resilientchinatown

[resilientchinatown]

Chinatown Solidarity Tour Presentation (Part 2)

By Mei Lum and Diane Wong

These notes were taken from findings presented by Mei and Diane during their Chinatown West Coast tour. We gathered in the Wing on Wo. and Co. space, which had a packed audience, to learn about patterns and trends in revitalization, movement, and gentrification around the many Chinatowns of the West Coast: San Francisco, Vancouver, Los Angeles, and Seattle.

San Francisco

Zoning laws - prevents building of high rises in the neighborhood

Spoke with urban planners of Chinatown to speak about challenges in relation to how the neighborhood is culturally “dying” (especially with the 1977 Golden Dragon massacre, a shooting incident between a gang rivalry that left 5 people dead, as the neighborhood became known for being unsafe) or changing (due to rising pressures for development and gentrification)

If the community is changing, does this pressure come from outside or inside of the community?

A new public transit system is being built that will go through the heart of Chinatown, which creates pressure from outside to develop in the area

Dorothy Quock (first interviewee)

Worked at a Levi’s factory as a child. She is a resident of SF Chinatown since she was a young girl. She wore a rice bag that had been crafted into a dress, which she stated that the reworking of this material into a garment was symbolic of her Vietnamese-American identity growing up

Questions of what ties us to a place? What ties us to our home?

Norman Fong (second interviewee)

Executive director of Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC)

Help house displaced tenants, most of whom are single resident occupancy

The organization owns 31 public housing properties that assist in housing Chinatown citizens

Derek Tan (third interviewee)

Son of a fourth-generation dragon beard candy shop

Originally worked in technology, but realized his family shop/trade was much more important to preserve

Similar situation to Mei, where he was offered the ability to chase the “American Dream” but ended up coming back to the place he grew up and continuing his family business

Dragon beard candy is an ancient cultural art form that very few people in America can still make

Vancouver

Not as much zoning, but declared as place for revitalization recently

Mostly low income Chinese Americans live in Chinatown

Artscape (a non-profit) has been encouraging creative placemaking to get more artists in the community exhibit their work.

“Urban space”, get artists to have space to show their work, and the rent for this space is much lower than market price

Los Keefer (Bee Dee) Development

Market price condo development, received backlash from the Chinatown Concern Group (community organization actively fighting exclusionary immigration policies and development proposals that wedge many inhabitants out of their home by increasing market housing prices)

Godfrey (first interviewee)

A regular member of the Chinatown Concern Group (CCG)

Mentioned that Chinatown is often not seen as a safe area, bordered by homeless people

There is not much he can do to change growing pressures of gentrification in Chinatown, but if he does nothing he has the constant guilt of what he would tell his grandchildren

The struggle of displacement is similar to the 60s proposed development of a large expressway (which the neighborhood was successful in preventing)

Most lead organizers of the CCG are women

Los Angeles

Primary community group = Chinatown Community for Equitable Development

Started in reaction to a Walmart developmental proposal in the neighborhood

Common practices of “artwashing”

Yellow faced galleries

Facades are old, preserved exteriors but when you walk into the space, it’s a white faced gallery with no link to the neighborhood or community culture

Practice is used to make neighborhoods seem more “attractive” and the influx of gallery space is an attempt to subversively combat the erasure of culture

Elderly female owner of clothing store (first interviewee)

Has many children, who have gone off to more lucrative fields such as technology, they live in different neighborhoods, although she speaks of her children proudly, she feels very alone and operates the shop by herself

Her isolation stems from a disinterest of younger children to continue the business

Closure of the Pacific Alliance Medical Center (a pillar of chinatown)

Symbolically rooted in the neighborhood, as it had been around for 157 years

Was a place for many low-income residents to access free or low-cost health services and education, also was a haven for many new immigrants to navigate basic tasks such as signing up for insurance

It’s removal has had huge impact on the Chinatown community, leaving many in the community without access to health services and without jobs

Seattle

Chinatown is called the International District

Questions around “who are the actors of displacement within a community” have arisen

Once again, we see the “model minority trope”, which serves as a pushing factor for younger generations to leave the community

[resilientchinatown]

Talk and walk with Christine

We met Christine and her husband in the Confetti making workshop at MOCA. She is an alumna of Parsons, majored in illustration. They were both very welcome and lovely. We had a very nice conversation at the workshop and exchanged contact. We scheduled a conversation with her through email. Unluckily, her husband was not able to join the conversation. We met with Christine at Cafe Grumpy in the morning of April 17th. We wanted to buy her a coffee but she said she had a card of this coffee shop and bought her own. She must come to this coffee shop very frequently.

Her life experience and her family

We began our conversation with some basic information of her and her family. Christine grew up in Chinatown and now lived in Little Italy with her husband. Though lived in Little Italy now, she still considered she lived in Chinatown because she thought Little Italy is the extension of Chinatown. Interestingly, her husband had the opposite opinion about these two neighborhood.

