The Dim Sum Business Model

There are probably several business journal papers and articles written on this topic already but here is my own take on how the Chinese dim sum restaurants are doing (almost) everything right.  I've been going to dim sum in Arcadia ever since I moved to Pasadena in '95 (Chinatown and Monterey Park before that) and the efficiency of how they run the business is amazing.  First of, I cannot think of any big restaurant where within 60 seconds of sitting down, I have food at the table.  Typically, half dozen carts with food roam the aisles between tables so for a restaurant with about 3 aisles, I'm looking at 2-3 carts per aisle at all times. Odds are always good I'll be eating before the tea and hot sauce even arrive.  As soon as I'm seated, I am given a tab at my table that is stamped for every item I choose from the carts.

Also at dim sum, your table is not assigned a waiter.  Meaning every employee helps the customer with any need -- none of this "not my job" excuse.  Need a dish you haven't seen stroll by, just ask and within minutes, they personally bring you the plate straight out of the kitchen steamer.  Speaking of plates, there is a tendency to accumulate empty plates on the table but they also have a solution for that.  Several waiters/bus boys roam the aisles back and forth picking up empty plates, thereby making more room for new dishes.  I estimate a plate gets picked up within a 2-3 minutes of it being emptied.  The less there is to clean up to set up for the new customer, the better for the business.  I've seen a table for four cleared, tablecloth changed, plates/teacups/chopsticks/napkins arranged in about 30 seconds.

And for a restaurant with no menu, the food just keeps on coming. The absence of a menu makes it easy for the chefs to prepare the same dishes but most importantly, there are no orders to screw up.  And when I've had too much to each (happens every time), I just wave the tab and within seconds, any one of several waiters will arrive, count the stamps, add the bill and hand me back the total.  Yes, these waiters can add -- and add quick, given that most of the dishes cost the same amount.

There are still a couple problems with dim sum though.  First, the wait can be long and I've learned to avoid that by showing up before 10am on weekends.  Also, the bathrooms aren't the cleanest (meaning the kitchen is probably kept at the same standard of cleanliness but I don't want to know for sure).  Both of these seem to be a direct result of the volume of business that they do.  Nevertheless, American businesses can learn from this business model that had served over a billion people quite well for a very long time.

Miles And The Art Of Creating Art

I once read that Jackson Pollock listened to Miles Davis endlessly during the creation of his paintings.  You don't need to look hard to see the parallel in the structures of Miles' groove and Jackson' drip layers -- omnidirectional, chaotic and yet has a sense of completeness and purpose.  Why does the process of visual creation require some kind of aural companion?  If it applies to abstract expressionism (and with obviously great results as in Pollock's work), it surely must apply to other forms of art.  We almost will never know for sure what music inspired certain artists but I can almost imagine Basquiat with a Miles Davis Bitches Brew cassette in his walkman while trying to figure out what text to add to his Mona Lisa painting.  I've personally exprerienced some creative block in previous artworks so I put on Spanish Key (from Miles' Bitches Brew CD) and voila! -- instant gratification. For some reason, listening to his grooves unblocked whatever was keeping my creative juices contained.  I've read Don Campbell's book "The Mozart Effect" several years back but given what I just said,  I think it's time someone write a dissertation on "The Miles Davis Effect".

Through The Discard Piles

I always look forward to the first Sunday of each month where I spend a couple hours scouring the vendor booths at the Pasadena City College Flea Market. For a collector of "found" photographs, spotting a single image that speaks to me out of literally thousands of items that I flip through is what makes the effort pay off. Paying only $20 for an original vintage print is even more satisfying as with this photo that I found yesterday. On this particular day, the young couple walking in tandem is a metaphor for the kites flying in close proximity to each other. The landscape is empty except for a few cars parked in a field and structure in the distant background. Could easily be late 70s judging from the style of cars. As I look through this, I find that this particular image seems to tell me all that on this particular day, just this day, maybe, everyone's worries will be forgotten even for a just a brief period of time. Funny thing though is that I feel exactly the same way every first Sunday of the month as I look for treasures in the discard piles of life.


