Chinatown – Clara Hsu

Yummy Yummy

Jack Foley’s birthday is tomorrow. I wanted to treat him to a birthday lunch. We were in Chinatown. Finding the restaurant that was recommended to us closed, we kept walking down Pacific Ave. At lunch time the restaurants were packed with people. You had to take a number and wait in line in some of them. Jack had a radio show to get to. We couldn’t just wander aimlessly. I ran down the street ahead of Jack and saw Yummy Yummy. It was a medium sized restaurant and they promised we’d have a seat soon.

The head waitress’ shrill voice cut through all the noises. Maybe she was trained in the Chinese opera. All the other waitresses maneuvered around the room under her directorship. They brought out selection of dim sums in little tin containers. Diner’s voices bounced off the harsh white walls, floor and ceiling. I told Jack, “It’s like your collision texts.”

I gave Jack a bag of fortune cookies for his birthday. He opened the bag and shared them with the people sitting next to us. The chocolate flavored ones were surprisingly good.

Mission accomplished, Jack drove back to Berkeley with time to spare. I took a long walk to Bart, enjoyed the warm sun and fair weather.

Jack at 72
72 Jacks
at
Maxwell
well well
(none too loose
all cool)
kick ass with pen
kudos
to who?
All 72!

Breakfast is not Served

An early morning walk in Chinatown made me realize that nearly all of the restaurants had stopped serving breakfast. I was pining for a waffle, the old fashioned kind that was a little burned on the edges with a pat of butter melting in the middle. Or maybe an egg with a watery yoke. That would be fine too. But walking up and down the hills I was not able to find a place that would provide what used to be standard comfort food.

Although on the outside it is still funky and bizarre as if it is suspended in another time, Chinatown is changing subtly. The men sitting in the bakery drinking coffee and buying lottery tickets will gradually fade away, so will the homemade basement temples, and the old gangsters who talk football at one o’clock in the morning at Sam Wo. But I think in the gift shops they will always have something to sell to everyone. Like a charm on a red string, for protection.

Flag Day

This morning the Wong Benevolent Association on Waverly Place decked out their flags. “No parking” signs were tied onto the lamp posts between Sacramento and Clay Streets. A row of folding chairs was set up in front of the building. A man with a rag wiped down each red plastic seat and rusty frame. Old folks, done up, had big ribbon rosettes pinned on their chests.

Whatever the occasion, there were lion dance and fire crackers, food and music. Miss Chinatown Pageant brought out glittering young girls wiggling down the alley way in the arms of their escorts.

Down on Washington Street, youth groups put on blue overalls and started to clean the streets, all in preparation for next Saturday’s Chinese New Year parade.

I went about my business, but was affected by the sudden surge of energy. My piano students looked forward to the annual carnival on Portsmouth Square, where they would win stuffed animals and buy cotton candy.

Photo by Dutched Pinay

Old Man in Business

The old man was getting ready to leave as I walked into the optometrist’s office. He eyed me.

“I like your hat.”

“Thank you. You’re the first to compliment.”

“Really? Well, you know, when you’re 93 you can say what you want and not feel shy.”

He was waiting for his son to give him some lunch money so he could walk up to the Capitol Restaurant on Clay Street for lunch.

“They have chicken a la king on Thursdays. A little creamy for me but easy on the teeth.”

When he found out I wanted to have an eye exam and get new glasses, he went around the reception desk and pulled out a form for me to fill in.

“You’re Doctor Lee!”

The office was filled with papers of all sorts (mostly newspapers) and the counter had stacks of trays with glasses in them. Everything was dusty. Everything. Chinatown–old family business (over 60 years)–Mr. Rogers/Dr. Lee’s neighborhood. He learned my name and I was his friend.

“My son Michael will take care of you.” He gave me a wave of his hand and walked out.

Reading At the Li Po Lounge

Li Po conjures up poetry and wine. What is more appropriate than having a reading at the Li Po Lounge in Chinatown? Last night the moon is thin like a sickle, not the bright moon that Li reached and literally died for. But it will fatten up some what between now and next Tuesday, when verses will be spoken there along with flowing liquor.

I have never set foot in the Li Po Lounge, although I have worked in Chinatown for nearly 30 years. Sometimes a peek through their half-opened door I sensed an isolated world of (mostly) old men drinking into oblivion. Now, poetry will bring a fuller experience in the dimly lit den and Chinatown itself, where culture is the lion dance or a fortune cookie.

If the Chinese children learn poetry at all they learn in the classroom. But I think Li Po is not there. He would not be pleased to see such orderliness, but turn the corner to Grant Ave where the double red door awaits.