She went to a public elementary school in Chinatown, PS1-24, where the majority of students were Chinese Americans. The junior high and high school she went had a greater diversity. Notably, she mentioned that  her high school had an air of artistic and was famous for its performing art. All our three are Asian and pursuing a creative career so we had a discussion of how our family considered our choice of studying art and design. We all expressed that our parents didn’t support us to study art and design at first and they all thought design is better than art because it is more practical.

We asked her how her family came to the states, she said her dad was born in (some where), India and her mom used to live in Saigon. They became pen pal through an magazine and his dad suddenly showed up in front of her mom and proposed to her, that was the first time they met each other in real life!  He told her mom that, he was about to move to the states and wondered if her mom want to go with him. Her mom agreed and that was how her parents came to the U.S.. Christine said she wanted to see the letters between her parents but they told her that they threw them away because they were no longer useful. Christine laughed when she told us this part: “Sometimes I wonder if they made up this romantic story for they don’t have anything to support it.”

Christine said her mom can’t speak English at all for she lived in Chinatown since she moved to the U.S and never lived in other neighborhood so there was no need to learn English. Her dad could speak English but was “as bad as her Chinese”. He used to work in a garment factory owned by a Jewish. Her dad learned English to communicate with his boss. He took over the factory after the Jewish left and there was no need to speak English because all people in the factory were Chinese American.

Christine told us her mom has lived in Chinatown for about 40 years and now she didn’t  go out because her life here was very convenient. Her dad passed away two years ago, in the last two years of his dad’s life, he wanted to move back to India, the place where he was born. The main reason was to experience the feeling of being a rich people as well as going back to the community where he grew up. It also reflected that he didn’t miss that much of the community in Chinatown.

Christine grew up spoke the mixture of Mandarin and Cantonese in her home. She used to enroll in a Chinese school when she was a kid but was kicked out because of the bad performance. She told us the different ways she practiced Chinese: watching TV shows, taking classes in college and talking to her friends and parents. These activities help her build her Chinese skills differently and now she can understand Chinese, Ok to converse but can’t write at all.

There are a lot of associations in Chinatown, like “kejia” association, “last name” association. Old generations consider these associations are important for them to build networks and can ease a lot of things.

Gentrification

She used to be strongly against gentrification for she didn’t want the place where she grew up “be touched by big retailers”. The community lost its charms because of the happening of gentrification. However now she considers gentrification might be a good thing because it takes out the shitty parts of the neighborhood and boosts the entire community to be better. She emphasized that gentrification has raised the safety level of some neighborhoods. She compared the past and the present of Brooklyn by saying “now people no longer have to be cautious of if they are followed in the night.” The experience of traveling in other cities also made her realize New York City is quite safe. She considered gentrification is not a binary thing: though she feel sad of the fact that Chinatown is losing its unique cultural identity and becoming similar to other neighborhood, gentrification is benefitting Chinatown as well. She also mentioned: “ gentrification is a part of this city and we have to accept it”.

What impressed me a lot was, Christine showed a strong interest in our project.  We introduced the progress of our project and some insights we had learned from several interviews, especially the one with Sophia in Po Wing Hong. Christine said it is a good thing to see young business owners protected where they grew up by injecting new businesses in Chinatown.

When talking about young generation, I asked her if her friends are still live in Chinatown. She said most of them had left here because of different reasons. Many of them left because they started new family and needed larger place. She also mentioned another reason might be they wanted to leave their parents and the comfort zone, it probably is a human nature. “I moved out Chinatown to Brooklyn and lived in two neighborhood before I moved back, and it mainly because I married with a guy who lived in Little Italy.”

Walking In Chinatown

After we left the cafe grumpy. I planned to visit two ice cream shops, Christine showed me the directions but she found I looked confused so she kindly walked together with me to one ice cream shop. We walked along Mott street for a while and changed to Mulberry Street. My first sight of Mulberry Street made me so surprised -- Mott Street was full of Chinese shops but along Mulberry Street, which is just nearby to it, were all Italian shops. Christine said that her husband, who grew up in Little Italy, told her the things happened on Mulberry Street. There is not a single Chinese restaurants along Mulberry Street because historically, whoever opened a Chinese restaurant on Mulberry Street would be bullied by Italians and was forced to move. It was the way Italians used to keep the cultural identity pure. Recently, there opened a Chinese Restaurant on Mulberry Street, which is the only one. “It doesn’t make any sense,” Christine commented, “No one comes to this street for Chinese food.” We walked by this restaurant, it was a Shanghai restaurant. The brick walls made it looked so unique. 

We kept walking, left Little Italy and were approaching Canal street, where we began to see some souvenir stores. Probably the souvenirs and the increasing tourists reminded her of something, she began telling me about the changes happened after “911” attack. “After 911, the city intended to let more tourists visit Chinatown and put signs like ‘Chinatown welcomes you’ and decorated lanterns around here.” Christine said. She considered because Chinatown was closed to the World Trade Center and was influenced by the attack, government wanted people to think it is a safe place and promote tourism industry in Chinatown intentionally.

