Oh how I love Greenwich Village.  It looks like Diagon Alley, it has the greatest mushroom ravioli ever, and most importantly for this blog, it’s known for its beautiful architecture.  As Eric and Kayde mentioned, we decided it would be fun to meet up on Friday night by Washington Square Park’s famous arch, which is the most prominent work of art in the entire Village.  The arch, a monument built to honor the 100^th anniversary of the inauguration of our first president, was clearly inspired by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.  I’ve had the pleasure of seeing both in my life, and the one major difference is that Napoleon insisted that the names of all the places he conquered were carved into the sides of his arch, whereas G-Dubs was both a more humble man and quite dead by the time his arch was built.  Nevertheless, it’s an incredibly beautiful piece of architecture and it makes me really happy that New York has its own little slice of Paris right in the Village. (Ever since I went in April, I’m kind of obsessed with Paris. Does somebody want to be like Helen in Bridesmaids and take me back?)

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One of the things that struck me about Greenwich Village is that even though it has a reputation as an artsy neighborhood, there is actually very little traditional art there!  When we infiltrated NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, one of the students actually told us that when he thinks of art in the area, he thinks of Chelsea.  As he put it, most of the art galleries have moved out of the Village to Chelsea because the rent in the Village is 2 DAMN HIGH.  (Sorry, I couldn’t resist…is that guy even still relevant anymore?)  But even though it doesn’t really have any galleries, the Village still does earn its reputation as an artsy neighborhood because of the architecture of its beautiful buildings, many of which are owned by NYU.  I thought their student union was particularly pretty—you can see it in the background behind the fountain.

However, it’s not just the architecture that makes the Village artsy.  To get out of the cold for a few minutes we went into one of the local university cafés, and a young man we interviewed there mentioned that every morning on one of the nearby streets a man with curly hair just sits and paints all day (see Eric’s blog for the video).  When we came back into the park we ran into NYU’s theater group rehearsing in full early 20^th century attire for a play about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.  Also, earlier in the evening when I was walking around the Village with my dad, we spotted two street performers playing a violin duet.  So you see, a lot of the art we found was not the type of art that usually comes to mind!  But maybe that was the reason why I enjoyed myself so much in Greenwich Village—rather than the art being contained in a gallery, the fact that it was literally built into the neighborhood via the architecture really makes the Village feel like a living, breathing piece of art.  (Although, like Kayde said—good luck finding anything there, unless you happen to be looking for a giant, white, illuminated arch)

            Our night started in Union Square Park and immediately we saw this statue of Ghandi. Not only did he have a necklace made of flowers, but in front of him was an entire garden. The beautiful plants in bright colors were a great start to my night and really got me in a nature mood.

            Although at times it was questionable which neighborhood we were actually in, we were all too distracted by the apartments to really care. There were gorgeous townhouses and walkups all decorated lavishly with beautiful wrought iron doors. I admit I proclaimed “I NEED TO LIVE HERE” a few too many times. When Zohar went to check her lottery ticket, I let her know that if she won, she was absolutely obligated to buy me a townhouse.

What was really interesting to me was the opportunity Halloween presented for the average person to be an artist. Almost every building had some form of Jack-O-Lanterns in front of it, and we found some pretty unique ones. I think that the pumpkins were an outlet of creativity that most people usually don’t get. For just a little while, every one of all ages and backgrounds get to unleash their wild spirit into a pumpkin face.

After finding many different Jack-O-Lanterns, we actually passed an apartment building that had a whole pumpkin on display in their courtyard. Walking down a main street with shops, we found a florist who had incorporated pumpkins into their windows. I think it’s safe to say that pumpkins are a pretty vital part of natural art this time of year.

Of course, this is not the type of art most people expect to hear about. Through walking, and in our interviews, we got to hear about various other types of art. We passed many cool galleries that were unfortunately closed. These ranged from regular art exhibits to “drawing workshops.” In an interview with a security guard, he even told us that the New School often exhibits student artwork. Two girls sitting in a Starbucks let us know about a Lower East Side walking tour, which we unfortunately could not take because it was night. (GAAAAHHH!)  In my favorite interview, someone who works at Blue Man Group told us about street art and street performers. I would have loved to see these! Graffiti is awesome because people can really do whatever they want. They have no pressure to make their art in a certain way or to please a certain group of people. Street performers are extremely cool because it’s pretty much live theater for free. They perform for everyone, so people on their way to work, people shopping, people just walking around all get a little art in their life. This can be in the form of music, a live statue, or even a “human robot.” I think as much as people don’t like being asked for money, street performers make everyone smile a little bit…

Proof that the entire ZENS group was together.

