him for Passover, and chided him for not dating Jewish girls. “I guess I am on their Jewdar,” he said.

See how he uses the phrase “Jewdar”? I really don’t think he would disapprove of this very nice review!

As for Mr. Lung; he is a humanitarian with a heart of gold and is in no way a racist. If you knew him as I do, you would not make such accusations against his high character.

I wish you a nice day, none the less.

I’m delighted that you have discovered Daniel Rose and his talent! I have not yet dined at his establishment, but I shared a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with him at the home of a mutual friend…such a nice guy!…I vowed to make a reservation, which I’ve since neglected to do….thanks for the reminder! I will call tout de suite!

Hope to see you soon!
Jennifer (face a monde…you remember=)

1)I thought that freedom of speech was part of the first amendment… so respect it!

2) America is the most hypocrite country I know. You have to thank god for everyting and even swear on the bible before telling the truth. That would be the first lie for me!

To quote a famous American pataphysician and sometimes Monarch of the World: “the game is over”. Conversation terminated.

Mr. Lung: I have no doubt that your conversation was lovely and genial. And if he put himself in the place of a stranger reading a review on the internet, I’d bet that even (American) Micheal might find your description a bit odd. And it’s odder still that that bit of info didn’t make it into your English translation.

It’s not ABOUT your conversation- it’s about why you would PUBLICLY choose to describe someone’s parentage so specifically, when even just saying s/he was Jewish would suffice. So I asked you (and politely, I may add) and you refused to answer, and now you seem to be all pissed off because a full explanation is necessary.

In English, to say someone is Jewish is not a euphemism: it’s an adjective describing an ethnicity. On the other hand, to call someone a Jew, a little Mexican, a Chink, a Paddy, or a wetback, is something else- not necessarily racism (remember: you brought it up)- but a strong, negative bias.

An ongoing question of mine, in translation and moreover,intention, is what does it mean in French to identify someone by their ethnicity? I used “une petite chinoise” as an example, a description I’ve heard often. Along with being advised by a friend to take my coat to “the Turk” when I was asking about a tailor, although my local ones are from Africa. Along with a well-educated young friend, part-Jewish, part Moroccan, all-Parisian, saying he was being “Jewed” for money he owed a relative. Along with the smirk I so often encounter every time I open my mouth and my American “accent mignon” pops out: being THE American is a role in which I am still not comfortable, but am I really in it, or is it a turn of phrase? None of these examples have translated well for me, coming from the land of Bengali cabdrivers and Korean delis (d’origine juive), where there are no tailors anymore, no one even blinks at your accent, the Chinese women are often as not tough as nails no matter their stature, and if you used Jew as a verb, you would be ostracized, much as the religious, Sephardic Frenchwoman is in a class I take here. Or as Mel Gibson is in Hollywood.

Maybe it is my own deciphering problem… facts are: I was reading along just fine, thank you, in French when I noticed that the review followed in English, which I read faster. When I switched, I understood that the parents of the psychologist were not actually at the table with you, so I re-read. I wondered. And I asked.

And I asked you not as a Chink- and I would never call you that, not least because I don’t know the word in argot français- but as a bilingual French person, someone who described “asian-flavoured broth,” who translated “les pires bouffeurs plumitifs” as hack writers for me, and someone who has the creativity to compare a perfect roast to minimalist lighting. All you had to say was that his parents came up in conversation.

I don’t care that Daniel Roses’s nou nou might have been Chinese. Or that his assistant is a viking; I’m part viking, too, but it’s another word I don’t have occasion to use in French. I’ll stick with “d’origine norvégienne, côté arrière grand-mère.”

Now dear Lecteur,

Political correctness is the least of my concern. The euphemism you suggest simply irks me.

I’ve always chosen to be as factual as possible in English, whereas freedom remained the key in French. Since you seem to be bilingual, I strongly suggest you stuck to the parts your eyes can bare to decipher, without trying to compare both versions… or read another blog.

Any remarks about the food and its description, any hints about the place will always be welcome. But linking the use of the words “Ashkenaze” and “Sepharade” to “Anti-semitism” will not be tolerated here.

Remember: the place belongs to a Chink.

I guess that my friend Mr. Lung did not see the origins of his neighbour on his face. The guy probably talked about himself and his parents, and that’s all.
And yes, why do you consider that there is a problem in saying or writing that someone seems to have Chinese, or Arab, or Swedish origins? When something is so obvious, and when there is no negative implication, it is just part of a description…

I wouldn’t suggest the r-word, honestly, but I’ll stand behind the P-C-words, while at the same time recognizing that the concept translates differently, culturally and linguistically. (However, I still cannot bring myself to describe someone as, for example, “la petite chinoise,” though it seems to be perfectly acceptable in French.) As wonderfully multi-ethnic, -racial and -cultural as Paris is, particularly here in the 9eme, anti-semitism is generally agreed to be a worsening problem in France, and it seems particularly misplaced in the context of a review of this restaurant.

For translation purposes, why not try “the jolly Jewish couple from New Jersey?” The alliteration would preserve your “tongue-in-cheek, distanced tone” and close the distance between the two translations.

I look forward to reading the rest of your resto reviews, and if you would ever like help with your english, let me know.