February 25, 2008 by willng24.

I stumbled upon this great website called Asian Nation that recently had an article, titled Asian Small Business, showing the correlation between being Asian and being an entrepreneur.

Some of the explanations for the correlation are:

1) Labor Market Discrimination - lack of English skills and education

2) Cultural Traits and Ethnic Resources - applying cultural traditions of working hard, delaying material gratification, and sacrificing for the next generation

3) Class Resources - having a lot of financial resources to start a business

4) Structural Opportunity - racism among businesses

I’ve always admired entrepreneurs, especially if they are immigrants.   Now I just need some of my Asian blood to start flowing with ideas.

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February 21, 2008 by Chinatown Blogger.

For over a year, we have heard about problems in the housing market from subprime mortgages, loan defaults, resetting ARMs, declining property values, bank losses, municipal bond insurance ratings, consumer spending, recession, etc… Today the Boston Globe reported that data provided from the Warren Group showed that foreclosures were up 128.3% in January 2008, with 799 foreclosure deeds, compared to 350 deeds in January of last year. Auctions were up 77.8% while petitions to foreclose were up 28 percent.

So how is Chinatown weathering this downturn in the housing market? Let’s look at some residential housing data in Boston Chinatown. (We will write about commercial property another time.)

From trulia.com the website lists 16 recently sold homes in the Chinatown neighborhood from Sept. 18, to Dec. 20, 2007. (There were more sold throughout the year, but we’ll limit our data collection between Sept-Dec.) All the properties sold were condos, none were single-family or multi-family homes. There were 16 condo sales, with the average selling price of $1,260,728. The most expensive unit sold? A 3br/5ba 3,246 square feet condo on 2 Avery St. went for $4,750,000. The least expensive unit was $375,000 located on 170 Tremont St. with 1br/1ba and 675 square feet. These units are nearby Downtown Boston, but are considered Chinatown on trulia.com.

The City of Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development (DND) provides a Foreclosure Trend in Boston neighborhoods. Unfortunately, the data is only up-to-date for 2006. The table below shows that Chinatown (Central) had no foreclosures in 2006. Dorchester, Roxbury and Mattapan had the highest number of foreclosures.

The 2nd table below shows that there were 16 Foreclosure Petitions in Central/Chinatown (not all foreclosure petitions actually goes through foreclosure as owners refinance or sell their homes), but the percentage was still below the citywide average.

From this cursory research, Chinatown is thriving in the current housing market environment, for good and bad reasons.

The good: 1) People are still buying in the area; 2) Chinatown has a large base of subsidized and elderly housing (estimated to be about 40%) which stablizes the residential community; 3) The lack of new construction (supply) has kept demand high in the area.

The bad: 1) Lack of new construction has also translated into lower homeownership. In Census 2000, Chinatown’s homeownership was under 5%; 2) If there are new construction, most of the units built since 2000 have been “luxury” condos that are beyond the $15,000 median income of the neighborhood.

What are your thoughts? Is Chinatown thriving or just surviving? Post your comments.

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February 20, 2008 by willng24.

This issue has always been a concern for me whenever I’m dining or grocery shopping. However, Asian food has never been known for its cleanliness. Recently, the Herald had an article about the unsanitary conditions at our local supermarkets. One of the markets mentioned in this article is the Super 88 in Dorchester. Just walking into the store you can see that it isn’t as clean as a Roche Brothers. As consumers, what options do we have? I’ve probably been to every Asian supermarket in town and the cleanliness is roughly the same. Does everyone just accept the fact that it isn’t clean?

Obviously appearances are deceiving. There are American supermarkets noted in this article that share the same unsanitary conditions as our famous Super 88. I have never been to supermarkets of other ethnicities so I can’t provide a good comparison, but has any of you been to a Latin or Italian supermarket? Do they have the same problems?