One of my biggest issues with the Village the few times that I’ve ventured to the area was that it is impossible to maneuver. The streets all seem to converge and unless you’ve committed the street names to memory, even the best sense of direction will need assistance. Even when we went to see Asuncion, we shared adventures of getting lost and/or followed, and if I recall, Professor Healey mentioned that even the people who live in the Village don’t know their way around.

Despite my quarrels with the layout of the village, I was excited to be assigned this neighborhood, because quite frankly, I’m never there. That being said, my group decided that our meeting place would be Washington Square Park, an area often depicted as an artistic experience in and of itself. However, as I arrived to the park, I couldn’t help but feel off put by the construction that was going on and the grass all being fenced off. How would one attend an artistic performance in a park that is partially a construction site. Nonetheless, individuals flocked to the park on that chilly Friday night. The main attraction? The beautiful illuminated arch in the middle of the park.

I think it need not be explained why my group unanimously decided that the arch would be the focus (and meet up destination) of our conquest to find art in the Village. Heck, if architects didn’t know it would be such a huge attraction, they wouldn’t have invested God knows how much money to have the structure illuminated for the late night dwellers who happen to wander into the park. Which is another thing that I found interesting, unlike other parks, the sign for this park said it closes at 12am in comparison to 9pm. I guess that worked out well for the NYU theater students that we happened to come across rehearsing their play on worker’s rights in the middle of the park. Dressed for the part, they marched around in the 20th century attire and demanded less hours and more pay.

Not only does the park attract theater performers, but we also came across many photographers trying to capture the beauty of the arch. In fact, one of the photographers informed us that he even though he wasn’t from the area, he was in the park to photograph an event that was happening for Nike. This demonstrated not only the diverse forms of art and expression that occur in this iconic part of the Village, but the appeal of the park to non-locals.

As my group ventured out of the park and into the rest of the city, the presence of NYU seemed to be a very influential aspect of the neighborhood. The architecture of the dorms and many of the buildings had a very quaint appeal to them, and felt like they should belong in a vintage movie about a struggling artist. Continuing our quest to find art, we were, much to our surprise, permitted to enter the Tisch School of the Arts, where a lecture seemed to be held in a room just out of our reach. We did however, get to interview one student who had a very interesting take on art in the Village. When we asked him how he felt about the area, he declared that there isn’t much art left to be found outside of the school’s gallery.

He supported his claim by explaining how much of the local artists had been pushed out of the area by it’s increasing cost of living there, and all that remains is wealthy, privileged NYU students. To an extent, I agree with this student, although I find it ironic that he insult the “rich NYU kid” being that he most likely is one of them. While my group walked around the Village, it seemed more filled with pretentious college students, bustling about, and quite possibly looking for a party (hey, it was a Friday night after all). Although we did encounter various art forms in the park, and were informed of a local “curly haired” artist, I did not see much evidence of art outside of the school of art and Washington Square Park. I think the area does show remnants of a once predominantly artistic community, especially with it’s beautiful brownstones. However, other than that, I did not see any sculptures, murals, not even any graffiti. Maybe the lack of activity was due to the chilly weather, but I must agree with the student from the gallery and say that majority of art has been removed from the Village, and in its place are pretentious individuals longing to appear artistic (who must have AMAZING GPS systems on their phones).

After reading the assignment, Zohar, Ebrahim, Nicki and Sylvia (ZENS), were excited to get started…so excited we made a catchy/witty group name ^_^! Like my groupmates I was quite skeptical on whether or not we’d find any art in Lower East Side. I know the infamous Museum Mile but that’s Upper East Side! So after some research I was anxious to go on this quest and find a mime to guarantee my A+.  Alas, Lower East Side had no mimes. 🙁

Galleries. I think Lower East Side is infamous for these because as we were walking block after block we saw so many various galleries. Upon discovering these galleries I was ecstatic, thinking this assignment will be cake…unfortunately, they were all closed -_-. What was even more grrr inducing (frustrating in Ebrahim) is that all the security guards were camera shy and didn’t give us any worthwhile info.

