October 15, 2007 by Chinatown Blogger.

This Sunday, the Chinatown Blogger visited the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA. The museum has an extensive collection of Asian arts and the special exhibit, Yin Yu Tang, a 18th century Chinese house. The museum was established in 1799 as the East India Marine Society and later merged to become to the Peabody Essex Museum in 1992.

The Chinatown Blogger, out of respect for the museum, only took photos of the displays advertising the exhibits.

The Yin Yu Tang is the prized exhibit of the PEM. The house is 200 years old and belonged to the Huang family of Anhui, China. The house was meticulously disassembled and and shipped to the museum to be reassembled again. There is also a Yin Yu Tang gallery along with a video documenting life in rural China.

Other Asian exhibits included Perfect Imbalance, which runs until May 2009 and Gateway Bombay, a series of paintings and photos documenting life in Bombay, or what is now known as Mumbai. In addition to these special exhibits, the museum has permanent galleries of arts from China, Japan, Korea, and the Pacific Islands. One of the neat special exhibits was the Mysterious Photos, a collection of weird and funny Black and White photos of American life.

Founded by early ship merchants, the museum has a good collection of early American maritime arts. These included model ships and posters documenting their journeys across the Atlantic. The early ship merchants travelled to many parts of the world and collected (or stole, depending on how one sees it) items of interest. The Chinatown Blogger recalled 5-6 years ago when the Peabody Essex Museum displayed a collection from the Qing Imperial Court. The Chinatown Blogger kept pestering the tour guide how these Imperial items came into the hands of Americans and why it wasn’t the property of the Chinese government. The tour guide glared back with annoyance. The objects in question, seemed to have been “collected” or taken during the Boxer Rebellion when the city of Beijing was attacked by European and American forces. Anyhow, that’s old news and the Chinatown Blogger doesn’t hold any grudges but do wish that the truth be told on how museum artifacts were acquired.

Outside the museum, Salem was alive with vendors and performances in beautiful 60 degrees fall weather. A 3-man band performed Beatles cover songs while a street cart sold kettled popcorn, “slightly sweet and salty”. As this being Salem, the place where supposed witches were found, there were the usual promotions for the Witch Museum and tours. If you ever get the chance, check out the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA.

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August 29, 2007 by Chinatown Blogger.

Dorchester is a section of Boston 2 to 3 miles south of Chinatown. It is home to a large Vietnamese population as well as the City of Boston’s first elected City Councilor of Asian American descent - Sam Yoon. I had rented in Dorchester for 5 years from 2000-2005. I remember one winter when I ran into Sam in the morning and it turned out he had recently purchased a home there, a triple-decker that was condo conversion. He was gracious enough to invite me into his home and introduced me to his family. I had known Sam before when he was a community planner for the Asian Community Development Corporation in Chinatown. We chatted a bit and he mentioned about running for City Council. It was the beginning of his campaign and he asked me to help. I declined at the time because I was in sales and I had hardly anytime off.Since then I’ve moved out of the neighborhood. This past Sunday my girlfriend and I were looking for something to do so we decided to go to Dorchester and take a stroll around the UMass campus and JFK Library. You can get to the UMass campus by taking the MBTA Red Line to JFK station and a free shuttle bus that runs every 20 minutes. We drove because parking is free on Sundays.There is a walking path that wraps around the university with views of the harbor and leads up to the JFK Library. UMass Boston is a commuter school because there is no on-site housing for students. The university is known for pioneering and creating one of best Asian American Studies Program in New England. The program is currently led by director/professor Peter Kiang, who was formerly a director for a Chinatown non-profit and serves on the board of the Chinese Historical Society of New England.

While visiting the UMass campus, another attraction is the JFK Library Museum. Dedicated to the late John F. Kennedy and his family, the best attractions were the large collection of personal items used by the former President and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Even a non-politico like my girlfriend was impressed the library had an actual dress once worn by the First Lady. Next to the dress was a photo of Jackie in the dress at a function. The day being Sunday, we only encountered a few people here and there who were jogging, walking their dogs or just sitting back and watching the harbor. Along the way is a dock that offered Boston Harbor Cruises every Monday. Near the entrance of the campus is a Vietnam Veterans Memorial f acing Morrissey Boulevard. On the Memorial are inscribed the names of soldiers who died in the war and were from the Dorchester area. On the bottom are chiseled the inscription “Through us they will live forever.” There are three pillars to the memorial. It was explained to me once that it represented the former countries of Indochina: Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. (Someone please correct me if I am wrong!). Alongside are benches inscribed with the army corps and the area they served in.

After the stroll if you find yourselves hungry, head over to Dorchester Avenue near Fields Corner. There are many Vietnamese restaurants in the area. My favorite is Pho 2000, which is at the corner of Adams St. and Dorchester Ave. After this Sunday, my girlfriend and I had already decided that the next place we visit should be North Adams in Western Mass. where a group of Chinese laborers were first brought over here to Massachusetts to work in a shoe factory.