She walked with me all the way to Eggloo and we farewelled with each other. Two days after the interview, Christine told us through email that she appreciated the conversation for it helped her to review her attitude towards gentrification. She mentioned in her email:  “It(the conversation) affects my views of gentrification in my neighborhood. It’s a subject that plays in the back of my mind whenever I walk around my neighborhood.”

[resilientchinatown]

Notes and reflections on interview with Sophia at Po Wing Hong

In her childhood, she lived in NJ with her family and went to Chinese language school in Chinatown, commute from NJ to Chinatown. She grew up speak Cantonese.

Now she lives in (somewhere) in Queens.

Her father went to HK from mainland China during Cultural Revolution, her mother went to HK during her early years.

2 identities: fit in two different cultures and keep a balance

In school she ate sandwich for lunch and ate Chinese food when she was with her family; speak English to her brother.

In her primary school, she was one of the 4 Asians in the whole school; in junior high school,Asians were less than 5%; and in high school less than 10 percent.

She went to Boston University, after graduation, she worked in consulting/business industry for several years.

Two (plus) reasons for taking over the business

Business was rooted in Chinatown and had a large scale. Warehouse, delivery, export, import and spa. The scale of her business made her transit from previous career easily.

Po Wing Hong had a good reputation among its customers. It sold authentic goods. Mission-driven. Legacy(showed us all the trophies on the cabinet.)

Her parents had a huge vision for the business and she got a lot of support from them.

She emphasized twice “my situation was different from others”. I asked what does it mean, she said, “others” refers to small business, the difference are she had other opportunity and it aligned her career path???

What changes she made after she took over the business.

10 years ago, Po Wing Hong was the only company in Chinatown that had a website.

Social media

She doesn’t want to change the business much because “the world is not ready for traditional Chinese store.”; big learning curve; too many modifications are not good.

After she took over the business, she used digital technologies to help the business.

Customers are very traditional. So no western way would be better.

Ali pay; “how to” booklet for some goods;

Attitudes toward gentrification

She has a mixed feeling about gentrification

Gentrification is inevitable and people have to adapt to it.

Seen it from a good way, it is a good incentive for Chinatown

Everyone agrees that they don’t want Chinatown becomes a pure tourist site.

She knows some organizations have done something against(?) gentrification, her attitude is, she and her business will stay in Chinatown but she is not very involved in gentrification-related activities.

Old generation live here, but young people prefer to live outside. She thought if Chinatown becomes modern, it will attract young people back.

She mentioned, when she went to SF last week, she saw a lot of tourists wearing ...hat? However real Chinese people don’t wear it, it’s very tourism.

Sunside Chinatown, even it now looks very interesting(???), still many elder people live there.

New business in Chinatown

Many new/mainstream stores were opened these years, like icecream store, burger. Many of them are owned by people who grew up in Chinatown.

She think these new stores are very interesting, they bring new things to Chinatown. She told us a lot of the stores she like and she looks very excited about these things.

She consider these store can GLUE young people in Chinatown.

Business owners in Chinatown

They all nice to each other

More focus on individual business

It will be great if they reach out to each other more.

Public housing - supports a lot of elderly Manhattan Chinatown inhabitants, older generations tend to stay and younger generations move out (Sunset park, flushing), not a lot of push to change

Reflections

Becoming modern is not a bad thing, it can glue young people to Chinatown.

So…….what really matters is who makes it happen??? Indigenous people VS outsiders?

[resilientchinatown]

Confetti making workshop at MoCA

After the hair salon, we quickly headed towards the Museum of Chinese America on Centre and Howard Street, where we planned to attend a confetti paper making workshop being led by some of the ‘Resist Recycle Regenerate’ artists-in-residence fellows of the WOW Project. The workshop recycled confetti material from the Lunar New Year celebrations, reworked into creative and artistic works following topics on individual identity with a central focus on “women-centric intersectionality and intergenerational solidarity” in response to present day exclusionary immigrant policies. With this, we saw paper artwork around topics of gentrification, female Asian identity, but also simply abstracted pieces that used simple printing techniques from cut out templates of Chinese characters, dogs - zodiac animal of the year, and leaves. Most of the attendees at the event were Chinese women of all ages, and the fellows were mostly young Chinese American women. Several families attended with young children as well as a few elderly couples.

We were fortunate enough to strike up a few conversations with some of the workshop participants. As I was drying my confetti paper pulp on the screen, a few elderly Chinatown women began to have a conversation around me about the different materials they could use to create their artwork. They saw me cutting up colored paper, which was reminiscent of Chinese paper cutting form, commented on my material exploration, and borrowed the same technique for their pieces. They were generally very friendly and light-hearted, approaching the workshop as a fun craft activity that they could participate in together. It seemed as if they were attending the event as a fun weekend activity, but also knew about the WOW project and Mei on a personal level.