Architecture. What I will say about Lower East Side is it has a lot of beautiful architecture. As we were walking around I saw unconventional (in the most awesome way) buildings and really awesome doorways. See Sylvia’s awesome blog post about the architectural magic in the Lower East Side

During our interviews I began to ask myself, what exactly constitutes as art? After all, I’m asking these total strangers where they’d go to find art and I don’t even know what I fully consider as art! Or do I? (dun dun dunnnn! *dramaticmusic*)

The best part of the quest was definitely going down to the Blue Man Group and talking to this fun-loving awesome dude. He told us that his favorite type of art in the Lower East Side is in fact the street art and performers you can find. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see any street performers. However, I agree with him; if I was traveling to any community in the search for art, even though I’d definitely pop in some museums and galleries, my favorite type of art would be street art.

Holidays however, also allow individuals to express themselves in an artistic manner with wondrous decorations and Lower East Side was living proof of this (well technically Lower East Side can’t breathe nor would it be considered ‘living’ but you get what I mean). Halloween is of course notorious for its use of pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns. As we walked down blocks of homes we couldn’t help going crazy, crossing the street back and forth to take pictures of these creative pumpkins. Now you may think that cutting a pumpkin isn’t an art form but just look at these pictures!

PS. Keep an eye out for ZENS production of Inhabited, coming to Queens College this December.

… you accidentally enter the wrong bathroom. While in Chinatown, before my group and I were getting ready to watch a free performance, I needed to use the restroom and remember being confused about which bathroom to enter since both of the doors were wide open and you couldn’t see the front side of either door. I just randomly chose the door on the right and went in and saw nobody. When I come out, I see my group laughing hysterically and think, “What’s so funny?” Then I realize that a guy just came out of the bathroom on the other side – OOPS!! It’s not my fault I can’t read the Chinese words which were on top of the bathrooms which I saw afterwards.

Anyways, aside from this little anecdote, going to Chinatown in downtown Manhattan was in some ways familiar to me while in others, very different. When I think of Chinatown, what comes to mind first would have to be all the very cheap food restaurants and the street vendors. All this, I most definitely saw when I went to Chinatown but I also an artwork, a statue of Confucius which we decided to make our piece of artwork to focus on in Chinatown. We decided to make the statue of Confucius the piece of art we were going to focus on because Confucius is such a central figure in the lives of Chinese people because of all the principles he has set for Chinese people to follow. The statue of Confucius is art because it represents the cultural and moral values of a whole nation.

On our vast expeditions of Chinatown, Rui Yan happened to show us a place where we could enjoy live Chinese performance for free. Unfortunately, when we got to the performance, I didn’t really enjoy it at all. Even though I thought that the costumes for the performance were decent (I keep reminding myself that I need to get a pink suit), I just found the performance to be really boring. All I saw were two emotionless people on stage, who were just singing and nothing else. They didn’t seem engaged with the audience and I couldn’t understand a word they were saying because it was all in Chinese – maybe that’s why they call it “Chinatown”. Before the performance, when Rui Yan and Jodi asked to interview the director of the play, we were sadly turned down because she was busy preparing all the singers. Although we did not get to interview the director, we still did manage to fit in three interviews.

We saw two people just waiting on the corner of the street waiting for somebody so we went up to them and asked them for an interview. Like us, they were also relatively new to Chinatown and they didn’t seem to know too much about it but they did give us some information about the Confucius statue and Columbus Park. After hearing more about Columbus Park, it quickly became our next destination. From a couple blocks away from Columbus Park, we could already hear the wonderful tradition music being played. Without a doubt, Columbus Park is the most eventful place in Chinatown. Within, you would find many older Chinese people just sitting around and playing music which is where we found our next victim. Although our next interviewee was speaking in Chinese, I could tell that he was really knowledgeable about Chinatown and he has been there for a long time. He gave us some insight into his daily life, saying that Chinatown is his life and on a daily basis, he comes to Columbus Park with his little music group, playing their traditional Chinese instruments. After all this, we were all craving (especially me) for some dim-sum which I have always wanted to try so we went to a restaurant that Jodi had suggested. We luckily found a table right away, in which we found our next victims. When asked about the artwork in Chinatown, they were timid in their answers but when asked why do they even come to Chinatown, they had a more direct answer. They were primarily here for grocery shopping and for the very cheap food which I have to say was delicious.

All in all, Chinatown, is not really a place filled with tourist attractions and artwork, but a place filled with street vendors and restaurants. While looking at the statue of Confucius, I realized that we were really the only ones looking at the statue which made me believe that people don’t really come here for the art. In the end, I did come out with a enjoyable experience. I got the chance to listen to traditional Chinese music at Columbus Park, eat dim-sum for the first time in my life, and watch a live Chinese performance. Out of all this, there is most definitely one thing that I will remember the next time I go to Chinatown, always make sure to look above the bathroom and to read all the signs, whether it be in Chinese or English. Hopefully next time I won’t make the same mistake.

