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Reflection Paper: Grace Paré

May 19, 2017 / gpare / 0 Comments

When I planned my first trip to Chinatown, I found myself unsure about what places I would go to see. Looking over a few Chinatown travel guide websites, I realized that most of the places suggested were restaurants or more modern dessert spots or specialty stores. I was puzzled about the lack of diversity in this representation, but soon realized that anyone looking to be guided on a visit to Chinatown online was most likely a tourist who would want to be entertained and experience something recognizably Chinese. Having visited Chinatown before this project many times, however, I knew about little cobblestone side streets off of Canal and Bowery that were full of small shops. The online representations were guides for a superficial experience of the neighborhood. It was important to recognize that this was the image that outsiders, such as non-New Yorkers, or non-Chinese people, would get on a first visit. To get the view of a true visitor, I decided to go to some of the more popular and visible sites.

Honestly, I did not enjoy these spots as much as the rave reviews online prepped me to. Munchie’s Paradise, which came to New York in 2000, seemed insipid and overly expensive compared to the street carts I had just passed which offered pounds of fruit for pocket change (Jay, par.3). I could see, however, that if I had come with the expectation only to get something Chinese, I would have been more than satisfied with the store. It was brightly colored; dozens of bins of snacks and candy lined the walls. The candy mostly conformed to the general flavor canon of green tea, red bean, pudding, and milk, that I had experienced innumerable times before in every Asian market. The people in this shop were all clearly from other neighborhoods or even other states. Every single person who was in that store took pictures of the rows of candy on their phones or cameras.

I’ve always had a certain amount of disdain for people who go into a neighborhood trying to get an “authentic” experience. Firstly, a day spent in the neighborhood is definitely not sufficient to get a grasp of the lives of the people who live and work there. Secondly, people seeking to get an “authentic” experience often start with incorrect assumptions of the culture, and expect something exotic, while these people may, in fact, live very similar lives to themselves. Thirdly, I don’t think that a neighborhood should be diminished into an experience, just something to be enjoyed. If one wants to enjoy a place, they should also care about and support the people who make up the neighborhood. This lies in the same vein as the issue with people who support Trump’s deportation laws and wall building, but still want to use Mexican culture when Cinco de Mayo comes around. However, as I had a limited number of trips that I would be able to make to Chinatown, I felt that I would be guilty of some of these offences. I would have to plan day trips that I thought would encompass as much of Chinatown as I could. However, the concept of Chinatown is a difficult one. Would I try to visit as many small businesses as I could? Should I target stores that were everyday stops for a resident there? Or should I focus on the experience of the main customers: the tourists and the young people who came for the trendy restaurants? I resolved to visit a couple of each of these sorts of places. Munchie’s Paradise was my tourist stop, an unnamed bakery and Elizabeth Street Deluxe Market were my everyday stops, and Mahayana Buddhist temple was my attempt to learn more about those who hold tightly to their culture and religion. It was very difficult for me to talk to residents there, because I do not speak Chinese, and most of them do not speak English, and even if they did, they were often irritated or too busy to speak to me.

One of the most common types of businesses in Chinatown is the small bakery. These places often sell lunches in addition to cake and bread, and so have become a regular stop for many Chinese residents and other people who work in the area. I stopped by one of these, and had quite an interesting experience as I tried to explain to the lady at the counter what I wanted. She did not speak English, and there were no signs in English, so the best I could do was point and gesture. Language was certainly one of the biggest setbacks during this entire experience. Without the ability to interview people who were running the places I visited, I certainly missed out a lot on the opportunities to gain insight into their lives and their thoughts on the changes taking place in their own neighborhood.

The visit to the market was chaotic and a little dizzying. The place was packed, and I realized, most acutely, that I did not belong there. I went in to visit, but there was no such thing as a casual visit in this place. The crowd was mostly women, all middle aged or older, who were buying pounds of meat, and huge bunches of leafy green vegetables, perhaps part of a weekly shopping routine. I came in with the intent of seeing a spot that was truly unique in its “Asianness”, and I definitely got what I asked for. I was not the cool calm observer I had imagined myself to be. I was pushed this way and that by the crowd, and I was overwhelmed by the action around me. In the process of going to study people, there is a danger of setting yourself up as a little god, picking and choosing which people you’d like to see that day, and scribbling down little notes of approval or disapproval as you strut through their home. This market certainly put me in my place. There was no pretense of control I could muster. They didn’t care about my interests, and they weren’t interested in what I cared. After a minute or so of spinning about in the crowd, I decided to put away my notebook and become part of it. I pushed my way through and bought some food like I was supposed to. I think I’ve learned that it’s pretty silly to expect to go to a bustling market and stand on the side making little notes. I don’t think that it’s effective to learn about a community just by watching stuff play out in front of you. Anthropology requires the researcher to not only observe, but also participate in the daily activities of the people they study (“Intro to Anthropology”). I couldn’t do this for as long as a real anthropologist would, but just to experience a few minutes along with people who really lived and worked in Chinatown was better than only peering in on them from the outside.