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August 15, 2007 by Chinatown Blogger.

Going to Dunkin’ and caught in the downpour. While waiting for the rain to pass, I pulled out my camera.

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May 3, 2007 by Storyteller.

A full time Chinese restaurant worker works 12 hours a day and five and a half days a week.  Day in and day out they show up at their job, which is either a small take out store, a restaurant with about 20 tables or more, or a restaurant plus bar.  At Tung Shing Dragon, the Chinese restaurant I used to work at there were three cooks, a couple of waitresses depending on how busy the day is, a couple of baggers, a delivery man, two people working at the bar and a grandmother doing a little of everything. Maybe it is a coincidence for some reasons the cooks are always Chinese men and the delivery person is always a man.  This restaurant has 20 tables for dinning. Take out and delivery services. By the front entrance there is a bar serving scorpion bowl, mai tai, mostly bottled beers and occasionally wine.  A group of regular customers come in after work and sit at the bar playing Keno games every 9 minutes.

In the kitchen there are two cooks who work at the stir fry section handling gigantic woks over blue gas flames.  There is a section where all the fried and grilled food are made.  On busy days like Friday, Saturday and Sunday there is an extra guy who work as a golfer running around helping the main cooks making sure that all the things are easily ready for them.  Lunch time and dinner time is the busy rush hours.  During these busy time the kitchen is loud with waitresses and baggers yelling out orders in Chinese and and English.  Since the cooks have been there for so long they memorized what’s in which luncheon and dinner combination specials.  In the background are the noises of sizzling fryer, gas flame roaring high, metal spatula on metal wok, ceramic dishes clashing on the counter and the telephone ringing off the hook.

During down time each staff has several assigned tasks.  Some will make duck sauce which is mostly apple sauce, sugar and water mixed together.  The cooks are usually responsible for chopping vegetables by the boxes for stir fries, make fillings for egg rolls and then roll them up, marinate meat in sauce and battering chicken finger.  The waitresses have to wrap wontons and fold crab rangoons.  While their hands are busy at work the staffs chit chat about current events news they read in the Chinese newspaper, or about Hong Kong soap opera which they record from the original and pass it from one person to another.  They would talk about their luck or lack of it at Foxwood Casino or Mohegan Sun Casino which, most restaurant workers go on their days off.

This is the work life of many Chinese restaurant workers.  Limited skills and English, lack of an American education, the Chinese network creates only a few choices of how to make a living.  Many older restaurant workers who have children often displace their hopes of better jobs and bigger salary onto their children.

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April 4, 2007 by Storyteller.

Chinese food has become a big part of the American culture.  According to Chinese Restaurant News there are three times more Chinese restaurants than there are McDonald’s.  Next time you are driving or walking on the street pay attention to how many Chinese restaurants you pass by.  On my 15 minutes drive home from work I see four Chinese restaurants and one McDonald’s.  Greasy Pu Pu Platter, general Tao’s chicken and pork fried rice is a part of the American diet and American life as well. How often do you and your friend stay in on a Friday night to watch a Blockbuster movie and ordered Chinese food take out.  Many Americans know how tasty the food is but do they have any clues about the lives and stories of the people behind the food?

As much as 80% of Chinese family are somehow directly or indirectly related to Chinese restaurant work and life.  Almost every single members of my family had one time or another waitress, bartend, packed orders, cooked or washed dishes in a Chinese restaurant.  Personally I started in the kitchen taking phone calls and packing orders.  By the time I left I had waitress and bartend.  Working at a Chinese restaurant was temporary for my family and I, we were there until something better comes along.  For my sisters and I it was a place where we can make some spending money for ourselves during our weekends home or summer off from school.  After graduation from college my sisters and I never went back there.  When we first came to the U.S. my father worked a second job washing dishes at a Chinese restaurant to make some additional money to raise a family of four children.  He quit about five years into the job because we were settled in the U.S. and financially stable by that time.  For many middle age or older Chinese immigrants who does not have any professional skills and who can’t speak enough English to interact with society they are stuck in the restaurant industry until old age.

Chinese restaurant is also a wide form of networking and connection for Chinese immigrants.  Workers can introduce their friends or family members to their boss and get them a job that way.  That’s how I got mine.  Some workers in the suburbia are recruited from big city Chinatowns.  Managers and owners would find waitress and cook through the temporary work agency  postings in Chinese newspaper.  I met a woman who was recruited to a Western MA Chineserestaurant from New York City.  She came from Malaysia to the U.S. trying to find a job and hoping to make a bundle of money and then return to herhome country.  The owner provides housing for workers like her who aren’t from the area.

In my next blog I will go into details on the lives of individual and family working in this industry.

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