Little Italy isn’t exactly what it used to be. When walking down the streets, no one will find age old Italian families sitting on their stoops or playing in the street, one will actually be hardpressed to find some Italian families. While Little Italy used to consist of Italian-American residents actually living in the area, it has now been consumed almost entirely by Chinatown, which borders it. As a matter of fact, when walking out of the subway station (which should have thrown us immediately into Little Italy) I found myself staring at an awning with a gigantic dragon and the words Little Chinatown. Now instead of being some ethnic neighborhood, Little Italy is essentially just a strip of Italian restaurants lining the streets of Manhattan. You can’t walk two feet without a man stepping in front of you inviting you inside for his lunch special. This is not to say, of course, that it is lacking any artistic value. It just consists of it’s own unique art. The art there is different, but still inspires emotion. When I listen to Luciano Pavarotti belt out Vesti La Giubba, I am brought to tears. When I gaze upon the Mona Lisa, I am struck with awe. But none of these feelings amount to the swell of emotions I felt when I brought the first bite of Palermo’s brownie cheesecake to my mouth. I mean, don’t you want to just die looking at it?

The rich ricotta flavor, the smooth creamy texture, the dense chocolate brownie, all carefullly constructed and beautifully placed on my dish. John Delucra (owner and founder of Café Palermo) imports all of his cakes in from Italy daily (that’s right-straight from Italy!) and to me, this slice was the truest piece of art.

When we asked around, a lot of people found themselves at a loss as to where we can find any particular piece of art, but to me, there was art on every corner. Cuisine is just as artistic as any other venue, and it was all round us.

To create a piece of cheesecake such as the one I consumed, it takes skill, craftsmanship, and extreme culinary talent. The eggs must be beaten in a delicate manner, the sugar blended with the butter just right. Every step takes careful thought and intense deliberation. One artist may wield his paintbrush, another grips in his hand his wooden spoon.

In this manner, Little Italy is riddled with the arts.

Giovanni’s, Angelo’s, Sal’s,  La Nonna, Cafe Palermo; these are just a few of the restaurants that one encounters. Each one brings something different to the table, each place has a different piece that is it’s distinct artwork, and each one as good as a museum as far as exhibiting art goes. Whether they have the best cannoli, the best marinara sauce, the best clams (for a directory of which restaurant to go to for each of these, please consult our video), each one has its claim to fame, i.e; the dish that they create with the utmost artistic abilities.

While Little Italy isn’t too immersed in any street art or performances, it is still the best source of Italian cuisine. If you approach a random passerby on the street and say “Where’s the best place to get lunch around here?” they will hesitate, fumble for words for a second, then each one will have a different answer. And everyone will be right.

So if you want a place to view gorgeous pictures, listen to amazing sonatas and watch mesmerizing shows, Little Italy may not be the place to go. But if you want to tantalize your tastebuds, and stimulate your mind through a blend of ingredients, it is the place to go. Maybe I’ll see you there, I know for one that I will be going back for that cheesecake pretty soon…

Lower east side, lower east side…. What’s in the lower east side?! That is what was going through my head as I read the assignment.  Ok, well Union Square. And then what? I later discovered there’s more to that part of town than just the square and the park.  There’s “Alphabet City,” which I had not realized were the avenues that were named for letters, as well as lots and lots of galleries.  Two out of our three interviewees spoke to us extensively about the museums and galleries that displayed different types of art.  One said there were heritage museums dispersed around the area, we just had to find them.  The third interviewee, an employee at the Blue Man Group, spoke to us mostly about street art.  He suggested many places where art is expressed on the walls and on the street corner rather than behind glass at a closed off museum. He told us of a mural with painted cats smoking and doing drugs (on 3rd st and avenue B) and of a man who plays strictly bass guitar and allows for other people to bring their instruments to join him.  He (the interviewee) made a point to say that the there are many places to see art in a room, but he preferred the more prominent street displays.

Our walking journey began in Union Square park, we thought it to be the center of the neighborhood. And it happened to be really convenient to get to.  From there we wandered around, a little more south and east with every turn.  In order to find people not too busy to share their thoughts with us, we tried to leave the busy areas behind and look for the side streets where there are more houses than stores.

