Six Taste's New Chinatown Food Tour: The San Gabriel Valley looks nice.

3 hour tour. Usual price is $55, but you can get it through GoldStar for $33.

It would have been nice if they also included a Chinese Vegetarian and Muslim restaurant to show the great breadth of Chinese food.

Another tour which tries to go through the Historical Prospective of the New Chinatown, but I believe the food is a better one.

Hmm... What would have been more interesting is starting from the American Chinese Restaurants, the Cantonese style ones that were considered Chinese food 30 years ago. And then visit different Chinese restaurants, a Chinese market, Dim Sum, Chinese desert place, and a vegetarian place.

Cute book - Exploring Chinatown: A Children's Guide to Chinese Culture
My listing of Chinatowns of the United States

Labels: chinatowns

And all gone now...

The Chinatown was in Maryville, which is next to Sacramento.

Nice article - We always look back' - Bay Chinese explore roots in Marysville

Some related links:

History of Chinese in Sacramento

Chinatowns of the US and Canada.

Labels: chinatowns

A good story about how Monterey Park became a new Chinatown. Frank Girardot: Monterey Park an icon of change from the SG Valley Tribune.

A factor I would also guess is the school district is just outside of LA Unified. The ethnic Chinese immigration has gone East in the Los Angeles area. Monterey Park, Alhambra, San Gabriel, little to the North due to school districts San Marino and then Arcadia. Continuing out to Hacienda Heights, Rowland Heights (I live here), Walnut/Diamond Bar (school district my daughter is in), and Chino Hills.

My listing of Chinatowns of the United States

Labels: chinatowns

On the way to Home Depot (3rd visit today) and saw a license plate that ended in 666. 6 in Chinese means smoothly, works great, etc. and is a lucky number in general. Per the Bible it's an unlucky number.

Then I saw a car with 444. 4's are the same sound in Mandarin as Death, so it's an unlucky number.

Labels: chinatowns

LA Times has two articles about the Phoenix Bakery in LA Chinatown today. I have been there a couple times, but I prefer the newer Bakeries such as JJ Bakery and Nini Bakery.

The two LA Times articles.

• Strawberry cake forever - Seems to be the standard whip cream cake everyone has. I like Chocolate with Mango :-) Some Chinese bakeries even have ice cream cakes - on my to do list... Diamond Bakery I believe has these.
  
• Making moon cakes from dawn to dusk - Note - Every Chinese bakery I have been to has Moon Cakes...

Yes, I know most of the bakeries around where I live. My major complaint is why don't they stock Soy Bean Milk? Most stock soft drinks, some Boba, but no Soy Bean milk.

Labels: chinatowns

Oakland CA Chinatown Makes Aviation History - SF Chronicle.

I did not realize this was a real story, I have the book that is very highly rated by my customers.

				Dragon Wings
				Our Price: $6.99
				Product Rating 4.7 stars (3 Ratings) Write a Review Read 3 Reviews Dragon Wings, Their Dream Was To Fly. A young boy journeyed from China to join his father in San Francisco Chinatown. His father's dream is to build and fly his own airplane. Great book to learn about the Chinese immigrants in the early 20th century.

Labels: chinatowns

This story in the Chicago Tribune, Chinatown: a hidden jewel worth seeking mentions that it used to be heavily populated by ethnic Italians. So was the LA Chinatown. There is still a Catholic Church down there and there used to be an Italian restaurant, Little Joe's. The original LA Chinatown was where Union Station is now, and then moved into Little Italy when the train station was constructed. More on the history of LA's Newer Chinatown.

References:

• Chinatowns of the United States and Canada

• Exploring Chinatown: A Children's Guide to Chinese Culture

Labels: chinatowns

San Francisco Loses at Badminton - WSJ.



Refreshing example of making City Hall listen.

Labels: chinatowns

A while ago I put together a page of Chinatowns in the US and Canada, and I just updated it again. I added two more Chinatowns I did not know about, one in Oklahoma City and the other in Cleveland. I need to ask my customers if they know of any more in my next E-Mail.

I think there is at least one in the Carolina's area, but I did not have any luck with a google search.

Site that has some Chinatowns. List of Chinatowns - Author did a nice job. I did not know about one in Detroit. New Jersey - I am having challenges figuring out which city. Interesting article - When Newark Had A Chinatown - Timeline 1910

The challenge now days is everybody is so mixed up in neighborhoods, so the traditional Chinatowns are not needed anymore.in many areas have disappeared as we have become a society segregated more on income and education, rather than race.

