Photo by Brett Harris
It should come as no surprise that China Twenty-One loves Chinatowns. I recently visited San Francisco, where I was able to see one claiming to be “the largest outside of Asia.”
For me, the promises of San Francisco’s Chinatown were great and many: the best dim sum in North America, a long history of Chinese immigrants, and an old-fashioned fortune cookie company at the heart of its alleyways. Could you imagine my excitement?
Even before stepping foot into Chinatown, I already felt the deep imprint that Chinese immigrants have left on the city. I couldn’t believe my ears when I was on the bus, for example, and stops were announced in three languages: English, Spanish and Cantonese.
We visited the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Company (apparently a tourist attraction in its own right) in the middle of Ross Alley — a strip once notorious for back-parlour brothels. Three ladies were hunched over fortune-cookie makers, slipping small pieces of paper between the still-hot baked wafers.
I loved the look and feel of this Chinatown. While Toronto’s has a lot to be proud about, San Francisco’s Chinatown really struck me because it was so reminiscent of Hong Kong’s hilly streets. The architecture is colourful. The shuffling of mahjong tiles can be heard from buildings you walk past.
Here are a few facts on San Francisco’s Chinatown, by numbers:
41: The number of alleyways in SF’s Chinatown’s 3.5 square-kilometre area
100,574: The population of SF’s Chinatown, according to the 2000 census
1848: The year the first Chinese immigrants – two men and one woman – arrived in San Francisco
300+: The number of restaurants in SF’s Chinatown
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