This past weekend there was a car show in San Francisco’s chinatown. Organizers closed down Grant Avenue, from California all the way to Broadway. A reputed 100 cars of varying price and exoticism showed up for the event. It was a amazing to see. One, because you generally don’t expect to see a car show in Chinatown. Two, it’s great that people are holding events in Chinatown to stimulate the local economy. We absolutely cannot let this historic enclave die.
It’s tough, though. The pandemic have knocked more than a few places out of business. The remaining restaurants and shops are mostly run by people of my parents’ generation. You really don’t see my generation accepting the baton and continuing on the legacy (so to speak). And it makes sense: Asian parents toil endlessly to give their children a better life. They aspire for us to be people of power and influence in corporate America (plus the usual doctor and lawyer). Running a gift shop in Chinatown is most certainly not that.
I have a friend whose parents recently retired from operating a restaurant out in the east bay. My friend and his siblings have no desire to takeover the family business. Because they’ve all got better jobs and a far easier life than sweating in a kitchen six days a week. The family ended up selling the restaurant.
So there is a some latent concern about what Chinatown will look like in a few years’ time. Who will take up the mantel once the current owners and operators retire - if it won’t be their offsprings? I think it will have to be the same type of people who my friend’s parents sold their restaurant to. Working-class Chinese immigrants who’ve been in this country for a bit - so they have some saved capital - and are looking for the next step up in investment.
Chinatown drift.