Food nationalism beyond tradition: Bubble tea and the politics of cross-border mobility between Taiwan and Vietnam

Abstract

This paper looks at the expansion of the consumption of bubble tea in Hanoi, Vietnam, exploring the anxieties of overseas Taiwanese bubble tea entrepreneurs and examining the practices they employ to support their claims to produce authentic “Taiwanese” bubble tea. The case of bubble tea demonstrates that Taiwanese food nationalism has been constituted by bordering and de-bordering processes. The dynamic has made bubble tea a spatially blurred but symbolically distinct food for forging and sustaining Taiwanese culinary nationalism. From that, this paper aims to explore the relationship among tradition, food nationalism, and the sense of authenticity. Between spatial authenticity and the authenticity of processing techniques, therefore, lies an interface of bordering and mobility practices. A bordered food nationalism which defines bubble tea in reference to a spatially-fixed idea of Taiwan has been materialized, paradoxically, only through the cross-border movement of Taiwanese tea trees, tea leaves, tea manufacturers and tea processing know-how.