Outside the Box
“I photograph Chinese takeaways in the evenings as this is the time that they visually come alive,” says Harriet Armstrong. “The warm glow of the illuminated signs and the light spilling out of the large windows reveal another different world beyond the street. Also, most people visit Chinese takeaways in the evening, so I wanted to capture this aspect of comforting familiarity.”
Photographers see cities differently. Most of us tend to believe that our streets and neighborhoods will stay the same indefinitely, but photographers are acutely aware that the urban landscape is constantly in flux. They know that we are living in a specific moment, and that these sights need to be saved—to show our descendants what we once considered mundane, or perhaps to remind ourselves what we took for granted.
For Harriet Armstrong, the gems hidden in plain sight are London’s Chinese takeaways, the small shops that introduced generations of Britons to Chinese food and continue to feed their cravings for fried rice, chow mein, and spring rolls. Armstrong spends her days working for the NHS as a medical photographer. Twice a week, however, she takes her camera out onto the streets to pursue this personal project. Her Instagram account @jing_soeng (a pseudonym, meaning “to photograph” in Cantonese) showcases one Chinese takeaway after another—dozens of them, moody and atmospheric.
As one scrolls through the photo grid, it’s clear that Armstrong has chosen to photograph these shops as a typology—in other words, using a systematic method to achieve a high degree of visual uniformity. For example, her choice of equipment was dictated by her decision to photograph all of the takeaways from the same perspective and at the same time of day (between dusk and nightfall). “I use a zoom lens, 24-105mm, which copes well with low-light conditions,” she says. “This also gives me a wide focal range, which is useful as the distance between the takeaways and the roads can vary in London.”
She also scouts out her subjects ahead of time. “Thanks to virtual street maps,” Armstrong explains, “I can research and assess the aesthetic of the Chinese takeaways before I go and photograph them.” It also helps her predict how much time she’ll need to get the shot she wants. For example, a parking bay located directly in front of a takeaway increases the odds that vehicles will obscure the frontage—and the possibility that she’ll have to come back later to get a clear shot.
On the other hand, the serendipity of foot traffic in a bustling city means that a random bystander or pedestrian can add intrigue and a sense of narrative to a photograph. In such cases, she becomes like a wildlife photographer; she will make herself inconspicuous and wait for the right moment to capture her unsuspecting quarry within the frame.
Afterwards, Armstrong crops each photo to echo the boxy symmetry of the takeaway storefronts, and edits it to accentuate the warm glow of the takeaway sign and interior lights. Then it’s done, ready to be posted on the @jing_soeng account.
Another specimen successfully preserved, pinned down in pixel form.
Let us pause here to briefly enumerate the idiosyncrasies of the UK’s Chinese takeaways.
As we know, Chinese food is nothing if not adaptable—wherever it takes root, it develops quirks. In other words, the average takeaway meal in the UK will differ from a typical takeout order in the US and Canada. Whereas an American’s go-to order might include Kung Pao Chicken and Crab Rangoon, a Brit is more likely to drool at the thought of Prawn Toast and Crispy Seaweed.
The look of a British takeaway is no less distinctive. To be clear, we’re referring specifically to the businesses that were until recently classified as “A5 hot food takeaways.” Unlike restaurants and cafes, where it is generally expected that customers will consume the food on premises, a takeaway might only offer one or two seats at a counter—since the majority of the shop’s square footage will be devoted to kitchen fixtures and storage—as well as starkly utilitarian décor.
The vast majority of London’s Chinese takeaways occupy the ground-floor retail premises of terraced housing along a high street (shopping thoroughfare), which accounts for the striking similarity of their physical storefronts: squarish with a plain brick facade and big windows.
When the buildings themselves conform to such a template, they practically cry out to be collected and compiled them as a typology. After all, people are unconsciously drawn to images with a strong visual throughline. Pattern-recognition scratches a deep itch.
However, there are more subtle reasons behind Harriet Armstrong’s approach. As she explains it, “I also chose to photograph Chinese takeaways in a typological style to challenge the ignorant remarks that were often directed at me when I was growing up: ‘You Chinese all look the same.’ Remarks like these made it much more difficult for me to assimilate into a British identity without feeling marked by my heritage.”
Generalizing an entire ethnic group as undifferentiated and interchangeable was not just ignorant; it also served as justification for outright exclusion and discrimination. Harriet Armstrong remembers several incidents of racist harassment directed at her family’s takeaway. In her understated way, she refers to that era as “a time when diversity was less celebrated.”
Thankfully, there is more appetite nowadays to reexamine lazy assumptions and to correct hurtful and thoughtless actions. “Now, through my art, I am reflecting on this experience of being made to feel ‘different,’” Armstrong says. “Although the visual perception of Chinese takeaways can all appear to be the same, when you look closely, you will see that they are all in fact, unique.”
