Sat observation - new Chinatown

I was talking to an ethnic Chinese parent who had their daughter go to a Cram School for SAT during the summer, and their daughter got 780 on the English and Math each. Impressive. There are a lot of those type SAT prep centers in the Rowland Heights area.

Chinese Children Problems in the US

My wife was reading the Chinese Daily News that had an article about some new problems in the Chinese community. Some parents will send their newborns back to China to be taken care of by the grand parents, and of course they are spoiled rotten. Often around age 5 or 6 they come back here to live with the parents. One parent, the Father may be working out of state in a restaurant, and the Mother is working long hours. So the kid becomes a latch key kid and may not do that great educationally and may even get involved with gangs.

I would appreciate a link to the original story if anyone can sent it to me from the Daily News, the pictures alone are worth it.

Another challenge is parents who send their kids to school in the US, while they stay in Taiwan or China. Often the parents have no adult supervision, not even relatives, for those in High School. Dangerous combination, high school, cars, no adult supervision often means problems. Yes, the majority turn out fine. There is also a lot of anger when it's hard for the parents to get a Visa to visit their kids in the US.

Volunteers at my High School - why mostly White?

My daughter's High School has a parents Booster Club that runs a Bingo and brings in about $200K a year for the school. The challenge is most of the members are White, yet most of the school is Asian (Chinese)? Not sure the why of this.

On a positive note, my suggestion for a bit of automation was done for the Bingo for a game called Bonanza, now the numbers only need to be entered one time. When I was a caller I noticed the numbers were entered at the beginning, and then when the game was played. But I heard other Bingo's did not do this, so I looked at the manual and figured out with some programming we could also have this ability. So I suggested and finally our bingo vendor sent somebody to do this - I know how to program, but like the idea of having somebody do in 5 minutes what would take me 2 hours tgo do

Wayne Wang Movies

Wayne Wang Revisits The Immigrant Experience from NPR. I was on my way to pick up my daughter from Choir and listened to this.

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers opens Friday in theatres and looks really good. The Princess of Nebraska, a companion film, will be released on YouTube. His big movies hits have been The Joy Luck Club and Maid in Manhattan.

References:

• Wayne Wang on IMB.
• Wayne Wang - Wikipedia
• Wayne Wang's double exposure from the LA Times.
  

Flashing Red Lights - New Chinatown

I was driving to and from my daughter's High School this morning, they had a practice SAT there, and one intersection had a flashing red light. 2 out of 3 times I had problems with drivers who endangered me through their illegal actions. The last time I took a different route home.

Flashing red lights is supposed to act like a stop sign. Unfortunately some drivers just drove straight through it without stopping, which was scary.

Pinkberry Clone

Pinkberry accuses area shops, others, of copying its brand from my local paper.

The challenge is anytime you open a store, especially in a heavily Chinese area you will get copycats. Note how the copycat stores are located in Alhambra, Arcadia, and a new one in San Gabriel. All heavily Chinese areas in Southern California. I am curious if Pinkberry was smart enough to do some copyrights. Disney does an amazing job using copyrights to protect their intellectual property.

Related Posts:

• PinkBerry - The Craze
• Creating New Competition

Sirens & New Chinatown

In the new Chinatown I live in, Rowland Heights it's fascinating and a bit scary to watch what happens when a fire engine, ambulance, etc. has it's siren going.

The state law in California are you pull over to the right of the road when you hear a siren. And sometimes the emergency vehicle uses the wrong side of the road.

So what happens here? People stop in the middle of the road, and if on the other side just keep on going. And after the emergency vehicle passes, they don't keep much of a distance.

I am surprised the local sheriffs don't just wait near the ambulance or fire station for them to get a call. The tickets would be so easy...

When in Chinatown, do what the Vietnamese do

When in Chinatown, do what the Vietnamese do - What the article misses is many of the Vietnamese in Chinatown are ethnic Chinese. It's changing Chinatown in Los Angeles, but Chinatown in Los Angeles is always changing.

Rowland Heights - New Chinatown - Observation

Why are there so many dentists in Rowland Heights where Childbook.com is located?

I just noticed and every strip mall seems to have a dentist office in Rowland Heights. I can think of 10 off the top of my head and per google there is 30+. I am not sure on the reason. My guess is an education emphasis among ethnic Chinese and Koreans (which a large number live in Rowland Heights).