Although the general demographic of the event seemed to be focused mostly on women, I didn’t notice a lot of intermingling between different groups who came in separately. We also approached some of the fellows running the workshop and their friends who stopped by to look at the workshop, who seemed huddled around the collage table, cutting up excerpts from old newspaper articles and computer print outs. Their pieces were much more centered around historical Chinatown, topics of oppression and exclusion, and were much more representational than abstract. We spoke to a girl who was creating a piece of artwork labeled ‘Chinatown Fights Gentrification’ and asked if she could tell us more about her experience growing up in the neighborhood. She mentioned that although she went to college in the city, she ultimately came back to the neighborhood to serve as a college counselor for the high schoolers at the school she attended in Chinatown growing up.

It was a bit challenging to strike a continuous conversation with any of the fellows, as there seemed to be a feeling of distance between us. In addition, they had their group of friends to converse with, and at times it felt a bit out of place for us when we sat at their table. As a Chinese American, I compared their language proficiency in writing and reading, based on texts they wrote out or when I heard them recite old Chinese newspaper excerpts, which seemed much more advanced than my skill level. It seemed as if this group of young women were very tied to their Chinese cultural identity in ways that I was not.

At a nearby table, I noticed another woman standing from the sidelines drawing pictures of people in the room on one of the premade confetti papers. I became curious, as she had also seemed to accumulate a stack of these papers on the nearby table, and I asked her if she was from the neighborhood as well. As we began to chat, I noticed that the man standing beside her was her husband and he joined in on the conversation as well. They introduced themselves as Christine and John. She mentioned that they currently live in Little Italy, which has kind of been absorbed by Chinatown today, but when she was growing up she lived in Chinatown. John had always lived in Little Italy and today, they reside in the same place that he grew up in. We asked them about their family past, and Christine talked about her parents, though both Chinese (with some regional upbringing in Hainan) they migrated over from Saigon and Calcutta. John mentioned that his father was a pilot in the Vietnam war, and that his picture hangs in the MoCA exhibit upstairs. Although he did not go deep into his family past, he did mention the frustration of growing up Chinese American and being told he was not “American” enough. Especially having a father who served and fought for the country, this type of stereotyping seemed to really upset him growing up.

As we began to share more about ourselves, we realized that Christine was an alumnus of Parsons and a conversation about how the school has transformed since her time became a subtopic of conversation. The couple was very friendly and jovial, and it seemed as if they loved to laugh - which made it very easy to chat with them and open up. Eventually, we headed out and Christine carried a stack of the papers she brought. I realized that she was not familiar with the WOW Project, but seemed to have stumbled into the workshop either due to regular visits to the museum or interest in a weekend art-making activity. As we said our goodbyes, Christine gave us her business card and offered us to reach out to her if we wanted to chat more.

[resilientchinatown]

Hair Cut Talk

We met each other in front of the salon we decided to visit and walked in. We introduced ourselves to the salon owner and asked him if we can record the conversation between us and the stylist. The shop owner agreed, however, after we presented him with the consent form he suddenly changed his mind and politely told us that we can go to other salons where the owner might allow us to record. Disappointedly, we left there. On the way of looking for another salon, we discussed that, probably the consent form is too formal for him and it freaked him out. We decided not to show the consent form in the next salon.

While we were looking for a substitute, we noticed that fancy, nice-looking salon were all expensive and they didn’t put the price list on the window. But small and old ones will put the price on, guessing it was their strategy to attract customers. We entered a salon on East Broadway street, it was a small and traditional one. The interior of it was very traditional Chinese, there were some red paper decorations on the wall. We introduced ourselves to one of the stylists in the shop, who had her hair dyed pink, by saying “We are two students from Parsons and want to do an interview while the stylist is cutting my hair…...”. At the beginning, all stylists in the salon looked at us very suspiciously and the shop owner told us they didn’t want to be interviewed and be posted on journalism. When I realized their concern of being reported, I changed my narrative by saying “This is just an assignment for one of our classes, our professor asked us to use different methods to talk to people.” When they heard this, all of them suddenly became relaxed and one stylist told us “I see! My daughter always asked me to help her with her interview assignments!”.

First a lady washed my hair. Our conversation had a very weird beginning: she told me there are a lot of moles on my face and if I would like to remove some of them. And then she said my hair was very thin…….this sentence used to be my childhood trauma and the reason salons was the place I disliked to visited the most when I was a kid. Luckily now I was brave enough to face this crucial fact. I asked where she came from and she told me she was from Fujian province. She came here about 15 years ago and went back to her hometown not frequently during these years. She also said this salon had a long history, around 20 years. She live in Chinatown. She asked me some questions too, like where I come from and where I studied now.