Labels: chinatowns

Today was just one of those days!

I was going to the Post Office driving across the parking lot, and this white car just made another lane to my right (cars going the other way would usually be in that, but since it's a parking lot it was not marked). Then a truck pulled right in front of me right before a stop. Finally parked and got into the Post Office. Then right after leaving a Mercedes changed lanes and got right in front of a Sheriff who was in a hurry.

Then, taking my daughter home later from her cello lesson, we stopped by Borders (yes, I am addicted to books, so it's probably good I run an online bookstore) and again a person pulls in front of me when I have the right of way, then makes a right turn onto the main street, and then decides at the last minute to get onto the freeway. I passed the person as soon as I could safely.

Only thing I saw in common were two of the drivers were talking on cell phones. And driving around Rowland Heights is challenging some days!

Labels: chinatowns

The Other Chinatown Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco. They also have a Chinese New Year events which you can find here Chinese New Year Calendar Events, Parades, and Festivals

For other Chinatowns of the US and Canada

Labels: chinatowns

Newcomers Have the Numbers to Upend City Politics from the NY Times, about how immigration in NY is changing the politics.

Interesting quote:

while some of those who immigrated from China tend not to understand multiparty politics, the project found.

The Chinese community in the US is a sleeping giant politically, the challenge is they are so diverse. The only thing I see they have in common is respect for education and food. Politics, language, income, etc. have a huge amount of difference. What does a fifth generation person who's ancestors came over in the Gold Rush have in common with a person who arrived from China on a 747 a couple of months ago?

Labels: chinatowns

A Chinatown like no other from the LA Times, via the Minneapolis Star Tribune, MN.

I live in Rowland Heights. A friend of mine in Texas mentioned the article as did my paretns. I missed it when it first came out.

I would give the article a grade of C+, it really did not capture Rowland Heights area.

We have late night places to eat and karaoke, to major businesses that are ethnic Chinese owned such as NewEgg and Viewsonic, to many small businesses. We also are county, so we are not a city (good and bad). Diamond Bar and Walnut are both cities, as well as the interesting City of Industry (99% businesses, with a few lucky residents). Hacienda Heights also has a large Chinese community and has a lot in common with Rowland Heights.

Diamond Bar/Walnut have better school districts by test score than Rowland. Rowland is a mixture of La Puente, West Covina, Walnut, City of Industry, and Rowland Heights. The district has some heavily Latino areas, Asian, and African American areas. There are a few whites around (like me). School districts don't follow city lines in California, so even if you buy a house in Walnut you may end up going to Rowland School district.

We got lucky and through a lottery got my daughter into the Walnut/Diamond Bar School district that has better test scores than Rowland. A lot of my daughter's friends have done the same. So many that somehow Rowland supposedly closed this loophole (I am sure it's frustrating when all your best students leave).

The area has gone through a lot of changes, some positive and some not. My daughter's K-5 school looks like it will be closing, replaced by Apartments. Why - the school did not change with the times. Wonderful school, that could have been so much better. They shocked my wife when the school principal at a dinner started talking about how their graduates went to such wonderful schools as Azusa Pacific, Cal State LA, Mt. Sac, etc. My wife wanted to hear Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, UCLA, UC Berkeley...

And Rowland Heights has lots of Chinese great Chinese food! History and Culture: Chinese Food is a nice article.

And a listing of Chinatowns across the US Chinatowns of the United States

Labels: chinatowns

I am helping out a friend with a Trade Show, and we stopped by dinner at the Las Vegas Chinatown and then checked out the 99 Market. There is also a 99 market in Rowland Heights.

Some observations:

• The Chinatown here has increased in size. Their is now a vegetarian restaurant (Rowland Heights has 2) and lots of restaurants.
• The Chinatown here is aimed at Asians in general (Philippino fast food is an example, where in West Covina next to Rowland Heights we have a huge Philippine area). The 99 Market was smaller than the one in Rowland Heights, but still had a good selection.
• The Chinatown here has a mixture of the usual tourist junk you find in the LA Chinatown, plus non-tourist stuff.
• Food was OK and pretty authentic. We ate at a place inside the mall that was open. Staff wore a Chinese style shirt, that you don't see in Rowland Heights. More touristy.

