ABSTRACT
A Chinese Dragon is dancing, a band is playing music and a predominantly Asian crowd is gathering in large numbers. The time is not the Chinese New Year, nor the place Chinatown. In April 1997 Ranch 99 had a grand opening ceremony for its fourth chain market at Milpitas Square in Silicon Valley, California. It was estimated that over 95 per cent of the crowd walking into the store were Asian consumers. Listening to the intonation of the dialect they spoke, it became evident that Taiwanese immigrant families dominated the Asian component. This is no surprise. Ranch 99 is the name of a market chain specializing in Chinese food and home supplies. It is often the conduit for dozens of other Chinese restaurants, bookstores and groceries. In the advertisement for its grand opening, Ranch 99 claimed that its Milpitas Square branch covered the largest floor space of all the northern American Asian shopping centres. What surprised me was how the Taiwanese immigrant families of the high-tech sector experienced Ranch 99 in Silicon Valley and the way transcultural home identities and lifestyles emerged at the Ranch 99 markets.
