Dear Netflix,

First of all, thank you for producing Street Food. As a Taiwanese person who divided my childhood between Taiwan, Thailand, and United States, it was great to have the docuseries showcase the cultures I grew up with to a bigger audience. The roast pork egg noodle (Sukumvit 38 Famous Ba Mee) featured in the Bangkok episode has been a favorite of mine since my teenage years, and I was very happy to see my middle school classmate making a cameo at Raan Jay Fai. They are truly inspiring stories.

As the crew moved northeast towards Taiwan, I was all too excited to see this other hometown of mine featured prominently, especially since Taiwan has often been neglected by world politicians and Western media. But as I watched the episode, my excitement quickly turned into disappointment.  

Don’t get me wrong. There are a few things I do appreciate about the episode. As most people in Taiwan have been told, Tainan is the street food capital of the island. Yet Netflix’s production crew took a risk to focus the episode in another city – Chiayi – in the rural heartland of south-central Taiwan. It’s a city that has a lot of history and a culture of its own, yet it’s almost unheard of outside of Taiwan.  

As the episode began to roll, however, I became confused. The local guide said Chiayi is surrounded by mountains, making it a secluded region, and therefore Chiayi has not been influenced by foreign cultures, which means it is the best place to experience “traditional” Taiwan.

I was shocked, as if I just heard another “alternative truth” spoken by Donald Trump. Taiwan is not secluded, and is in fact very much shaped by foreign cultures—even supposedly “traditional” things.  

If you and your team had bothered to pull out a map of Taiwan, you would find Chiayi with mountains to the east (which your team has beautifully featured in the episode), but there is a coast to the west! Chiayi borders the Taiwan Strait; many of our ancestors actually arrived to Taiwan through Chaiyi’s port of Budai, and during the Japanese colonial period, Prince Fushimi Sadanaru arrived in Taiwan through Budai as well.

In 1930, a local high school baseball team in Chiayi made it to the finals of the Japanese high school baseball league, winning second place in the famed Koshien stadium in Osaka (the story is told in the 2014 film KANO). In addition to seaports, Chiayi is known for its air force base. During World War II, Chiayi’s air base was home to Hayabusa fighter planes; post-war it became home to the United States Air Force’s 6215th Support Squadron as well as the Republic of China Air Force.

Rather than being “secluded,” Chiayi is just like any other city in Taiwan – a melting pot when it comes to food. The oyster omelet, o-a-tsian, you beautifully shot is a great example. Oyster omelets are common among Fujianese and Cantonese immigrant descendants across East and Southeast Asia, but only in Taiwan is potato starch used. Some said it is because of the influence of Japan’s monjayaki during the colonial period. As for beef noodle soup, it is a dish created in Taiwan by the ROC army veterans from Sichuan, who came to Taiwan after the Chinese civil war in 1949.

Finally, Chiayi’s famous ke-bah-png, turkey rice. Did anyone on the production crew ever wonder why an American Thanksgiving staple is served over rice in Taiwan?

In Korea, there is a well-known soup called budae jigae with spam, ham and cheese in it, hardly “traditional” to Korea. When I first had it, I had to ask how these American ingredients made it into a Korean soup. Budae roughly means “soldiers” in Korean, and this “soldier’s soup” turned out to be a dish made with military rations handed out by the US Armed Forces stationed in Korea. Similarly, turkey was introduced to Taiwanese cuisine after the war by American troops, since it has more protein and it’s cheaper to purvey.

So, Chiayi is not so secluded after all.

Then there is the question of where “Street Food” is found in Chiayi. Yes, Smart Fish is probably one of the best-known shops in Chiayi, but along with your other two featured dishes, turkey rice and goat stew, these three dishes do not adequately represent street food in Chiayi.

The local guide asked in the episode how she should eat the fish head at Smart Fish, making the dish seems foreign to even the local guide. Also, Goat Stew is located in the suburbs with its own ranch: not exactly food found on the street. If you are showcasing Chiayi’s street food, you could have visited actual street vendors around the temple plazas in Xingang or Beigang (in neighboring Yunlin County). Temples were the center of village life in Taiwan, and street food began with vendors serving hungry worshippers outside of temples in those towns, and many of these vendors are still going strong.

All told, the episode feels like a missed opportunity. I guess it tried to tell a story about passing down the torch (Smart Fish has someone willing to keep the shop open, while the other places don’t). But it shows a skewed and even misinformed picture of Taiwan and its street food culture.

I love seeing Taiwan featured in Western media. I think a lot of Taiwanese people feel the same pride I do when other people around the world are curious about Taiwan. Which is why when the show could be made better, the disappointment is that much deeper. Please do your due diligence; we’re glad to help. Show us you can do better—I can’t wait to see the Taiwan team featured in The Final Table Season 2.

Sincerely,