Nations go to war over territory or resources, and when tensions run high, a million little things can aggravate populations.

Understandably, people in Seoul are miffed by pollution — yellow dust of sulfur, heavy metals, bacteria, asbestos and carcinogens blowing in from China — but the trivial can also rankle. Japan’s association with the cherry blossom tree has proved an irritation to South Korea and China, with both nations aiming to set the record straight on the trees’ origin in their respective lands.

While not quite at that level of contention, bordering nations might also argue for centuries about the origins of certain shared dishes.

Northern Chinese claim zhajiangmian (Westernized ja jiang mein or ja ja mein) as their own, while Koreans stand by their jajiangmyeon. I don’t want to start World War III — our current world leaders are doing enough to move us in that direction on their own — but being of Chinese ancestry, I’m staking my claim on the dish now.

Fellow Chinese share the same sentiment, with one journalist saying, “I feel like, now, Koreans are trying to claim it as their own,” and one travel specialist, trying not to name names, saying, “Other cultures have been heavily influenced by the Chinese.”

Far from the fray, I’ve always thought of the cuisines as distinct entities, but Dowon Chinese Restaurant made me wonder where we draw the line when it comes to the cuisine that developed at the border between the two nations. Or, should we simply stop drawing lines, look to the now and enjoy the marvelous fusion that results when neighbors come together at the table?

Considering that many of Hawaii’s original Chinese settlers hailed from Guangdong province in the south, it’s relatively safe to say Dowon’s cuisine is not your great-granddad’s version of Chinese cuisine. If your family hailed from Northern China, it may be another story.

The disconnect from Chinese culture starts with the restaurant’s offering of simple ban chan of kim chee, takuan and onions.

It turns out that the restaurant’s owner is Chinese by ethnicity but grew up in Korea with all its culinary influences, making for an interesting hybrid cuisine with dishes that careen from mild-mannered to tempestuous, a wild ride indeed.

I have never felt out of my element at a restaurant, but here, where a quarter of the menu is written in hanzi (Chinese characters) and hanja (Korean characters), it can be difficult to order, and just as hard for me to tell you what to order, except to say the must-haves are on the special menus: crave-inducing jajiangmyeon, jampong (a spicy seafood noodle soup also rooted in China) and the No. 10 spicy fried chicken ($16.95).

Jajiangmyeon has been in Hawaii a long time, most often referred to as Korean black noodles, and the Chinese sense of being under siege comes from the dish’s popularity in Korean dramas, giving a whole generation familiarity with its name and the impression that it is thoroughly Korean.

It was brought to Korea by immigrants from Shandong in the late 1800s, and over time the dish evolved to be sweeter and darker, owing its caramel hue to the Koreans’ preference for black bean paste instead of the Chinese preference for yellow bean paste. At Dowon the kick of an abundance of red chili peppers makes it even better, but I didn’t get the full tongue-on-fire impact of the peppers until enjoying the capsaicin-saturated leftovers.

That’s not the case with the spicy fried chicken, coated with a sauce of chili paste and minced carrot. It will set your tongue ablaze on the spot and still have the fire eaters among us reaching for drumette after drumette.

Much of the menu comprises stir-fry after stir-fry that don’t have much Instagram appeal, if that’s what drives your dining choices. Timid diners will find such standards as beef with broccoli ($13.95) and black pepper beef ($13.95), made with a light touch. In some of the dishes, reduced salt and sugar content — while admirable — made flavors seem plain on my local palate.

One more dish that veered more Korean than Chinese was the meatball with vegetables ($17.95), a minced-pork patty the size of a slider, seared to have a crisp, savory, garlic-sauced crust, while the interior stayed moist under a stir-fry of cabbage, mushrooms and stinky bamboo shoots.

Korean-style wonton in soup ($10.95) left much to be desired. The small ribbon-fold wontons were nearly invisible in the vegetable mixture, so that we thought we had received the wrong soup. Our server had a laugh as she helped fish around the bowl to show us “this small little thing.” There was more pi than meat, so the experience was mostly like chewing on dough.

There is a teaser list of glazed sweet potato, banana and apple desserts ($8.95 each), but they weren’t available on my visits.

Nadine Kam’s restaurant reviews are conducted anonymously and paid for by the Star-Advertiser. Reach her at nkam@staradvertiser.com.