Chef Alain Pang returns home after 30 years
After spending half his life in France, chef Alain Pang brought his family back to Hong Kong in a reversal of the path he took
Chef Alain Pang Chun-lung returned to his village of Fanling Wai in 2004 after 30 years in France because he yearned for his Chinese roots and hoped to give his two children a grounding in Chinese culture. Yet Pang and his wife, Lee Hay-lan, retain a lot of their old life, with conversations sometimes lapsing into French. He has even turned part of their three-storey village house into a private kitchen serving rustic French-Italian dishes. Chez Lung attracts French teachers and students of the language from Chinese University as well as foodies from across the city.
Although French culture will forever be a part of their life, Pang says of the move back to Hong Kong: "There's nothing better than being surrounded by your own blood."
The Pang clan has lived in Fanling Wai for 800 years, he says. "When I sit down, the people around me are not friends but brothers from the same clan.
"From here all the way to Ting Kok village in Tai Po, all the inhabitants are surnamed Pang. They all originated from one person. So, during Lunar New Year and other festivals, it's warm, boisterous and great fun."
It was the 1970s when 16-year-old Pang was uprooted, along with his mother and two younger brothers, by his father from the New Territories in hopes of making a better future in France. Not knowing any French, the family settled in Paris. Like many Chinese emigrants they wound up working in Chinese restaurants.
The family relied on Pang, the eldest child, to be their link to the community so he had to pick up French very quickly.