Thinking back over the visits I took to Chinatown, I can’t really say whether I’ve had an “authentic” experience or not. I don’t know if that word can ever be used to describe an experience that an outsider takes into a cultural center where they have little knowledge or experience of the lives of the people who really live, work, eat, and learn there. The food I ate may be authentic, and the temple I visited may have been authentic, but my experience was just a superficial scraping of the depth that the Chinese community there lives every day. Now that Chinatown is a destination, and not a “ghetto” like dumping ground for the immigrants that Americans wanted to ignore, much of what is really organic and natural in this neighborhood may disappear, or be banished to little corners of the city, just as all of Asian culture used to be (Lee 422). My hope is that the increased visibility of Asian culture will cause people to become more accepting of all of it, even the parts that might offend Western tastes, sights, and smells, but this is unlikely, given the trends of gentrification that I have seen, as businesses begin to clean themselves up for the White middle class, rather than the White middle class educating themselves on the worth of deep cultural identity.

My visits to Brooklyn Chinatown were made a little bittersweet by this realization. This Chinatown is relatively untouched by gentrification, and I could see that the one in Manhattan could have been like this at one time, more blatantly Chinese, with crazy smells and sounds coming from every corner: old men playing Chinese music on ancient radios as they sold herbal remedies on the sidewalk, women shouting out the prices of the food they were selling, children yelling and running along the street, and grandmas haggling with street vendors. The entire place was like the Elizabeth Street Deluxe Market. As an American born and raised, I was more uncomfortable here, since there was less of a chance of anyone knowing English, and I had no idea what many of the items for sale were. However, I could recognize that this was more of a home to its people. There was no show put on for the uninitiated. While many people believe that immigrants should assimilate to American culture when the live here, I see no possible loss if they don’t. Through exposure to another culture, I gain understanding that people can think and act and live in ways wildly different from my own. There is less value in a community where culture has been stripped to be replaced by cheap commercialism and capitalist overtures to tourists. I want Brooklyn Chinatown to remain what it is, for my sake, just as much as for theirs.

Works Cited

“Introduction to Anthropology”. University of Toronto. 2003. http://individual.utoronto.ca/boyd/anthro4.htm. Date Accessed 19 May 2017.

Jay, Ben. “A Tour of Aji Ichiban, an Asian Snack Paradise in New York”. Serious Eats. n.d. http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2014/02/a-tour-of-aji-ichiban-the-asian-candy-havens-outpost-in-nyc.html. Date Accessed 10 May 2017.

Lee, Rose Hum. “The Decline of Chinatowns in the United States”. American Journal of Sociology. vol. 54, no. 5. March 1949. http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2771160.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Aebd01f687f22917b4c8fe80e4f90ea72. Date Accessed 19 May 2017

McCarthy, Ciara. “Chinatown is Being Taken Over By Wealthy White Gentrifiers, City Report Says”. Lower East Side Patch. 26 April 2017. https://patch.com/new-york/lower-east-side-chinatown/chinatown-being-taken-over-white-wealthy-gentrifiers-city-report. Date Accessed 10 May 2017.

Field Trip: Chatting Over Ice Cream

May 19, 2017 / gpare / 0 Comments

On my third visit to Chinatown, I was determined to get an interview. I had previously been unsuccessful because of the language barrier that existed between me and all the business owners I had come across. I now planned to find an English speaking visitor and ask them what they thought of the gentrification I had read so much about in my research.

I intentionally decided to visit a tourist attraction in order to ensure that I would find some English speakers. It was a warm day, so I decided to go to the Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. The place is a small, slightly dingy establishment sheltered by a yellow awning with green dragon on it.

There’s no seating, but many people stand in or around the store as they eat their ice cream. I paid $5 for a single scoop, which seemed like a lot at the time, but the first bite I took was enough to justify the price. The ice cream is rich and intensely flavorful. The rose lychee scoop I had was exactly what rose and lychee should taste like, but made even better by the thick cream. I just stood in the shop for a bit as I ate it, and scoped out potential interviewees. A couple other customers walked in while I was there, but they seemed in a rush, so I let them pass. Finally, when I began to think that I should get going and try somewhere else, a group of three men came in who joked around a bit with each other and seemed like they were going to hang out there for a bit. I started off with a question about their ice cream, then asked if I could do a quick interview. They obliged.