After I had my hair washed, I move to the other area and a stylist came to me. She began the conversation first, saying “if you want to know more about Chinatown, it’s better to search information online, for different people have different lives here.” She also said, the emotion of people in the moment you asked them questions might influence the answer they give you too. I was so surprised by her words for what she said was very deep and so meaningful. I expressed my agreement of what she said and told her that was exactly what we wanted to learn -- how people consider about their neighborhood from their own perspective.

The most interesting thing happened was, before I asked any questions, she told me the business in Chinatown decreased these years and people moved outside of this neighborhood because the rise of real estate price. “Rich ‘foreigners’ couldn’t afford apartments in other parts of Manhattan so they moved in here and forced local people to move.” She described people outside of Chinatown as “foreigners”, she said. Which showed she considered people of other races as “foreigners” but not judged by citizenship. Chinatown is becoming more and more “quiet(冷清）”, she repeated twice. She didn’t mention the word “gentrification” (I don’t think this word has a Chinese version) but she described these phenomenon in Chinatown and considered this as the most significant change happened here.

In the following conversation, I knew more about her.  She was from Guangdong province and she came here in 1992. She lived outside of Chinatown but I didn’t get where she lived in because she told me the Chinese name of the neighborhood. She had two sons, the elder one is 24 year-old. They can speak English and Cantonese. Her elder son’s work is related to police.

I asked her if she likes this city, she said “No”. “I don’t like New York City for living here is very expensive, busy and stressful”, she told me. But I asked her if she wanted to move to other part of the U.S, she said no, because she can’t drive nor speak English, living in NYC is very convenient for her. However, both her two sons love NYC. “people of course love the place where they were born and grew up.” I told her the minimum wage of NY is higher than other places and she told me it still can’t cover the rising price of a lot of things. The price in Chinatown is very cheap but it is rising in these years.

I asked her about the fellow associations in Chinatown. She told me these associations sometimes organized activities and people within the associations can help each other when they are in need.  She recommended me to go to “Chinatown Community Center”,  and people there must be willing to help us with our research project. She consider this is the most important organization in Chinatown community and is in charge of a lot of things in this area. What she told me reminded me of some information I found when I did secondary research. In one article, the author describes Chinatown as a small self-organized community with an informal “government”.

After she finished my hair cut, she made part of my hair into a ponytail. I found it is really funny.

I went to the shop owner to check out. She charged me 25 dollars. I told her the price on the window was 18 dollars and she responded me that that price is for male, short hair. She also told me because it is the U.S. I have to give tips to the two ladies who served me. I did it. By the way, she also suggested me to remove the moths on my face…. And said they had this service.

After we left that salon and were on the way to MOCA, we discussed how different these people in salon comparing to other people we met. They didn’t have great education background and even can’t speak English. Their situation was quite different from our parents, they were all very academic successful and they came to this country because they received scholarship. We also talked one of the reason people consider Asians are very smart is because these highly educated Chinese immigrants.  In Chinatown, we see more socioeconomic diversity.

[resilientchinatown]

Search for Po Wing Hong and East Broadway Salons

This morning, we set a goal for ourselves to peruse through East Broadway searching for hair salons and checking out Po Wing Hong, which Taylor from Wing on Wo and Co had suggested us to visit earlier this week. After some preliminary ethnographic field research from the previous week, I had noticed that the eastern part of Chinatown (separated by the Manhattan bridge and Confucius Plaza) was quite residential and rarely did I see tourists browsing through the area. The streets were lined with grocery stores (big and small), churches, temples, trading shops, schools, daycares, and hair salons. From our last visit, we arrived at the idea of initiating a more natural conversation at a hair salon, where it was commonplace for a customer and barber to speak with one another. So, this trip was focused more on conducting some preliminary research for what salon one of us would go to next week to get a haircut.

We began our search by walking along East Broadway from Rutgers Street, and stumbled upon two places that had markedly different price points. A bigger salon, with bright lights and two barbers’ poles was more expensive, however when I walked in to make an appointment, they could only speak in Chinese. When I first attempted to speak in English, they looked taken aback, and hesitated to welcome me until I switched my language to Chinese. The second location was much smaller, and felt more home-like. Neither place was that busy and when we asked how busy the traffic was on a Saturday morning, they seemed to suggest it never got packed enough that an appointment was necessary.

We continued our search along Division Street towards Bowery. I had arrived earlier that morning had the chance to walk through the more eastern half of Division Street, which interestingly was dotted with a few more recently opened shops, including a few coffee and pastry shops. The area was still pretty residential, but felt much less “Chinatown” than some of the neighboring streets. We stumbled into a few very small shops, with haircuts as cheap as $5 for a trim. However, the salon workers had a more crass demeanor than the previous salons, and spoke a dialect that was hard to decipher. We decided that we would go with the second salon next week for the haircut, which Tina felt more comfortable with.