Whilst walking through these parts, I the thing that caught my eye was the architecture of the houses. They all looked very much alike, something I am not used to in my Long Island neighborhood. Most buildings were only a couple of floors, about 3 or 4, very unlike the skyscrapers that dominate further downtown.  They were all made of a dark brick and had similar stoops in the front. The door frames were the most intriguing part.  They were very elaborate, even the ones that seemed to be worn.  Mostly white, if I recall correctly, and stretching down into Greek-themed doorposts like the pictures below.

If you ignore the Frankenstein, you will see that the doorposts on either side look very much like columns of Greece as well as Rome, only less round and more box-like.  The Greco-Roman theme even extended to the inside of lobbies as in the picture below. Looking carefully, you can see the same type of columns and decorations along the walls. It may not have been interesting to anyone else, but the oneness in feature caught my eye immediately.

Just a side note, I noticed that none of the apartment buildings had doormen or any type of security.  Just a little ways north of where we stood, in the Upper East Side, basically every building had a door man, so why the change?  It was a great contrast in my mind the differences between neighborhoods thought they were in such a small radius of each other.

An entertaining up side to all of the walking were the leftover Halloween decorations that were still up.  We made some interesting little friends as we walked through the neighborhood and enjoyed the collective creativity of the lower east siders.

朋友你好 -Hello friends! (in a simplified version of Chinese) Throngs of people, scattered gift shops, narrow streets, and let’s not forget about the wonderful restaurants were seemingly ubiquitous in Chinatown. This was my first “authentic” visit to Chinatown, in which I had a chance to explore and take several interesting snapshots of the region (and try some amazing FOOD!). First, let me start off with the nature of the people that lived in Chinatown. For the most part, I observed a homogenous group of people (predominantly Chinese) and many of the people seemed pretty amiable. For the three interviews we filmed, the people were very responsive and patient with us, which I found delightful. There were also people from different backgrounds, but not too many, who were interested in trying out the food and did their grocery shopping there. Moreover, the majority of the people were speaking in their Chinese dialects and most signs were also written in Chinese, so it was tough trying to identify certain areas, but much thanks to Jodi and Rui Yan for helping us boys!!

In addition, I would like to randomly add: I did not know that Chinatown and Little Italy were so close to each other! I remember walking with my group and seeing Little Italy, thinking we better head back to Chinatown. Another thing I found amusing was my group and I saw a sign that said “Little Chinatown.” I was pondering, “Is this Big Chinatown then?” (of course, jokingly). Now that the “amusement part” is over, I would like to talk about art in Chinatown. In fact, I actually am in accord with Rui Yan that Chinatown lacked significant pieces of art. I do not know whether the creative items in the gift shops count as art, but I noticed a dearth of interesting pieces of art in Chinatown. For instance, even during our interviews, most people said they came here for the food and shopping, rather than to view art. Nevertheless, after an hour of roaming around, we encountered a Chinese theater for opera, in which entrance was free (how exciting!) Honestly, even though I did not understand what the people in the opera were singing, the voices were nice and the setting was well-arranged. Furthermore, we spotted a statue of Confucius, a famous Chinese philosopher, who emphasized education, morals, and family values. Just like  Rui Yan, I felt that this statue symbolized Chinatown as a whole because it exposes the Chinese culture to us and how important family and traditional customs are to the Chinese people. I don’t recall seeing any other forms of art in Chinatown, unless graffiti on the walls count… 😀

My favorite part about being in Chinatown was Columbus Park. I greatly enjoyed watching people practicing their ‘tai chi’ and playing their musical instruments (unique instruments, too!) In fact, there was also singing, which I found interesting. We spoke to the aged individuals who were playing music for entertainment purposes and found them to be very knowledgeable about the area and in Chinese culture. I found the instruments they were playing very creative and interesting and then I realized the talent of these people and how hard some people work to earn a decent living in this country. Thus, I contributed some money to these old musicians, for they deserved it. Now going back to the food, the restaurants were extremely crowded. The first restaurant we went to had a very long wait and then we scurried along to this restaurant well-known for its dim-sum (yum!). I just had to say this because I never seen such packed eateries before.

