Coming up out of the Canal Street subway station is an ordeal. After jostling with jaded New Yorkers on the train, you find yourself in what I like to call the “tourist trap”. On your right is a girl in a sundress and a floppy straw hat. She’s in New York with her best friend, who dresses identically. On your left is a Brazilian couple (But you’re not sure; you’re terrible with languages), which continues to pour over a subway map long after leaving the train car. And in front of you is the mother of all tourists: the midwestern family. The mother has at least 8 water bottles strapped to different parts of her body. She’s a hydration machine. The father has a baseball cap, white New Balances, cargo shorts and a camera on a strap around his neck. The kids are sunburnt, sweaty. They’re fighting. Try as you might, you cannot escape this posse, slowly strolling as they gaze with wonder at the gritty authenticity of the Manhattan Underground.
You weren’t ready for this. You never are. But when you emerge from the station, dancing with impatience behind the hydration machine and the very daddish dad, you realize that the neighborhood is. The first thing you see is a gift shop. Next door, there’s another. And next to that, there’s a restaurant advertising all you can eat buffet dinners for the low price of $14.99. This place is a tourist heaven. Everyone in the family can get an “I *heart* NY” tee shirt, a keychain, a fan with a vaguely Chinese pattern, sunglasses, fake jewelry, toys, and millions of other things, then skip on over for a New York Chinese dinner. It’s a perfect set up.
It would be wrong for me to report that the only businesses in Manhattan Chinatown are gift shops and restaurants. There are, of course, vegetable markets, doctors’ offices, tutoring classrooms, herbal shops, and many other places that make it possible for those who live there to survive. However, the majority of these “everyday” stops are on the side streets, removed from the hoards that pour out of the train stations. The businesses that survive on the major streets are ones that cater to tourists: professional shoppers. Further down, towards the Manhattan Bridge entrance, there are a slew of jewelry shops, offering everything from jade statues to engagement rings. Situated along Bowery, this is a perfect mall of expensive souvenirs.
After the gift shops and restaurants of Canal Street, nothing is more shocking than the humble, but bustling economy of the Chinatown in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park. A walk from 68th to 55th Street along this packed avenue reveals a consistent pattern of three sorts of stores: fish and meat markets, vegetable stores, and bakeries. Also strown among these thriving businesses are herbal remedy pharmacies, clothing boutiques, and cosmetic shops. Every single one of these businesses is full, and the crowds are no less intimidating that those in Manhattan, but unlike those diverse masses, the only languages audible are Chinese dialects. During my entire visit, I only came across three people who weren’t Chinese. This Chinatown is full of its own residents — it is a place to live, not a place to visit. The shops do not clean themselves up to become Insta-worthy for visitor. There are goods in cardboard boxes, food on plastic tables and even live fish in styrofoam bins (one of which escaped and briefly flopped on the sidewalk for a few glorious seconds before he was unceremoniously thrown back in). The stuff is cheap. Money flows around at lightning speed as grandmothers buy hunks of beef for dinner, school kids grab some cookies on their way to the tutor, workers on break order fish balls on sticks at street carts, and middle aged women purchase face cream. The stores are for the people who live there. There are no signs of “I *heart* NY” logos anywhere, and even the restaurants advertise their dishes in Chinese.
I am tempted to say that I like the Chinatown on 8th ave better because it’s so “authentic”. It certainly is; there are no facades, no attractions, no money traps. But I fear that my judgement is made with the arrogant assumption of tourism, that I, an outsider, can get a fully real experience of another culture, if I just find a good, unadulterated place to visit. Brooklyn Chinatown does not ask for tourists to come and validate its existence as Manhattan Chinatown does. In the presence of a real, self sufficient place like 8th ave, I feel that my opinion is of little value. There are people who live and make their living there, without any help from Brazilian couples or Midwestern families. I like it more than I like the one in Manhattan, but it doesn’t need me to.