Photo from fecalface.com

Chinatown, 7pm

Stockton tunnel — Stockton Street tunnel

It was early evening, and Stockton Street had already retired. A handful of pedestrians, a few cars cruised down the street. The garbage truck double parked just before the tunnel. Two workers sat on the steps of the Chinese school building peeling oranges. A heap of rind between them. This laziness did not befit Chinatown, when just a couple of hours ago it was bustling with shoppers and students.

People may have gone home early to prepare for the Chinese New Year, which comes early this year, on January 23. The other day I went to the hairdresser and all the chairs were occupied! Everyone wanted a hair cut before the New Year.

In the balmy evening I strolled leisurely down. At the other end of the tunnel was Union Square. The lights were still festive there, but the mood had also changed.

photo by Joseph Szymanski

What’s Real, and What’s Not

Garlic, green onion and cilantro are considered to be foul-scented ingredients. They are not used in a true Chinese vegetarian restaurant, like Lucky Creation, located on Washington Street in Chinatown. On the back of the hole-in-the-wall place is an elaborate alter filled with flowers and fresh fruits for Buddha. Monks and nuns eat there, so do intrepid travelers and locals like me and Dore, who enjoy most of what they serve on the menu.

One late night we passed by Lucky Creation. They had already closed. But when they saw us gesturing at them they opened the door and let us in. Ever the hard working people, the cook went back into the kitchen and prepared our dishes while the other workers sat at the round table continued with their dinner. I smelled something unusual, an aroma that I never associated with a vegetarian restaurant. As I looked over to their big table I saw an array of dishes—beef, pork, fish—all real and generously prepared with garlic, green onion and cilantro—not the imitation gluten-meats that they serve to their customers.

“You guys are not vegetarians.” I exclaimed, shocked.

“Of course not.” Said the lady owner. “We’re all meat eaters. It takes a lot of energy to run a restaurant. We need strength.”

“But…but, what does Buddha have to say about this?”

“Oh he understands. We all have to make a living.”

Our noodle dish arrived with crispy puff gluten, three types of mushrooms and a black bean sauce. The little restaurant had turned surreal as I wondered about the fat belly of the golden Buddha. He seemed to be chuckling at us.

Jewel In The Haystack

After a reading at Sacred Grounds, Dan Brady and I took the N Judah to Irving to catch the 44 bus. We were talking about poetry when a Chinese man (about our age) looked up from his reading and smiled at me.

“Hello.” He said. “You work at Clarion. I work at The Pot Sticker down Waverly, remember?”

Sometimes it was hard for me to recognize people when they appear out of context. But I realized he was the waiter who took my take-out orders.

“My name is David. You go to poetry readings? I like poetry too.”

David spoke very good English. I told him we used to have poetry open mikes at Clarion. I would have invited him if I had known.

“What are you reading, David?” He showed me the cover of his book. It was Carl Jung. I was blown away. All the years I worked in Chinatown I had not met one person who had the slightest interest in poetry, psychology or philosophy. David and I could have been great friends. I told him I had sold Clarion. He too, looked disappointed.

I had too many questions but we were approaching our stop.

“Come to the reading at Sacred Grounds.” Dan and I urged him. He couldn’t. He had dinner shift on Wednesdays.

I saw David again some months later, at Eric’s, another Chinese restaurant on Church Street. He was a little distant when he saw me, and because he was working, we couldn’t talk too much. The last time I went to the restaurant, he had stopped working there.

Go Back In Time For A Cheap Eat

Late night in Chinatown has the atmosphere of a film noir. With shops and restaurants closed so vanished the crowd. Freshly sprayed sidewalks smell of fish. Garbage cans and wet cardboard boxes are the still lifes. Walk uphill into the neon-sphere. A couple tumble out of the Buddha Bar. Our car is parked on Washington and Taylor. I need to fill my stomach before taking on the hill and Sam Wo’s dirty red sign blinks at me.

It has been some years since I went to Sam Wo. I am no longer the young wide-eyed tourist, nor the tour guide when friends came to town, nor the music shop owner who needed a bowl of won-ton soup at one in the morning before driving home. Sam Wo hasn’t changed in all its one hundred years. The slapdash kitchen at the entrance, the narrow stairs, the rectangular tables with slanted red legs, the dumb waiter, the thin film of grease that get swished around by the waitress’ rag…food is still priced no more than $6.25. Time stops, where the good Sam Wo stuffs the bellies of poets and wanderers. I finish a third of my chicken chow-mein and box the rest to go. Outside it is darker still.