The group was made up of two White men, Jake and Evan, and one Asian man, John, all within the age range of 26-35. They were coworkers at an office on Mott Street, and they came to Chinatown regularly for lunch. I wasn’t able to get a recording of the interview since they didn’t have too much time, so I quickly asked a couple questions and wrote down paraphrases of their answers after they left.

I first asked them how long they had been visiting Chinatown. I wanted to know if they would have had a chance to observe long term changes in the area. John had come to the neighborhood a lot as a kid, and Jake used to date a girl there, so both had known Chinatown for about 15-20 years. I asked if they had seen any changes, but they were confused by the question, so I specified that I was looking for signs of gentrification.

The guys were puzzled since they “thought this was the only neighborhood not getting gentrified, dude”. They claimed that the only difference they had seen was the increase in tourism along Canal and other main streets. I realized that a lot of the gentrification that was occurring, and that was evident in statistics was not necessarily obvious on the street level. However, as I walked to the train station on my way home, I saw a lot of new businesses that catered to a more modern and less traditional taste: bubble tea spots on ever block, fancy restaurants, bakeries with Western goods and multitudinous tourist souvenir shops. I think the process of gentrification happens too slowly and steadily in some cases to be obvious. In Williamsburg, the coffee shops with mason jars and fancy roasts may stand out enough from the bodegas to be visible, but in Chinatown, the slow transition of businesses that were already there to cater to white middle class tastes will not be so apparent.

The Tourist Experience(Field Note #2)

May 11, 2017 / mjeanlouis / 0 Comments

During my second traipse through Chinatown, I wanted to get the true tourist experience. Many tour guides have all of the hotspots to get the “Chinatown Experience” and I intended to go all the way through. I started with the Manhattan House of Detention. Because the building was built to resemble an Egyptian mausoleum, the jail came to be called “The Tombs”. The original building was torn down and eventually a new modern Manhattan House of Detention was erected. It is still referred to as “the Tombs” by attorneys and prosecutors today.

After some time walking, I arrived at Columbus Park.

Many elderly Chinese people come to play cards and mahjong there. During busy hours, you’re more likely to hear musicians singing traditional Chinese songs and playing lutes. Early in the mornings you may even spot a group of people doing tai-chi. The area where the park stands now and the surrounding streets was known as Five Points, an infamous, crime-ridden slum depicted in the book and movie Gangs of New York. Using the map provided to me by a guide, I arrived at the Church of the Transfiguration (at the corner of Mosco and Mott Sts.).

This multi-denominational, multi-lingual church has served immigrants here for more than two centuries. The building was erected in 1801 by a Lutheran congregation. The church is still Roman Catholic but its congregation is mainly Chinese making it one of the largest Chinese Roman Catholic congregation in the Western world. Sermons are held in English as well as two dialects of Chinese, Mandarin and Cantonese.

Aji Ichiban Candy Store 37 Mott Street

Despite the Japanese name, this Chinese chain of candy stores sells hundreds of kinds of Asian and Western candies and dried fruits, nuts, jerky, seafood and a fabulous selection of all things gummy! There are small sample dishes next to most items – I would ecommend you sample the pre-served rose petal, a wasabi peanut and the candied baby-crab.

Pell Street

This narrow colorful street, lined with 100 year old brick tenement apartment buildings, small storefronts and awnings and flags with Chinese writing is a favorite locale among photographers and filmmakers, as no street more than Pell screams out “This is Chinatown!” Due to the numerous barber shops and hair salons, locals sometimes refer to Pell Street as ‘Barbershop Alley’. By the early 20th century, like many of the smaller streets branching off of Mott Street, Pell Street had its share of vice in the form of brothels, gambling houses, gang hideouts and opium dens, two of which were located at 11 and 13 Pell.

Shearith Israel Cemetery

This small, hardly noticeable sliver of land is the oldest cemetery in New York, dating back to 1683. At that time, this area was outside the boundaries of New York proper and thus suitable for a graveyard. Spanish and Portuguese Jews were the original founders of the Shearith Israel congregation, the only one in New York for nearly 200 years until 1825. Though you cannot enter this tiny cemetery, you can see some headstones with Hebrew writing. This is one of the very few pre-colonial sites left in the city yet most New Yorkers have never heard of it. It is a treasure of history tucked away and should not be missed.