My listings of Chinatowns of the United States

Labels: chinatowns

Earthquake readiness taught in Mandarin in Mountain View, home of Google and a great used bookstore! It makes sense to give presentations in the language of the people in your area. In Silicon Valley, there is a large Chinese population. And yes, Childbook.com does get a few orders for Learning Chinese products from this area :-)

Labels: chinatowns, Learning Chinese

Exploring America’s Chinatowns from MSN.

It only lists a couple of Chinatowns, my list has a few more :-) Chinatowns of the United States and Szechuan restaurants are a bit scarce. In LA, which has a huge selection of Chinese restaurants from A-Z, the two best are in Monterey Park (no, I have not had the guts to go there). LA Weekly - Eat+Drink - Chile Scenes of Summer - Jonathan Gold ...

Cantonese in the older Chinatowns are the most common. New Chinatowns will have a mixture of Northern China and Taiwanese, along with the usual dim sum places.

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

Labels: chinatowns

Class Action suit against Pinkberry.

A PinkBerry just opened a few blocks from our house, and my daughter loves it! The branding is wonderful. I believe the first Pinkberry opened up in Koreatown. A graphic designer I worked with (A+ work), drove with his family from Chino Hills to Rowland Heights to go to Pinkberry. The finish they give to each of their dishes is a work of art. Just beautiful! There are many other places in our Chinatown, oops I mean Rowland Heights that are selling Frozen Yogurt, but none are as popular as Pinkberry.

Labels: chinatowns

I am up in the San Franscisco area visiting suppliers (and my Grandmother is on the way...). SF has a huge Chinatown, there are also lots of newer Chinatowns in the area. There is a big Chinese mall over in Fremont, Chinese Restaurants on Castro Street in Mountain View (and a great used bookstore, BookBuyers‎, that is not Chinese related). Angel Island that was the Ellis Island of the West is also a good visit. In San Jose there is also a Chinese garden.

Non Chinese related is two great bookstores. One in Menlo Park, Kepler's Books & Magazines‎ -and the other in Palo Alto, Book Inc. Books Inc‎ has the Idiot's Guide for Doing Business in China. I gave it a quick look. I am not sure of the significance when there is enough demand for an idiot's book, does that meant this is to trendly, a bubble, or just the interest in China is that huge? Another book that I will definitely be getting is Emotional Design, who also wrote a favorite book of mine, The Design of Everyday Things.

Labels: chinatowns

There is an archeology dig being done in San Jose at the site of what was a Chinatown. An article from the local paper, the mercury news covers it. Path to Chinatown in San Jose lot and Excavation planned of former Chinatown in San Jose The article mentions how the previous Chinatown was burned, and how a German immigrant built a walled area to protect local Chinese. When I hear the term walled area, I think of the term Ghetto.



Lawrence Yep has written some great books that include this time period of Chinese history in the US in his Gold Mountain Chronicles.

Related Links:

• Chinatowns of the United States
• Chinese American History
• Racism Against Chinese in the United States
• Chinese Historical and Cultural Project (CHCP) in San Jose - Excellent group! The webmaster gave us a tour of their museum one time.

Related Books:

Exploring Chinatown: A Children's Guide to Chinese Culture
Our Price: $22.95
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.


Kai's Journey to Gold Mountain: An Angel Island Story by Katrina Saltonstall Currier, Illustrated by Gabhor Utomo (hardcover)
Our Price: $21.00 Sale Price: $16.95 You Save $4.05!
A journey through the Ellis Island of the West for Chinese, Angel Island, by a young boy

Angel Island Prisoner, 1922
Our Price: $11.50 Sale Price: $7.50 You Save $4.00!
A journey through the Ellis Island of the West for Chinese, Angel Island, by a young girl.

Labels: chinatowns

At the local Hong Kong Market Plaza in Rowland Heights, there were three restaurant suites all empty. Dragon Noodle, also known as Supreme Dragon , then empty suite, then Good Time Cafe, then empty, empty, and the market. In another part of Rowland Heights, it appears a
Vietnamese Restaurant that used to be a Taco Bell has closed.

