Minorities in the Bay form communities to exchange produce

As you drive through the more commercial parts of cities such as Cupertino and Saratoga, a barrage of strokes and Chinese characters outline windows and line restaurant rooftops.

Once a minority in the Silicon Valley, Chinese immigrants have long found ways to share their distinctive culture and identity with one another, whether it be through the establishment of foreign language schools or even the formation of mini-worlds , such as Chinatown paralleling their home country.

In Saratoga, where the Chinese community has an especially strong presence, one way immigrants perpetuate their ethnic culture is through the spread and sale of traditional foods that are either difficult to find or unavailable in the U.S.

The online grocery store Weee! specializes in authentic Chinese foods and offers residents traditional Chinese foods not sold by supermarket chains like Safeway or Whole Foods.

Campbell resident Larry Liu founded the business three years ago, following the rise in popularity of the Chinese messenger app, WeChat. Because of this software, Chinese people on both a small-scale and national level now have the ability to connect with one another.

“I noticed an interesting trend at that time,” Liu said. “All these WeChat users were gathering together to decide which foods they wanted to eat but couldn’t get, and some people started to organize everybody to buy these foods together.”

After immigrating from Wu Han, China, 15 years ago, Liu himself experienced the same struggle in finding foods fit for his palate. When Liu used to live in Sacramento, the scarcity of authentic Chinese groceries forced him to drive an hour to Berkeley for the nearest Chinese grocery market, 99 Ranch Market.

“It was very inconvenient, and I had to just go to WalMart to buy produce that I didn’t really like,” Liu said.

This experience, along with his realization of the shared difficulty many Chinese American immigrants faced, prompted Liu to found Weee!.

The website offers a wide range of authentic Chinese foods, ranging from cooked salted duck eggs to Manchurian wild rice. Specialty goods that are hard to obtain, such as the signature mille-feuille cakes from Lady M cafe, are also available. This spares the customers the struggle of having to wait in line for the coveted desert: instead, they can get it delivered to their house for about $80.

Unlike most grocery stores, Weee! operates entirely online.

“All the brick and mortar stores are established. That’s their turf,” Liu said. “For a newcomer to be able to compete, you have to come up with something new and disruptive.”

This disruptive approach to an online business has found popularity with users all around the world. There are 20,000 to 30,000 visitors to the website on a monthly basis and 1 million registered users all over the world.

Liu describes his company as a “complement” to WeChat. Using their existing WeChat credentials, users can automatically register with Weee! and connect with individuals in the local area planning on purchasing similar products.

From there, these groups can organize “group buys” on the Weee! website and order items together in bulk quantities, creating a higher demand for a unique product that otherwise wouldn’t have been up for individual sale or even reducing the shipping price.

“It’s basically community-based shopping,” Liu said.

This community-centric element to Weee! has permeated the Saratoga culture. Over the last couple years, parents here have involved themselves with this online shop. They run these businesses from their own residences, having friends drop by to pick up goods.

In Saratoga, junior Judy Yang’s mother, Lucy Liu, runs one of these pickup locations.

“There are a lot of people doing it,” Mrs. Liu said. “I am just helping out.”

Since 2015, Mrs Liu has helped directly deliver products from supermarket suppliers to the homes of Weee! customers. Usually, she and other deliverers allow close friends and neighbors to come to their houses and pick up products if their total amount doesn’t qualify for free shipping.

According to Mrs. Liu, Weee! has 20,000 to 30,000 monthly customers in the Bay Area. The population of Saratoga alone is about 30,000, and the number of Weee! customers is gradually increasing.

“A lot of people do not understand the business model of Weee!,” she said. “We don’t have any fake or bad quality items; if our supplier is good we stay with them, and if they are bad, we stop using their services.”

Currently, she said a large majority of Weee’s! customers are first-generation Chinese immigrants, although some people from came from India use the site too.

“Today, our customers are primarily Chinese, but that’s not our vision,” Liu said. “We want to target the whole Asian American population because we see that these ethnic groups are not adequately served by their [local grocery stores].”

The service that Liu provides allows Asian Americans to adjust to new lives in a country that is overrun by Americanized supermarkets.

Although there are an abundance of Asian supermarkets in the Bay Area, Weee! allows for the Asian community to have access to the goods even Chinese supermarkets can’t get their hands on. For example, there is a popular street food in China called tanghulu. It’s a skewer stacked with fruits that is coated in hard sugar and rice paper. Although it is a common dessert in China, it cannot be found even in Chinese supermarkets in America. But Weee! Has managed to ship these desserts to America for Chinese-Americans to enjoy a taste of home.

“I think food is a big part of every culture, so with our business we are able to provide people the authentic Asian foods and make them feel they’re closer to where they come from,” Mrs. Liu said.