As we headed over to Po Wing Hong, we walked past Confucius Plaza. The park, interestingly, seemed to be quite busy for a Thursday morning. In comparison to last week’s walk around Columbus Park, this one seemed to be much more lively and filled with elders and middle-aged people. We eventually arrived at Po Wing Hong, which was a bit difficult to find, due to a large construction awning that covered half of the storefront. Additionally, there was a large “OrigO spa” sign (which we later found out was owned by the same family running Po Wing Hong) that seemed to dominate the street. As we walked in, we noticed that the store was mostly filled with elderly customers. The merchandise at the front of the store was mostly dried medicinal products, and I immediately sensed that anyone without any familiarity of these products might feel quite lost. We asked an employee wearing a vest where we could speak with the shop owner. He asked us to wait, and a few seconds later came back and directed us to the upstairs offices of the building.

As we entered the office space, we were greeted by a young woman named Sophia, the executive vice president of the store. We later found out that her mother is the executive owner, however, it seemed as if Sophia was currently running most of the logistical operations. The office space was filled with a few shiny wooden desks, each with a desktop computer being used by a middle aged woman (Sophia seemed to be the youngest person in the room). She sat us down to chat with us, and overall I sensed a very welcoming attitude from her. We introduced ourselves, giving her a brief overview of our project but also explicitly stating our personal interests to the subject. She seemed to agree with some of my experiences growing up Chinese American, stating that she faced similar challenges from her upbringing. After a few minutes of chatting, she seemed as if she needed to get back to work though she was very patient with us the entire time. Afterwards, she gave us her business card and asked us to email her to set up a time to meet.

[resilientchinatown]

Talk to shop owners and succed

I was late by almost 1 hour because I got lost in the subway station….Sorry about that, Jenny!

I met Jenny at Tasty Dumpling. She told me this is a restaurant that sells good dumplings at a low price. I found the English name of this place is very obvious and direct but the Chinese name is very “smart” and much more meaningful. The name “京津有味” in Chinese means “The good flavor of Beijing and Tianjin”, which is modified from an idiom “津津有味”.  Tasty Dumpling is located near a park. Jenny told me there are a lot of customers around noon but luckily we were there early and the store was still empty. There were two ladies working in the counter and in the kitchen area. I saw two workers sitting in the corner of the store, facing the wall and making dumplings.

The menu was above the counter. We decided to order a serving of boiled dumplings and a serving of fried dumplings. When Jenny asked me how I felt about this restaurant after we left there, I realized that the choices of dumplings are very limited, which is quite different from the dumpling restaurants I have been to in China. Interestingly, the menu of frozen dumpling, which was on the wall, had a variety of options including the ones I really like. Jenny used Chinese to order, which surprised me a little bit. I should ask her why she used Chinese instead of English. I noticed the two ladies have southern accent, but the headline of menu is “Beijing Style Dumplings” and I know people in southern China don’t eat this kind of dumplings. I was confused by this interesting disconnection.

Jenny and I discussed what she saw around this area and she brought up the idea of “talking with stylist in salon”. I thought that would be a great way to get access to people who live in the Chinatown Community. While eating and talking with Jenny, I was contemplating the way to talk with the two ladies. Due to the failure we experienced last time, I was quite afraid of being rejected again. Jenny encouraged me by telling me, women are more easy-going than men, especially when facing young people. She also mentioned that it is not busy in the restaurant so they are probably more open to chat.  

After we finished all the dumplings, I walked towards the counter, nervously. I began the conversation in Chinese “Hi, I really like the dumplings, they are very tasty!”. This turned out to be a good idea, They were happy to hear my compliment and smiled at me back with appreciation. I felt a huge relief and became much more relaxed. Then we began a short conversation. I learned that they are from Guangdong province and they run this “Beijing style dumpling restaurant” because the previous owner, who began this business, is a Beijinger. When the founder of the business left, they took over the restaurant. The restaurant has a history of about 20 years! They also asked me some questions, like where I am from and where I study, how long have I being here,etc. Interestingly, when they found out I am from Beijing, one of the ladies said, she had been in Beijing before and the dumplings there were not as good as theirs! When I asked them if it is a family-owned business, they looked confused and said no. I didn’t express the point well and I thought it is was a little bit strange for them to hear this question.

I felt much more confident about reaching out to people after I talked with these ladies. On the way to Nom Wah Tea Parlor, we passed by Wing on Wo&Co. I suggested that we’d better go in and just say “Hi” in order to build rapport with them. Gary wasn’t there today and there was a white guy who stood behind the counter. We introduced ourselves a little bit, telling him we had been here before. We told him we had talked with Gary for quite a while during the last visit and the story of how I bought the hairpin and the things that happened after I posted a picture of it on a social media. Then we asked the white guy what made him get involved in? We learnt from him that, he is Taylor, the partner of Mei. We told him more about our project and asked him if he knew other generational stores in Chinatown. He told us about Po Wong, a supermarket and Chinatown ice cream factory.