“I want my series of photographs of Chinese takeaways to be a permanent record of their existence, and in essence, frozen in time,” says Armstrong. “I would like my typology to be available for future generations to analyze and discuss.” If you hear a hint of urgency in that statement, it’s because these restaurants are undeniably an aging cohort and their numbers are dwindling. Her photo series includes a couple of shops that have been in operation since before the 1960s, but they are the rare exceptions.
When we asked Armstrong what she would do if she had the power of a magic wand, she replied, “I would bring back to life all the Chinese takeaways that have closed over the years and photograph them all, so I can visually record their existence for us all to enjoy!”
In fact, Harriet Armstrong has a rather specific type of restaurant in mind whenever she fires up Google Maps Street View to skim the neighborhoods of London. “My ideal selection includes old traditional Chinese takeaways that are independently by Chinese people or families,” she says. If a business looks too new or clearly belongs to a franchise, it doesn’t belong in her collection.
In short, Armstrong is looking for Chinese takeaways that remind her of the restaurants that her own parents owned and operated when she was growing up in the 1980s. “Each takeaway had a broad window frontage, decorated in a display of photos of the dishes that customers could order,” she recalls. “The most prominent feature was the illuminated takeaway sign, which shone like a bright beacon during the long winter nights. The colors my parents chose for their takeaway signs were mostly yellow and red as these are vivid colors and look bright when illuminated, but also because they are considered lucky colors in Chinese culture.” (Red is linked with happiness and good fortune, yellow with royalty and places of worship.)
At the same time, her family couldn’t afford to be too self-indulgent with their design choices. “My parents were not keen on creating too much of a Chinese ambiance in their takeaways for fear of racism or prejudice,” Armstrong says. “They wanted their takeaway to be relatively easy to maintain but also fit in with the surrounding local shops.”
A similar logic applied when it came to the restaurant names: Keep it easy to remember, and not too Chinese.
Armstrong remembers that her father’s first Chinese takeaway was called Chop Suey House. Several years later, her parents jointly owned a takeaway named Jumbo—which is the Cantonese pronunciation of the restaurant’s Chinese name, 珍寶 (zhēnbǎo), meaning “gem” or “treasure”. Of course, to non-Chinese customers, the name Jumbo would have been an amusing reminder of the beloved 19th-century elephant, whose sale to P. T. Barnum by the London Zoo broke the hearts of countless English schoolchildren. “Some of the children of our customers would draw pictures of elephants for us to pin up on the wall,” Armstrong recalls.
It goes without saying that the Anglicized Chinese food that Harriet’s parents served to customers was quite different than the traditional Cantonese cuisine they ate at home. “Our family meals would be much simpler,” Armstrong says. “They would consist of boiled rice with a splash of soy sauce, steamed pak choi or broccoli, and a source of protein, which could be anything from steamed fish to a salted duck egg.” As she grew older, she developed an enormous appreciation for classic Chinese cookery. Even now, however, she readily admits to an insatiable appetite for the Anglicized stuff.
“I rank Chinese takeaways by the quality of their curry sauce,” she tells us. “My favorite Chinese takeaway is Chow and Cha. It’s less than a five-minute walk from my home, and it does the best king prawn curry! It surprised me to learn that Chinese curry was born out of the British occupation of Hong Kong, which was the result of British-Indian forces invading Imperial China during the Opium Wars in the mid-19th century. What I love about Chinese curry is that it can taste different depending on which neighborhood you are in. It shows how perceptive and smart Chinese chefs are as they know how to adapt their recipes to suit British tastes.”
Harriet Armstrong is far from alone in her love for Chinese takeaway curry. But the cultural specificity of the thick yellow sauce became painfully clear last year, when #britishchinesefood blew up on social media. The kerfuffle began when an American TikTok user expressed shock at the sight of a typical UK takeaway plate: chicken balls, salt and pepper chips, and chow mein, all smothered with curry sauce. The reactions poured in—and most were gleefully negative.
“I found this debate and the general smearing of British Chinese food rather shocking,” Armstrong says. Many of the comments were misguided, but she singled out a few as particularly insufferable:
On X, @AnisaTheGreasy wrote: “British people calling Chinese food ‘a Chinese’ makes me irrationally angry. Why do you guys say ‘I ordered a Chinese’? It sounds like a hate crime.”
“Are you Chinese?” Armstrong remembers thinking. “How do you feel about a ‘full English?’”
On TikTok, user @stayathomenojob had denigrated British Chinese food as “Diarrhea on a plate.”
“Says someone from a nation that eats aerosol cheese,” Armstrong felt like retorting.
For her, it was impossible not to take offense at comments that judged and shamed the UK’s Chinese takeaways, because it felt like the insults were targeting the hardworking British Chinese families whose livelihood depends on these businesses.