Even though this was my first trip to Chinatown, I felt that I really enjoyed it, especially the cool gift shops with all sorts of accessories and Columbus Park. Chinatown may not be the best site to visit for art, but it is definitely a worthwhile place to hangout with friends and family to shop and eat (which most people come here to do). After all, Chinatown is mainly a tourist attraction and recreation/cultural center. In my opinion, Chinatown is an interesting place to be in, but be warned for it can get very and I mean very crowded, sometimes making it uncomfortable to be there. Combined with the narrow streets and tons of traffic, you definitely do not want to travel there by car…Nonetheless, I am glad that I got the opportunity to experience Chinatown. Now here are some interesting pictures that I would like to share:

Chinatown is an uninspiring place. Although hundreds of tourists visit it everyday and find it somehow attractive, many people live in there because they have no choice. They are stuck in there. We don’t know how many elders who live in Chinatown have never walked outside of its border. There is an impression among Chinese people that the elders living in Chinatown are mean. To me, this is not a stereotype; it’s a truth. I don’t want to discuss the reason behind their meanness, because it is complicated and not worth mentioning. And this is my impression of Chinatown. It neither changed since I first set foot on it more than five years ago nor after I finished this neighborhood project.

Going back to arts. The artwork that our group chose for this project was the statue of Confucius in the Confucius Plaza. The reason we chose this statue as our artwork was because Confucius is a symbolic figure of China, and Confucius Plaza is a landmark of Chinatown. Every time I ask my mother how to get to a certain place in Chinatown, she would always say walk towards or away from the Confucius Plaza. Tourists must take a photo in front of the Confucius statue before they leave Chinatown. The statue itself is not especially artistic. What is important is Confucius’s teaching. His teaching has set the Chinese moral standards and cultural values. He is regarded as the wisest scholar in Chinese history. Because of that, people put his statue in the most prominent location in Chinatown to remind themselves not to forget his teaching. While I have never read “The Confucian Analects”, the basic ideas of his teaching are deeply founded in my mind. Perhaps, this is more essential to me than his statue.

The Pearl River is too familiar to me. Well, I don’t mean the gift shop on East Broadway, though it is my favorite Chinese gift shop. I mean the real Pearl River. In my mind, growing up in Guangzhou is growing up along the Pearl River. It has fed me and saved all my childhood memories. I remembered my favorite place was the French concession along the river. I love its tranquility and western style architectures. The Pearl River is said to be the “mother river” for everyone who grew up in Guangzhou. I am glad that the gift shop is named “Pearl River”, because this river has bred the Cantonese people generations after generations, and it has witnessed the changes of its people in Guangzhou throughout time. It became a symbol of memory and nostalgia.

In addition to the Confucius statue, Cantonese opera is another prevalent art form in Chinatown. As a fan of the traditional Chinese opera, I cannot leave this blog without discussing the Cantonese opera. Cantonese opera is a traditional performing art form that is popular in the Guangdong Province, Hong Kong, and Macaw. While it has many similarities with the other Chinese local opera, Cantonese opera is smoother and softer, just like the water flowing down a small stream. This characteristic features the special culture of the Pearl River Delta region in southern Guangdong Province. While wandering around Chinatown for this project, we have experienced both professional and amateur Cantonese opera performances. The Columbus Park is a stage for Cantonese opera amateurs. During the weekends, retirees will gather in several groups to perform a part of a Cantonese opera or sing traditional Cantonese folk songs. Their audiences are the old park goers who also enjoy Cantonese opera. The Cantonese opera enthusiasts all entertain themselves at the park with their shared hobby. The free Cantonese opera event in the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (one of the oldest Chinese community centers) was a little more formal than the park performance. It was a gala events which the singers sang excerpts from several Cantonese opera repertories. Although the performance was more formal, the performers were not necessarily professional. How could singers carry out the feeling of the song if they couldn’t even remember the lyrics? Despite of that, the event was not a bad experience for a big fan of traditional Chinese opera like me. (I feel deeply sorry for my group mates, because I thought they got really bored at this. Please don’t hate me!)

As a native Chinese, it is really difficult to talk about Chinatown without adding subjective views, and so does its arts. Because performing artists don’t have achieve high status in the traditional Chinese cultural values, most of the Chinese performing arts are very down-to-earth, and so as the performing arts in Chinatown. For similar reason, arts are relatively independent from people’s daily lives, and it is true for all kinds of arts. Arts rarely influence people’s lives, but people’s lives influence the arts greatly. Because Chinatown is a relatively isolated and distinctive neighborhood, its inhabitants are able to keep the very traditional Chinese arts. However, is this a good phenomenon? I want to hear from you.

A little video for this project. Pleasant memory!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spQTMNWeL0I