“You Eat, You are Friends”

John Cai hosts Chinese New Year celebration for friends and family

Food has a way of bringing people together. By gathering around the table, we get a glimpse into the lives of others. With something as simple as a meal, we connect and converse and enjoy. We come to realize our differences are less than they seem, but our similarities are great. We all are friends. We all are family. We all love food. And it’s the love of good food that has been bringing people together at China Palace for almost 25 years.

Ruling Luo, wife of China Palace owner John Cai, shows off the buffet on a video call with her grandson during an annual meal to celebrate the Lunar New Year Saturday, Jan. 25, 2020, at China Palace in Cape Girardeau. Tyler Graef ~ Southeast Missourian

John Cai and Ruling Luo, owners of China Palace, have made a successful career of cooking and serving Chinese food to the community of Cape Girardeau since 1995. While the Chinese population in Cape Girardeau is small, their love for the surrounding community is big.

“The community has been good to my family,” Cai says. “They celebrate with us when we opened, when we became legal citizens, when we moved locations.”

Guests are seen near the buffet line during an annual meal to celebrate the Lunar New Year Saturday, Jan. 25, 2020, at China Palace in Cape Girardeau. TYLER GRAEF ~ tgraef@semissourian.com

And it seems that Cai and Luo have been good for the community.

Every year, the Cai family invites the community into their restaurant to celebrate the Chinese New Year. It’s a private event for their closest friends and family, many of whom have been patrons of China Palace since the beginning.

“I come here to eat every week,” says John Eck of Cape Girardeau. “The food is delicious. The people are extraordinary. The Cai family are some of the finest people I’ve ever met. It’s an honor to be included in the celebration.”

Chinese New Year is a celebration of health, prosperity and good fortune. It’s about doing away with the old of the previous year and beginning anew. And this important Chinese celebration is all about family. According to Vivian Lee, guest and friend of the Cai family who lived in China and then Seattle before moving to Cape Girardeau in 2004, on Chinese New Year “you have to go home, no matter how far you are. This [China Palace] is our home.”

Lee and her husband, Dr. Wilfred Lee, were a part of the Chinese New Year celebration held at China Palace on January 25, 2020. According to the Chinese Zodiac which cycles every 12 years, we are once again beginning the year of the Rat. Those born in the year of the Rat are clever, quick thinkers; successful, but content with living a quiet and peaceful life. There are no better words to describe John Cai, who was also born in the year of the Rat. He is a man who quietly wakes each day to serve his family, his friends and his community.

And serve them he did. With a packed house, large helpings of traditional Chinese food, and beautiful red and gold decorations hanging throughout the room, the Cai family welcomed the New Year, while doing what they love: serving their family and friends.

Friends like Sam Jarrell, who brought his three grown daughters, son-in-laws and wife, Jan, to the party.

“For me, it’s a reciprocal thing,” says Jarrell, who often makes painted treasures for the family to display in the restaurant. “They make a big thing out of our Christmas, and we celebrate their New Year. They are a generous family. You do them one favor, and they’ll do you three.”

But their relationship goes far beyond the food and is not hindered by differences in language or culture or tradition. They’ve become family. They dine in each other’s homes. They hug and cut up and share their lives together. They learn from and support each other, and they welcome anyone new who wants to join in.

Like Vinson Hua, who moved to Cape Girardeau from China in 2013. A student at Southeast Missouri State University, Hua did not know anyone in this community, and he did not speak English. Looking for a familiar place to gather, he found the Cai family and China Palace. Years later, he began dating their daughter, Alice, whom he plans to marry as soon as their parents have a chance to meet.

“They treat me very nice,” says Hua, who has been living with the family for the last year. “I’m so lucky to have them.”

Which is an added blessing, when you are away from your own family during the New Year. When the festival comes, it’s important to be together. More important than the traditional Chinese clothing worn by Cai or the other guests who wore the color red, symbolizing good luck. It’s more important than the roasted duck, pork rib and crab rangoon on the menu. It’s even more important than the red-packs of money — decorated red envelopes filled with money that symbolize the child always being their child — given to the grandchildren from their elders, at the start of the New Year. Being together is everything; and the more, the merrier.

As Cai says: “You have to eat. You eat, you are friends.”

If that’s the case, it’s easy to see how he has made so many wonderful friends in the community of Cape Girardeau.