Then we went to Nom Wah and Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. Both of them are owned by families and have gone through several generations. Unfortunately, we didn’t meet the owners of these two shops but we were not kicked out neither. We got business cards from the shops and I bought some very delicious ice cream!

This visit was very generative. My biggest takeaway was the confidence to talk with people. I gradually learned the position I should take and the strategies of communication for talking with people who work in stores.

[resilientchinatown]

Explore E Broadway in the morning and get kicked out by a shop owner

When I arrived in Chinatown around 9:30 am, there were already many people. It was the second time I had been to Chinatown(during daytime) and I was not not very familiar with this place. I decided to explore more around the neighborhood. I walked along Canal Street to the east and went across Bowery Street. The neighborhood along E Broadway looked different from the west area. The buildings were higher, more orderly and residential. It was interesting to see that on some windows of the buildings there were the names of regional associations. Like “HUIZHOU fellow association”. This indicated a fellow association of the immigrants from a city in Guangdong Province. The style of this street was quite old-fashioned, if compared to the neighborhood I lived in Beijing, however it reminded me of Hong Kong, where I visited last year.

I found a DVD/VCD store. I haven’t seen this kind of store in China for years. Curiously, I walked inside and scanned on the shelves to see what they sold. Discs were hanging on the wall and the whole room was occupied, like being covered by a “waterfall of discs”. There were no packages, discs were in thin plastic covers and customers could easily see the name of content. I found the discs covered a wide range -- from shows made several decades ago to the most latest movies and there were not limited to Chinese movies. A middle aged couple was running the shop. I really wanted to take a picture of the discs. However I didn’t because of the fear of being shouted at. I knew it is definitely illegal to sell these discs. Actually I wondered how they were able to sell these pirated discs blatantly on the street and in a store!!

There were many interesting things to see along the street, some scenes exclusively happen in the morning. For example, when I was walking by a meat store, I saw two workers were splitting the frozen pork bones with metal sticks, with many bloody, frozen bones around them. When I was approaching to Manhattan Bridge, I saw a small daycare for the elderly right under the bridge. When trains pass by, it is really noisy at that location. I felt surprised and confused to see a daycare showing up there. Some seniors were outside of the daycare, talking and doing some morning exercises.

Knowing Jenny could arrive soon, I walked back to Canal street and we met in Taipan Bakery. We decided to visit some family-owned shops around there. The first store we went in was called “Lucky Stone”. The products outside of the store looked very cheap and of low quality. I considered that this store is geared mainly towards tourists, especially foreign tourists who know little about China. When we entered the store, there were two men working there, both middle aged. The interior of the store was occupied with colorful but cheap-looking souvenirs, which reminded me of some stores in Wangfujing commercial district, Beijing. I remembered I saw a lot of this kind of store about 10 years ago. Jenny talked with one of the guys in the store, and she began with the introduction of our purpose and our intention of knowing more about Chinatown through family-owned, multi-general stores. That man answered with a polite unwillingness. He said there is an information center nearby and that we can get all the information there. He insisted that he was busy, though I was quite sure there was not any other customers in the store -- unless the one behind the counter was a customer.

Knowing we were not welcome, we got out of the store. We stood outside of the store for a while and did some analysis about this store. Jenny said, considering the location of this store, it is very tourist-focused so the owner of the store might have a loose relationship with its customers. I agreed with her. We also talked about the man who talked with us have strong accent so he might had difficulties communicating with us.

I felt frustrated with this encounter, but it was just the beginning. I realized the difficulties of building rapport with local residents in Chinatown as two outsiders, and that we should find better ways to reach out to people.

[resilientchinatown]

Phone conversation with Mei Lum (Wing on Wo and Co)

Upon speaking with Mei over the phone for a brief 15-minute conversation, expressing our interest about the WOW project and our research aims, one of the first suggestions she gave us was engaging with other shop owners and residents who aren’t part of the community that WOW has created. While her project has gained prominence and attention due to its unique approach to generating dialogue around the identity of Chinatown amidst growing gentrification pressures, it still exists as a sub-community within the larger neighborhood. Rather than repeating the work that is currently happening, what new insights and value can we uncover through speaking with different members of the community and exploring other tools for inquiry?

Overall, many of her suggestions were important reminders of our positionality as researchers and the value of what we, in our unique positions as graduate student Chinese-American/international Chinese researchers, might bring in the work that we carry forward.

[resilientchinatown]

Introduction and Visit to Wing on Wo and Co

For our first convening to discuss our “Chinatown Resilience” project, Tina and I met at a tea shop called Silk Road Cafe. The shop consisted of many seemingly local Chinatown folks (they looked as if they were in their 40s or 50s?), sipping their tea and reading the local paper or a book they brought to their shop. A group of young teenagers/adults were chatting in Chinese, and a few groups of “tourists” (caucasian families, mixed race friend groups) populated some of the surrounding tables. We discussed a plan for how to approach some of the owners of Wing on Wo & Co next door, a porcelain shop next door that holds the title of one of Chinatown’s oldest remaining businesses.

