Part 5: Chinatown
The excitement of the nearing mid-autumn festival thrums streets away from the Boylston T Stop. As one moves west from Boston Commons, there is a sense that another world is nearby. The buildings huddle closer to each other, and crouch shorter to open up their front windows. Tables emerge on sidewalks, ushering passersby through a maze of bright red banners and stringing lanterns that guide them to the gate of Boston’s famed Chinatown. In the street, there is no room for space as each inch of the sidewalk is covered with trinkets, garments and gifts, which passersby’s slow by and table owners silently watch from tables. Red banners and posters announce the coming of the mid-autumn festival, a time to come together and revel for an emerging season.
I visited Chinatown with my friend to interpret Mandarin for me as I learned more about this historic part of Boston— an area that has stood the test of time for the last 150 years. Hired for construction in the South Cove neighborhood, many Chinese men moved to the area in hopes of earning enough of a living to support their families.[1] After obtaining citizenship, these men were able to return home and sponsor their children, bringing new Chinese families to the downtown Boston Area and creating the Chinatown that we see today.[2]
Ho Yuen Bakery Photo Collage. Image by Authors.
Off of Beach St, Hon Yuen Bakery stands as one of the oldest Chinese bakeries from 1974. They are not family-owned, but instead co-owned by those that open their doors everyday. The crew of elder Chinese ladies, eyes wise with time and aprons worn with the dust of flour respond in short remarks as they glide through the store, moving dozens of mooncakes from one tray to the other. Red garlands hang from the ceiling, and Chinese pastries with quickly scrawled signs sit perched on the counter, hiding all but just the eyes of the women behind. Like a red wall, the gift boxes are stacked up high to touch the ceiling, almost precarious but with the same balance of a sculpture.
Their most popular dish at the time, the mooncake, takes roughly 30 minutes to make—however, this can change depending on the complexity of the flavor. Their most popular version is the double egg yolk with white lotus paste, which is a perfect combination of sweet and savory. Outside of the mid-autumn festival season, Hon Yuen’s most popular dish is the steamed white sugar rice cake, Bai Tang Gao. Throughout the time that we were there, the doorbell intermittently rang with new customers coming in—from esteemed locals who confidently order in Mandarin their choice favorites, to visitors with dedicated confidence but a trepidation as they stumble over complex pronunciations.
While my friend waited for me to run to the ATM and grab some cash (for the cash only restaurants), she was able to strike a conversation with a knowledgeable local who generously offered her recommendations other treats in Chinatown, such as the Great Taste Bakery. What sets apart this bakery is their famed pastel de nata, the Portuguese tarts that are piping hot as they come fresh out of the oven. Hailing from Macau, a former Portuguese colony, these tarts had been appropriated from the European good to a famous Chinese pastry, full of delicious cream.
Jia Ho Supermarket Photo Collage. Image by Authors.
To end the trip, we stopped by Jia Ho Supermarket, a nondescript Chinese grocery store that is stepped back from the street but still pulls customers in. The blinding white lights don’t stray visitors as they move through the tight aisles, teeming with shelves of goods that reach high above their heads. There was hardly any English packaging but that didn’t stop customers for picking up their favorite goods. And though the aisles were tight, shipment boxes were piled up in the middle, squeezing customers in as they navigated their shopping carts around each other.
Vegetables lay under the scrawled signs, on top with the Chinese names and accompanied with the English translation. From fuzzy squash to Chinese okra and bitter melon, an array of produce that one would not normally find at an American grocery stores were eagerly surveyed by grocery shoppers.
What grabbed my attention was when I moved around the corner and almost bumped into a box of blue crabs that were moving and very much alive. Though I was shocked and a little apprehensive to look too closely, my friend eagerly grabbed the tongs and started picking the blue crabs up, dangling them as they stubbornly held tight in chains and refused to be removed from safety. As the unperturbed fish monger tied up the bag of crabs, he replied shortly—yes, the crabs won’t suffocate and no, the grocery store has only been around for 10 years— before handing over our purchase.
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Though I left that day excited to have learned about a whole new world in the backyard of my city, today I reflect on what it means to live in this other world—and what it means to be targeted for being different.
One week ago, a young Korean American woman, named Christina Yuna Lee, was followed up into her Chinatown apartment in New York City and was murdered inside her home.[3] Though she cried for help, it was far too late when authorities came and arrested the perpetrator. The story fell to the background of other national fanfare and became another name in a long list of unnecessary violence against Asian Americans, particularly women.
Asian Hate Crimes are at an all-time high, where Asian Americans across the county are targeted in large cities and are victims of assault and murder.[4] The stigma has only been exacerbated by the Pandemic, where fear and misinformation have caused Asian Americans to doubly fear for their lives.
This is not the first time that people of Asian descent have been unfairly singled out. After the 1920s, the immigration rate in Boston began to decline as anti-immigration sentiment grew within the city. The Immigration Restriction League, a national anti-immigration organization headquartered in Boston, pressured Congress into passing legislation that required a literacy test for immigrants and created an “Asiatic Barred Zone”, halting immigration from the area.[5]
I was appalled and saddened when I heard the news of Christina Yuna Lee: Asian American women are not safe, even in their own homes. Racism has infiltrated the sanctuary of a personal dwelling space and claimed its stake.
We are privileged when we can walk into a part of a city, delight and partake in the culture before leaving to return to our respective homes. However, those who live there and are part of the culture cannot simply abandon it.
We must bridge the gap. We must acknowledge the systemic problems that make up our society. We cannot sit idle or quietly while our fellow citizens are targeted. We must speak up for racial injustices. We must act against inequalities.
We must do better.
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Read the AAPI Commission of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s Statement Against Violence and Xenophobia Faced by Asian Communities here.
[1] “An Early History of Boston’s Chinatown (U.S. National Park Service).” Accessed February 14, 2022. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/boston-chinatown.htm.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Fondren, Precious, and Ashley Southall. “Woman Followed and Fatally Stabbed in Her Chinatown Apartment.” The New York Times, February 13, 2022, sec. New York. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/13/nyregion/murder-chinatown-nyc.html.
[4] “Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Rose 73% Last Year, Updated FBI Data Says.” Accessed February 20, 2022. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anti-asian-hate-crimes-rose-73-last-year-updated-fbi-data-says-rcna3741.
[5] Global Boston. “Restriction Era, 1924-1965.” Accessed February 20, 2022. https://globalboston.bc.edu/index.php/home/eras-of-migration/test-page-3/.