Chinatown: A visit to China minus the jet lag
If it feels like you’re in China while navigating the crowds that spill onto the sidewalk from every produce market on Kearny or Stockton Street, it’s because San Francisco’s Chinatown packs one of the largest Chinese communities outside Asia—about 20,000 Chinese and Chinese-Americans—into a three-by-eight-block rectangle. True, the souvenir shops and restaurants on Grant Avenue are filled with tourists. But the sidewalks on every other street and alley are the domain of the Chinese and Chinese-Americans who live here.
Squeezed between the Financial District, North Beach and Nob Hill, Chinatown’s unofficial boundaries are Bush, Kearny, Broadway and Powell Streets. But it’s easy enough to know you’ve entered Chinatown by the sudden appearance of dual-language signs. The tourist gateway is at Grant and Bush, where a pagoda arch spans the intersection, but it’s the streets and alleys that branch off Grant Avenue that bring you into the real Chinatown. There isn’t a chain store in sight and most of the shops are uniquely Chinese. You’ll see long rows of herbal remedies in the Chinese-medicine pharmacies, whole pigs hanging in butchers’ windows and sheets draped over fire-escape railings to dry. In Portsmouth Square, you’ll see elderly gentlemen playing Elephant Chess, the Chinese version of the Western game.
Chinatown is a poor neighborhood, certainly compared to the folks up on “Snob” (Nob) Hill, but it’s quite safe for pedestrians—partly because it’s always so crowded. It’s also a bonanza for bargains, whether you’re a commuter strolling over from your office building to buy a slab of fresh bean curd for $1.20, or a tourist treating yourself to a $4.50 dim sum lunch or a 60-cent pastry at a Chinese bakery. But you can spend a bundle, if you choose, on Asian art at one of the many trading companies or on memorable meals at Chinatown’s best restaurants.
The long history of Chinatown, which dates to the 1849 Gold Rush, is best learned by signing up for one of the daily Wok Wiz walking tours (www.wokwiz.com). The bilingual guide, while describing Chinatown’s history, will typically lead you into an herbalist’s shop, a calligraphy shop, a tea shop for a tasting, an incense-infused Buddhist temple, and more. The three-hour tours conclude with a dim sum lunch, where you can try handmade dumplings until you feel like one. Wok Wiz also conducts “I Can’t Believe I Ate My Way Through Chinatown!” culinary tours.
- by Bob Cooper, San Francisco Reporter for HelloMetro
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Bob CooperBob Cooper is a full-time freelance writer (www.bob-cooper.com) who writes about travel, outdoor sports and health. He is a monthly contributor to Runner's World and has written recent articles for other national magazines such as Continental, Ladies' Home Journal and Inc.