Supreme Dragon is a great place for Beef Soup and Steamed Dumplings at a pretty good price. It's survived by having fast service and good prices. Good Time Cafe is a Taiwanese Cafe. My favorite their is pork chop rice, that is actually a fried pork chop over rice that includes a soy sauce egg. The name makes you think fried rice. A place opened right next to it one time, also selling Taiwanese Food. Not very nice of the plaza management to allow this. Good news was Good Time Cafe survived this, and their competitor is no longer there.

Restaurants have a high degree of risk. That is one of the challenges with chinesediner.com was how to keep it up to date, with restaurants going out of business all the time. The challenge is people could falsely enter a restaurant has gone out of business. And who would have time to check if a restaurant has truly gone out of business. chinesediner.com was a Chinese Restaurant Finder I had set up for a while, but closed down because of the maintenance issue.

				Dim Sum For Everyone!
				Our Price: $6.99 Sale Price: $5.99 You Save $1.00!
				Dim Sum For Everyone! Great book about a little girl's visit to a Dim Sum restaurant.
				Cooking with Kids - Exploring Chinese Food, Culture, and Language
				Our Price: $24.95
				Should your kids Learn Chinese Cooking? And some Chinese? Then get this DVD for ages 8-12 that includes much more than just Chinese cooking! It gives your kids a fun way to learn Mandarin Chinese tones, words, and phrases.
				The Ugly Vegetables by Graced Lin
				Our Price: $6.95
				A little girl wonders why she and her Mom are growing plants in their garden that are so different from their neighbors'. Recipe for Ugly Vegetable Soup included!
				Fortune Cookie Fortunes by Grace Lin
				Our Price: $6.99
				After a young Chinese American girl opens fortune cookies with her family, she notices that the fortunes seem to come true, in a story which includes brief notes on the history of the fortune cookie.

Labels: chinatowns, Chinese Food

Nice service - VGP Travel Guides in Chinese for New York, Boston, and Washington DC. A customer asked me if I knew of a travel guide for NY in Chinese. So I did a bit looking and did not find anything. So I sent E-Mails to the Chinatown Web Sites for NY and the NY Visit Web Site. The NY Visit Web site replied to me with the VGP site.

New York also has three Chinatowns located in Flushing (Queens), Brooklyn, and Manhatten. My list of Chinatowns of the United States. There is even a museum MOCA - Museum of Chinese in the Americas!

Associated Products:

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.

Labels: chinatowns, Travel Guides

A local Christian School in Rowland Heights, Southlands Christian School, is going to move and sell the property to a developer that is proposing to put apartments in there. More evidence of changing demographics. The area has changed to a mostly Asian (Chinese and Korean) plus a bit of everything else, while the church has not. There are so many Asian Churches in the area (see map that gives some clue - I did a search on churches around Rowland Heights).

It's a nice school, unfortunately they have not successfully adopted to the changing demographics and are moving because of it to another area. translation, the property has gone up a huge amount, the church members are for the most part no longer local, and why not move and use the money from the sale.

There is a shortage of apartments in the area, so many younger adults will rent a room in a house in the local area. Going rate I understand is $600 per room.



View Larger Map

Labels: chinatowns

NY is considering congestion pricing in the Manhatten Chinatown. NY actually has more than one Chinatown. The one in Flushing (where my cousins lived) was more Taiwanese, one in Brooklyn, and one in Manhatten. On ChildBook's page of US Chinatowns I actually list all three.

Relevant Book:
Exploring Chinatown: A Children's Guide to Chinese Culture

Things to do:
*Laurence Yep book I need to add.
*Revise Chinatown's page. Right now I could give it grade of B, but A's are better than B's!

Labels: chinatowns

Time Magazine's article about Hillary Clinton's Chinatown donor issue gives some interesting peeks into Chinatown Culture.

Key points from the article:

• Chinatown economies are built almost entirely on cash transactions, tremendously high savings rates and a tradition of financial secretiveness.
• Few Chinese-American workers in New York City's several Chinatowns will reveal how much they really make.
• It is not uncommon to see waiters and dishwashers among other so called menial workers who are capable of paying for cars, plunking down large initial premiums for insurance policies or making sizable down payments on homes or apartments — in cash.
• Banks of Chinatown centered in Canal Street in Manhattan have combined deposits of $6 billion, behind only the ritzy Upper East Side ($8 billion) among New York City neighborhoods.

What the article missed was the province/ethnic origin angle in Chinatown of the donors (Fujian) that I mentioned before Chinese Associations & Clinton Fundraising

Labels: chinatowns