The New York Diaries: Chinatown

Welcome to Chinatown.

People said New York is like a melting pot because it houses inhabitants from every part of the globe. But I wouldn't really call it a melting pot, because melting pot suggests the assimilation of various races and cultures into a cohesive whole (as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary), like a soup. 

New York is so diverse, it's more of a salad than a soup. In a soup, you taste the combination of several ingredients but you don't taste nor see them distinctly. The individuality of each ingredient is lost in the steaming broth. Everything has been boiled to produce one distinct taste, eg: mushroom soup, onion soup, and so forth. 

On the other hand, in a salad, you can still pick out the lettuce, the tomatoes, the avocado, the bacon bits - each ingredient still carries its own identity, unfazed by the other ingredients in the bowl. The lettuce doesn't taste like bacon and the bacon doesn't taste like lettuce. Each ingredient is unique and adds a certain flavor to the overall salad. This is what New York appears to be like, at least in my opinion anyway.

The different cultures - Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Greek, Spanish, and more - are scattered throughout the place, but within the city itself, there are clear-cut neighborhoods populated with people from that specific region. They get along with other cultures very well but still prefer to reside with others who share similar cultural ideals and beliefs.

And one of the biggest cultural neighborhoods is Chinatown.

There are actually three Chinatowns in New York and they can be found in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn, with Manhattan's being the largest.

When I visited Manhattan's Chinatown on my first day in New York, it felt strangely familiar. I kept thinking of Petaling Street, one of the famous tourist spots in Malaysia.

Within several minutes of being there, I wanted to leave. I'll be honest - Chinatown wasn't my favorite place. It was great for food and souvenir shopping, but the crowd and persistent vendors were overwhelming. 

Many shops sold knockoff designer products. The vendors would stand outside, trying to lure you in. Some were just scary. I was walking down the street and several merchants were advancing on me with their fake handbags.

"You want bag? Purse? Come, come inside. I have plenty. You name it. Kate Spade. Prada. Coach. I have LV also. You want LV? What do you want? What do you mean you don't want? Hey, wait, I'm not done yet. I have Gucci - "

I disappeared around the block.

One even stepped in front of me to block my path. They were too persistent! 

You want souvenirs? Chinatown has cheap ones. They sell all the touristy stuff, from I LOVE NY t-shirts to sunglasses, snow globes, keychains, postcards, cellphone cases and bags. 

I had my DSLR around my neck and was snapping away, when a Caucasian man asked me, "Where are you from?" Something about him didn't seem right. Maybe it was the odd glint in his eyes.

Prior to being in New York, my friend had warned me that should anyone ask where I was from, I should say New York. "You don't want to seem like you're not from there, so just say you're from there so they won't take advantage of your foreignness," she'd said.

So when this man asked where I was from, I instantly said, "Manhattan."

The moment the words left my lips, I regretted them. Manhattan was too close for comfort. I should've picked a different island like Queens or Brooklyn. Too late.

"Manhattan?" he guffawed, the large white hat almost falling off his graying head. "But you look like a tourist!"

"I'm a photographer." Self-proclaimed photographer anyway.

"Photographer?" he chortled, shaking his head. 

I walked away before he could dig any deeper. In Malaysia, the nickname for him would be "kepochi," referring to people who ask too many prying questions fueled by curiosity, questions that don't concern them. 

Several minutes later, I encountered another weird stranger. I was separated from the woman who'd brought me to Chinatown because the throng of people kept filing into the streets and cutting in front of me. I tried to weave my way through the crowd to get to her but it was tough with so many bodies blocking my path. 

A tall Asian guy with scarily bright blue eyes (contact lenses) came up beside me to match my pace. I didn't think anything of it until I heard him snicker. He was smirking at me. The strange glow in his fake blue eyes made me uneasy. And his constant smirking and snickering was getting on my nerves.

"Are you laughing at me?" I said.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise and for a split second, appeared stunned that I'd shot the question so directly. Then his twenty-something-year-old face creased into that annoying smirk again. "Yeah, it's so funny to see you trying to get back to your mom..." He gestured toward the woman I was obviously trying to get to. He giggled again, the hair-raising kind that made you shudder inwardly. 

And then he melted into the crowd, the back of his messy black hair riding above the sea of bobbing heads.

Good, those eyes were seriously creeping me out.

Moving on.

I went back to Chinatown several other times - mostly for the food - and my favorite place there was Joe's Shanghai restaurant. (food review coming up on my food blog).

Joe's Shanghai serves a wide range of Asian cuisines. I was there with my friend Jason, and we feasted on the Singapore fried noodles and pan-fried gyozas, along with a basket of fresh xiao long paus. The xiao long paus, needless to say, were delicious! The gyozas were excellent for their kind but the noodles were satisfactory. 

The place is well-known for xiao long paus. So hey, if you live in New York and want to be adventurous one day, go to Joe's Shanghai and order the xiao long paus. They're mini steamed pork buns, delicately made, tender and succulent. You'll love them. 

I got lost in Chinatown once when I was supposed to meet some friends for breakfast. Google Maps was messing with me - not funny, Google - and I ended up having to walk along the back alleys (but it was in broad daylight and the narrow alleys were packed with people, so I didn't feel too unsafe) until I found the restaurant. I passed wet markets, which I hadn't seen since I left Malaysia, and the air was suddenly punctuated with the familiar pungent stench of fish.

Multiple-storeyed buildings packed together. The area was alive and throbbing with a parade of colors, food, smells and sounds. The older Asian venders hollered in broken English to passers-by, while the younger Asian-Americans working in restaurants spoke fluent Mandarin and English. The dirty streets, littered with rubbish, snaked through Chinatown like frozen black rivers.