(Originally posted on Multiply 4/7/07)

Law Of Supply And Demand

Took this photo in the drive in to work on 11/29/10. Somewhere in Glendora around 6am, I was contemplating on the simplicity of the economic supply-and-demand model. My further take is if you can shorten the distance between supply (of bad haircuts) and demand (to mask bad haircuts) to say, about a dozen steps, you've got a successful business model.

Eight Windows

"You are entitled to food, clothing, shelter and medical attention. Anything else that you get is a privilege."


From Institution Rules & Regulations, United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz, California


I've lived in California for 30 years and had not visited the island of Alcatraz until last year. It's been closed for 47 years yet I could still feel it's power to break down any spirit that attempts to escape its cold isolation.


Photo Collage: "The South Windows, Dining Hall, Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary" (2010)

Nautilus Portrait

The nautilus is the most photographed shell in all of recorded history.  So what's another portrait, right?  I got this shell after Christmas 2010 when the kids and I headed to Cambria for our annual visit.

Reworking Works Of Art

While listening to an instrumental version of "Manha de Carnaval" by Al Di Meola and John McLaughlin today, I started wondering why it's perfectly acceptable for musicians to interpret someone else's original piece and in the process, give the listeners a different and sometime better listening experience.  Music fans don't go around saying the Di Meola/McLaughlin version is not worth listening to as the original version from the Black Orpheus soundtrack almost 50 years ago.  So I wonder why music fans are more accepting of artists interpreting compositions other than their own but when it comes to visual arts, new works done is an established style, say cubism or impressionism, is not given much weight by art critics and audiences alike.  (I'm not even talking about redoing an existing piece line-by-line, color matched with subtle variations.


You can't really accuse music as stale since there are always a new emerging music niche in the underground, say gangster-trip-hop-death-metal that is ready to become the next big thing.  However, the emphasis on doing something "new" in music movement is not as explicit as it is in the visual arts -- where only the cutting edge is revered.  One really needs to look at the history of music and visual arts to fully realize the contrast between them.  To prove my point, name 20 cubist artists other than Picasso and Braque.  Having trouble coming up with five?  I think this is due to the fact that artists consider cubism as having been done before, so they stay away from it as far away as possible.  In contrast, I can think of at least 20 well-established jazz guitarists (with recording contract and sales) where each one contributed to advancing the genre and oh, by the way, in the process, recording a remake or two of a known classic (i.e. Manha de Carnaval).  Imagine an painter of today doing a remake of a Dora Maar portrait or even worse, Guernica.  Sacrilege is what every art critic would scream.  But the question stands, does re-painting an existing work of art add anything different? Maybe or maybe not but at the very least, try.


Another example of how musicians uses previous works to cross-pollinate into another genre is Joaquin Rodrigo's composition Concierto De Aranjuez.  Just imagine if musicians we satisfied with the (now) original 68-year old melody and were too afraid to take the essence of Aranjuez to the next level.  We would not have have been fortunate enough to experience Miles Davis' entire Sketches of Spain album or Chick Corea's "Spain".  Each of these artists took Rodrigo's original melody and put it through their own dissections, improvisations and interpretations.  Yet no music critic would dare attach the label "unoriginal" to Miles Davis or Chick Corea. I must qualify though that there is evidence that some well-known painters did interpret works from previous artists but that seems to be in the minority.  Picasso did some of this (others would argue that he did a lot) but Warhol took this to the next level -- I think both of them did it out of reverence or creative necessity.  Maybe you need to be a Picasso or a Warhol to get away with this -- but in general, I don't see how this is possible in modern art for the average working artist, where only the ones the push the envelope are fully appreciated.


So in closing, before any of us are quick to point out that art does not have any value because “it’s been done before”, just give it a second look to see if the artist had something new to say, albeit subtle, with his or her piece.