Chinatown!

DiskuteraDimSum Thing

Bara medlemmar i LibraryThing kan skriva.

Chinatown!

Denna diskussion är för närvarande "vilande"—det sista inlägget är mer än 90 dagar gammalt. Du kan återstarta det genom att svara på inlägget.

1betterthanchocolate
maj 10, 2007, 8:42 am

Experience: What's your relationship to Chinatown in your city? What does Chinatown mean to you?

Representation: Any books that feature a particular Chinatown, and how do they represent it? What do you make of that representation?

2belleyang
maj 10, 2007, 11:04 pm

I'm a good distance from SF Chinatown, and we never really belonged there, because in the mid-60's, SF Chinatown was solely a Cantonese enclave.

The Chinatowns I am enamored of are ghost Chinatowns in our rural area. In the 1860's the Chinese in our region--Monterey, Watsonville, Santa Cruz, Salinas were quite lively with workers, gamblers, prostitution and even families.

The Chinese started the fishing industry in Monterey; contrary to what people think, it was not the Sicilians! The latter came and took away the fishing areas from the Chinese, so the Chinese had to resort to night fishing for squid using lanterns to attract the mollusks.

For a fabulous account of early Chinese in Calif., read Chinese Gold by Sandy Lydon published by Capitola press.

The Chinatown in Monterey was burned to the ground in 1906 by railroad men who wanted coastal access. I have a relationship to the Chinatowns and Chinese villages that dotted our region. In my art, I paint the Chinese families at work, selling shell trinkets or fishing. I'm trying to rescue their history through memory.

Our community has become a resort area with very expensive homes. I want people to know that the Chinese had a huge hand in clearing the willow and bog land for agriculture. The recreation trail where people stroll was paved by Chinese laborers who built the railroads (the railroad now gone).

After I read Iris Chang's history of The Chinese in America and Chinese Gold, I see the Chinese experience from the 1850's to the present as one history. I feel kinship to all people from China, be they Cantonese, Manchurians, Shanghainese, etc.

3belleyang
maj 10, 2007, 11:09 pm

Oh, yah, there is the Cupertino shopping center on Wolfe Road where I shop. My parents and I went crazy with joy when we first entered a Ranch 99, filled to the ceiling with foods we'd left behind in Taiwan and China. This shopping center is a kind of new Chinatown, mainly serving the immigrant Taiwanese community. I remember some non-Chinese members of this Silicon Valley city complained that the Chinese should not be allowed to form this sort of exclusively Asian shopping center.

4mvrdrk
maj 11, 2007, 1:16 am

Ohhh, I LOVE the shopping center on Wolfe Road!!!

The Marriott there is where all the HP engineers traveling to the Cupertino offices stayed. I was especially happy about the comic book and movie rental stores, so nice to have something so convenient to the hotel! If you have never gone into the comic book rental store, you should go just to stand there and be surrounded by thousands and thousands of comic books. The walls move so they can have multiple layers of bookshelves. LOL! I want those bookshelves!

5betterthanchocolate
maj 12, 2007, 1:03 pm

I too grew up quite a ways north of the old Toronto Chinatown, a neighbourhood that has housed successive groups of immigrants, from Italian to Jewish to Chinese and Vietnamese, in the past century.

The Chinatown of today is close to the ports that mark the southern limits of the city, where early waves of immigrants landed and settled back in the early 1800s, moving north as their communities became more integrated and affluent.

So as you write, Belle, knowing the history makes me feel part of a bigger community than the immediate one I grew up with.

I'd love to visit SF and area some time.

6thebloke
jun 10, 2007, 7:07 pm

Det här meddelandet har tagits bort av dess författare.

7Thrin
sep 19, 2008, 6:58 pm

When we go to Chinatown in Sydney, Australia, a relative of mine who is Malaysian (of Chinese antecedents) is often treated quite rudely in Chinese restaurants. He is a dignified and polite man, and we don't know why he is treated this way by the waiters. Could it be because, in their ignorance, they look down on his dialect or accent? Has anyone else experienced this sort of thing? By the way, we are always his guests so he is the one who does most of the communicating with the restaurant staff (and apart from his Malaysian/Chinese pronunciation of the dishes on the menu he speaks to the waiters in English).

Gå med om du vill kunna skriva ett inlägg