Harriet is herself far too well-mannered to clap back online. She prefers to focus on the far more wholesome interactions her project has inspired. Early on, before she had even photographed two dozen Chinese takeaways, her project was featured on Resonate, Europe’s biggest East Asian culture website. A few weeks later, she was profiled on the BBC. The coverage gave rise to online discussions about British Chinese identity that were oddly healing in a way Armstrong had not expected. “It made me feel a kind of acceptance from other Chinese people that I had never felt before,” she says.
She especially relishes hearing from fellow “takeaway kids.” Like her, they spent their days immersed in the roar of the wok stove and the constant chatter of chefs calling out the orders, in the smell of sizzling garlic and caramelized dark soy sauce. Like her, they understand exactly how growing up in a takeaway leaves its mark on you. You scrub all the surfaces and mop the floor before closing up every night, but the strong aroma of the curry sauce clings to your clothes regardless of how many hot wash cycles you put them through. You develop "asbestos fingers" that can handle piping-hot foil takeaway trays without flinching, but you never get used to the prank callers with their fake Chinese accents.
Armstrong’s project is inspiring strong nostalgia in those takeaway kids. One of them, Instagram user @ladyoolia, commented: “My dad opened his Chinese takeaway, Lucky View, in 1981. I worked it from the age of 13 and then less frequently until he sold it / retired in 2017. I think it’s on its second set of owners since then but still looks how I remember it as a wee girlie ♥ I think it maybe still has a handmade stencilled poster in the window my mum made in the 80s with the phone numbers.”
Harriet was intrigued. Personal details and homemade touches like that are exactly the kind of thing that she likes to highlight in a photograph. She offered to drop by and photograph it for her collection. Unfortunately, it turned out that the takeaway was located too far away for an evening trip—about 400 miles away in North Lanarkshire, Scotland!
A bit closer to home, a London-based Instagram follower told Armstrong that her photo series had inspired a good deal of reminiscing among her family about their takeaway days. In a comment, @cymbalhands wrote: “I’m sure my elderly (now retired) Dad would be chuffed to bits if you photographed his takeaway, The Best, that’s still going in Chingford. He was saying just the other day that British Chinese takeaways will die out before long.”
Armstrong gladly obliged. Two days later, her photo of The Best was posted, to the delight of @cymbalhands and her family.
The feedback Armstrong has received makes it clear that her project has resonated far beyond the British Chinese community. Her “Chinese Takeaways in London” series was recently shortlisted for the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) International Photography Exhibition 166. If she reaches the next round of shortlisting, four of her photographs will be exhibited in a touring exhibition around the UK later this year.
Regardless of the RPS results, she has her own plans for reaching a wider audience. “I’d like to display my photographs in my own exhibition, potentially in a Chinese takeaway in London,” she told us. “My long-term plan is to produce a photobook.”
Has she given any thought to how many images that photobook might include?
“Wouldn’t it be great if I photographed a total of 888 Chinese takeaways?!” she laughs, referring to the auspicious status of the number 8 in Chinese culture, with its pronunciation (八bā) so similar to the word for prosperity (發 fā). To hit that lucky number, however, Armstrong would need to expand her project far beyond London. She assures us that she’s open to the idea of photographing Chinese takeaways in all major cities in the UK.
For now, whenever a new photo goes up on the @jing_soeng account, the most common reaction is a whoop of joy from a fellow Londoner who lives down the street from that shop. People are positively tickled to see their neighborhood takeaway getting the spotlight. It’s worth asking why they feel such a strong connection, considering that most Chinese takeaways do not place a high priority on customer service. After all, these are businesses that revolve around brief, efficient interactions—an order is placed, a bag of food is handed over—and there’s no such thing as small talk during the hectic dinner rush.
But even short transactions can add up to a relationship of long acquaintance.
Before you know it, the years have flown by and the owner’s kids are all grown up. They used to do their homework by the cash register; now they’re off to university. The middle-aged Chinese boss lady who was so brusque with you at first—these days, she smiles broadly whenever you walk in to pick up your order. You’re a regular and this is your local.
One day, you hear that a photographer has turned her lens on these Chinese takeaway restaurants—that she’s gone so far as to put together an entire portrait series—you’re undeniably curious. You click through and pore over these images, so instantly recognizable in their sheer ordinariness, like a photo album of cousins you’ve never met. You realize that the photographer has captured the takeaways at their most evocative, when dusk has softened all the harsh edges but their well-lit interiors stir with life.
For a few minutes, these takeaways have your complete attention.
That’s all they need. Now that you’ve glimpsed their individuality, you’ll never look at them the same way again.
Harriet Armstrong’s photography can be found at @jing_soeng, @hatarmstrong and on her website.
Lilly Chow is the managing editor of The Cleaver Quarterly.