This concept of multi-generational resilience stuck with us. Having done some previous research on the shop, which had gained quite a bit of public attention due to its historic and preservational identity in the neighborhood, we were surprised to hear of Mei’s, a fifth generation family member of the shop, stance on this issue. Her response to the pressures of gentrification were surprisingly optimistic, arguing that culture shouldn’t remain stagnant, but continuously evolve through a process of reflection around self-identity to understand what holds a community together and makes it unique.

The storefront of Wing on Wo and Co.

Upon entering the shop, with a look of hesitation, we were greeted and questioned by a man in his 50s - 60s named Gary Lum. His face carried a gentle disposition although initially came off a bit cautious and suspicious of what our main intentions were. As we approached him to chat, I noticed he had a bit of a New York accent and spoke fluent English, which still catches me by surprise at times since most of the Asian parents I had grown up with were first generation immigrants (i.e. new transplants or F.O.B.s). We began by introducing ourselves as research graduate students who were curious in developing a better understanding of the neighborhood.

Although we fumbled a bit at first, the conversation naturally eased once we began to talk about our personal identity and tie our interests to topics around cultural identity and resilience. As we shared our stories of upbringing and belonging through our cultural hybrid narratives, Gary softened and began to open up to us as well about his story and the challenges he faced as a child. He mentioned that growing up as a kid in New York, he would get made fun of being one of few Chinese American students at his school. He is a self-proclaimed second generation Chinese American (first generation born in the U.S., just like me) and that the shop he was helping run was passed down in his wife’s family

In our conversation mostly around cultural identity and resilience, I observed Gary bring up several notable points:

- He would frequently refer to this metaphor “I am the hollow in the bamboo” (Cantonese: Jook-sing, although I appear Chinese on the outside, inside I do not fit this cultural identity. This was a common slang term to refer to American Born Chinese - ABCs) - He seemed to deeply embody spiritual Buddhist ideals of “resilience”, and mentioned that things must change and adapt to societal and environmental changes in order to persist. - Several times, he would reference Kuan Yin, a bodhisattva/“goddess of mercy and compassion” when speaking about resilience. He also pointed to symbols of this goddess in several ceramic pieces throughout the shop. - He strongly encouraged us to reflect upon how we could contribute to the greater good of the community, especially by giving voice to others whose voices have been quelled. He also seemed very proud of his daughter for her sacrifices and commitment to keeping the shop, and for expanding this conversation to the larger Chinatown community. He believes it is important for younger generations to sit with these questions much more seriously, as they possess immense potential to “reclaim the future.” - He also mentioned that what often drives people out of Chinatown is the “American Dream” that many immigrant children and parents longingly seek after. This shared desire is what both unites and separates individuals within this community.

I noticed that our conversation would every now and then get interrupted as other customers, or shop friends came in. I also observed a visitor trend of many non-Asian (mostly caucasian) individuals, who seemed to have heard about the shop through a press article, whereas the Chinese individuals were family friends - the space seemed as if it were a communal gathering spot for many locals. A small electric floor fan and a few small chairs were scattered around the shop for people to sit, and an elderly woman (the 3rd generation shop owner, Gary’s mother in law) quietly sat in a corner. Parents would also bring their small children in, either to drop off some stuff (food, borrowed items?) or to have a quick chat/catch up.

Gary continued to provide us information about the shop - which mainly served as a distributor receiving porcelain ceramics from a southern region in China, jing de zhen (景德镇). A big focus of their business however, is to leverage the stories and craftsmanship of artisans through a current revival period of handmade porcelain.

After mentioning our positionality and sharing our stories in-depth, we talked about our positionality to this topic of Chinatown as two researchers. We discussed that a major point to focus on was that our exploration and questioning of belonging were what ties us together. This is where the commonality can exist amongst individuals of different hybrid cultures and generations.

The conversation carried on for almost an hour, and afterwards we perused the shop. Tina commented on a blue hair clip she found in the window, claiming that the color came from the feathers of a unique bird and that these were quite expensive and rare to find in China. She ended up purchasing it from the clear case by the check out. Another observation I made was that although the shop contained many artisan/craft ceramics, I did notice several that were more of the mass-produced kind (bowls, kitchenware that I have found other Chinese stores) as well as several antique items.

As we said our goodbyes, we chatted away in excitement. However, something that Gary mentioned to me really stuck - which was to ask ourselves “what unique positionality do we have to offer that can positively contribute to the community?” This is something we have sat on and reflected quite a bit, but my hunch is that with time, our belonging and role within the Manhattan Chinatown community will become emergent through increased engagement and deeper exploration of the neighborhood.

A seasonal shadow puppet window display outside of Wing on Wo and Co.

Mei Lum’s story of Wing on Wo and Co presented on the window display of Wing on Wo and Co.

A description of the store’s history on the window display of Wing on Wo and Co.