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ChildBook's Listing of Chinatowns: Chinatowns of the United States

Associated Product:

				Exploring Chinatown: A Children's Guide to Chinese Culture
				Our Price: $22.95 Sale Price: $19.95 You Save $3.00!
				This is a book for kids, families, and teachers who’d like to get more out of their visit to Chinatown than an “I escaped Alcatraz” t-shirt or oversized pencil. It’s a guide to what makes Chinese culture, well, “Chinese.” It covers almost everything, from how to order in a restaurant, and what not to do with chopsticks, to how to write characters in Chinese and how to make potstickers. It tells about herbal medicine shops, temples, and tearooms.

Chinatown's - In unexpected places

San Luis Obisco had a Chinatown. The city is just north of Santa Barbara and has the other Cal Poly where they make half the Rose Float (I went to Cal Poly). The population of California at one time was 10% Chinese. Another story about the tunnels of the Chinatown in Fresno - An urban legend has resurfaced This time in the LA Times. Third article I have read about Fresno's Chinatown. What this added was that Chinatowns were seen as a mysterous place that all sorts of strange things happened. My take from that is it's easier to hate people when they are seen as different.

References:
Exploring Chinatown: A Children's Guide to Chinese Culture onsale!

Chinatown Tunnels in Fresno

Tunnels of Fresno's Chinatown continued and they are now offering tours! Fresno is a city in Northern California that has become a suburb of Silicon Valley, but is/was a farm town. This page has an old picture of a building in Fresno's Chinatown. Here is the web site for Fresno's Chinatown. An older post on Chinatowns with a link to an older article on Fresno's Chinatown (I thought did a better job). What is disappointing is most articles and pages don't mention this: Five hundred Chinese American men were forced by terrorists to leave their jobs in nurseries and vineyards around Fresno. Much less why did it happen, and how did the Chinatown rebuild. And the official site for the Fresno's Chinatown sanitizes the history. When you think of Chinese in America it's either as miners, laundry, or on the railroad, but there was a large population in agriculture.

Relevant Books:
The Chinese in America by Iris Chang that I need to put on my site soon...
Exploring Chinatown: A Children's Guide to Chinese Culture

Chinatown Express - Low Cost Bus Service

The Chinatown express article by the Economist mentions how the cheap Bus Service found in many Chinatowns is getting competition from non-Chinese companies, such as Grey Hound. In LA for example, it's possible to get a low cost bus ride to Las Vegas or San Jose using the "Chinatown Express". There is one from NY to Boston for $10.

Related book Exploring Chinatown: A Children's Guide to Chinese Culture

Chinese Associations & Clinton Fundraising

Chinese Associations, often called Tongs go back in the US till the Gold Rush. In a recent article in the LA Times on a high amount of Fundraising in NY Chinatown for Hillary Clinton among Fujianese immigrants, the term Chinese Associations came up. The article in summary said a large amount of Fujianese immigrants of low income (dishwashers making $500/week giving $1000 donation) gave money to the Hilliary Clinton Presidential campaign. The reasons giving in 20 interviews ranged from the ability to have a picture taken with Senator Clinton and send it back to relatives to they were asked by as a favor (by a Chinese Association) and they would lose face if they did not. On a policy side on an NPR interview with the LA Times writer, the writer mentioned that Senator Clinton has spoken of the need to reunite families divided due to immigration issues and is seen as immigrant friendly in her policies.

The province of Fujian traditionally has produced a large amount of immigrants. The local dialect is what is called Taiwanese in Taiwan. I was surprised when a person from the Philphines and my in-laws were talking to each other, and what language would you guess - yes, Taiwanese/Fukienese . Why the difference in spelling between Fukienese and Fujianese - Pinyin. Like Peking and Beijing.

The immigrants to the US have been both legal and illegal. The going price was $50,000 (14 years ago it was $20,000) and it takes 3-5 years paying back the cost. This is often done by working in Chinese restaurants as waiters, waitresses, and cooks. Women also find work as nannies. Figuring out the size of this population is challenging, but the total estimate for illegal immigrants is 7 to 20 Million. And if you estimate 5% is Chinese, thats a large number. Especially when the Legal population for ethnic Chinese in the US is 2.7 Million per the 2000 Census. Snakeheads are the smugglers and Tongs/Chinese Gangs used this as a major source of revenue. More profitable than drugs and less of a risk of prison time. Here is a recent article on a person in a tong.