My
By Katie Chung July 8, 2005[1]
Chinatown, 
in any other state, but to me it’s like
a second home. I know the streets of this small “city within a
city” like the back of my hand. Every new pothole, new restaurant,
destroyed building, closed shop does not go unnoticed in my eyes. The smell of
greasy Chinese food, leftover red firecracker paper scattered across the ground,
grocers selling live crabs on the sidewalks – these are among the things
that make this place a familiar home to me.
Almost once a
month my family, which consists of my mother, father, younger brother and I,
undertake a lengthy car ride from our hometown of
Soon my dad would pull onto Winter Street,
parking our exhausted car in front of 1008A - or my Yeh-Yeh and Ma-ma’s
two family home on the outskirts of
To this day as I step across the threshold of that house, an overpowering smell of grease and Chinese food seems to overwhelm my nostrils. Throughout the three decades of my family’s inhabitance at 1008A, the smell of my grandmother’s excellent cooking seems to have clung to everything there, stubbornly burying itself into the fabric and walls, relentless to leave or be washed away.
My Ma-ma’s cooking always smells and tastes even more spectacular when the entire extended family, of more than twenty-five people, is visiting. She would work for hours preparing: cooking the fish, Chinese broccoli, roast pork, chicken and ginger, rice, and duck to perfection. When she finally was finished, the entire family would gather around a large circular kitchen table, which is the central object of the entire downstairs. My Yeh-Yeh and Ma-ma would sit down, during which as one of my many aunts would scoop rice into red Chinese bowls and serve it to everyone at the table. Once the whole family was served, everyone – adults and children alike – would jump in and attack their favorite foods, grabbing all of the best parts to put in their bowls. My younger cousins would constantly fight over who was allowed to eat the fish eyes, which are considered a delicacy.
This great table
holds more then just the memories of our family feasts. After all the dishes
are washed and stashed away, and every scrap of food is eaten by some hungry
person, my grandfather would take out the mahjong tiles (which is a Chinese
game using tiles with different symbols on it), and my aunts and uncles would
join him in gambling away their money. When we were younger, this game was
always so captivating to my cousins and me. We would constantly sit and watch
the game and pretend we knew how to play, or “help” out one of the
players, even though none of us remotely knew how to play the game. Every time
my family would play the game, my grandfather would share his winnings with his
grandchildren. He’d give us “lucky money” – which was
money that he had won during that round of the game - for giving him luck while
he played, and being children, we’d immediately run out the door to the
corner candy shop, Tuck Hing. However, in the past year, when my grandfather
was severely ill, it seemed that the tiles would only make a rare appearance at
family parties. Now, though, the mahjong table never comes out. Since my
grandfather’s death in March 2005 no one seems in the mood to rejoice in
an after dinner gambling spree, preferring instead to sit and talk or watch the
Weather Channel – which seems to always be on in my grandmother’s
home.
Outside of 1008A,
there are many things that reveal my memory and my love for this little
community. The Chinese language is all that is spoken in the vicinity of this
small city, the sounds of Cantonese and Mandarin fill the streets along with
the beeping of the traffic on Tenth Street and the local grocer men shouting
prices along the sidewalks to attract customers. I smell the ducks and chickens
cooking in the windows of the shops, the stench of the seafood waiting in
buckets to be bought, and the smell of the polluted air from the cars as they
pass by. I can see the large, dirty, old, dilapidated buildings, trip over the
crumbling, deteriorated sidewalks, and watch the people as they fight for the
precious parking spaces that line
I will occasionally take walks with my
grandmother through the streets. In this city she is treated like a queen,
everyone comes up to greet her and speedily talk in his or her slurred
Cantonese. With her I feel like a princess, she introduces me as her
granddaughter to everyone she talks to, saying I’m the “daughter of
first son”. Most will smile and nod, not knowing how to communicate with
someone who only speaks English, but every now and then one of these people
will exclaim in their broken English how great it is to meet the
“daughter of first son”. Near the end of our walk we usually stop
with a trip to my grandfather’s favorite restaurant, The Imperial Inn,
located almost in the dead center of the
When my family
would visit there, it would always be an outing to this great restaurant. My
grandfather used to work with the owners, so our family would get primary
seating over other customers, straight to the best tables. The manager would
constantly make my brother and I free Shirley Temples with little umbrellas and
swords, which we would always play with. As we have grown, and our visits to
The Imperial have lessened we no longer receive these free treats, instead we
are treated as adults and must use chop sticks, instead of the fork and knife
routine we are used to at home.
There are many
Chinatowns across the