I have some good friends in this industry and it is a battle for these folks. Most of these establishments are family owned businesses and they don’t have the funds to transform an aged store to something that looks like a Whole Foods. Furthermore, if sales haven’t changed and no one is complaining, the business has no reason to evolve.

So we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. First we can stop shopping at the Asian markets and inform the owners that it is due to sanitary reasons. However, we really don’t have an alternative place to get this produce. So this cycle continues until we figure out how to modernize our local businesses. I’ve always thought that there would be an entrepreneur risk adverse enough to close down an aging Asian supermarket, remodel the entire store and open with a fresh and clean environment that would start the ball rolling for all the local businesses. I guess it is up to the younger generation of grocery store owners to take the plunge and our job to let the problem be known.

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February 14, 2008 by Chinatown Blogger.

Images of American: Chinese in Boston 1870-1965
Wing-kai To and the Chinese Historical Society of New England
Arcadia Publishing, 2008

“Chinese Americans in Boston trace their historical origins to pioneering settlements of merchants, workers, and students in different parts of New England. After the 1880s, hundreds of Chinese arrived in Boston. Beginning as a bachelor-male dominated society, the Chinese in Boston gradually developed stronger bonds of family and community life. Spared natural disasters that characterized the Chinese immigrant experience in the West, Boston’s Chinatown nonetheless faced challenges of urban renewal and environmental degradation. Through their participation in community organizations, merchant activities, educational opportunities, and civic protests, the Chinese in Boston persevered, simultaneously maintaining their Chinese identity and acculturating into America. They formed a close-knit community that distinguished Boston’s Chinatown as one of the oldest and most enduring Chinese neighborhoods on the East Coast.

Wing-kai To is an associate professor of history and coordinator of the Asian studies at Bridgewater State College. The Chinese Historical Society was founded in 1992 to document, preserve, and promote the history and legacy of Chinese immigration in New England. Many of the photographs, published for the first time, are drawn from the collections of families and organizations to produce the first comprehensive visual history of Chinese Americans in Boston.”

Published by Arcadia Publishing and the non-profit Chinese Historical Society of New England, Chinese in Boston 1870-1965, can be purchased for $19.99 and shipped through Arcadia’s website. If you are local and need the book faster, stop by and pick up a copy from the Chinese Historical Society’s office at 2 Boylston St. Boston, in the basement level of the China Trade Center with $20 check or cash. Call the CHSNE for availability (617) 338-4339.

Rose Lok was only 18 when she took up flying and joined the Chinese Patriotic Flying Corps in 1932, highly unusual behavior for a young Chinese woman. Lok may well have been inspired by Amelia Earhart, who was working nearby at the Denison Settlement House on Tyler Street during that time.

Wellesley College class of 1917. 2nd from right, Soong Mei-ling, the future Madame Chiang, wife of Nationalist Party leader Chiang Kai-sek.

The Chinese Merchants Association building at the corner of Tyler and Beach Street. Today in 2008, the ground level is home to the Suishaya restaurant.

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February 11, 2008 by willng24.

I wasn’t around for the incident, but Sunday afternoon there was a stabbing in my building. This was brought to my attention, by my girlfriend who mentioned a cluster of police officers on our street Sunday afternoon. The Boston Herald mentioned that this was a stabbing/murder.

This is a little too close to home, but this is probably the 3rd major incident that has occurred in the area since I’ve moved in. Is this a lot? Do I live in a bad neighborhood? I don’t think so. The area is densely populated, so the number of crimes to the number of residence is rather small.

Thanks to organizations like the neighborhood watch, it is obvious that Chinatown has improved. However, we all have to keep in mind that we live in a major city and crime does occur. So if you work/live in the city do you do anything different to prevent crime? Growing up in the city I always gave the advice to walk with confidence. Just as in nature, predators always attack the weak, the same is true for humans. If you walk with confidence and are aware of your surroundings you’ll be better off. I always see people walking with their head down and hardly paying attention to where they are going. Is it a culture thing or just ignorance?  Regardless of the reasoning, it makes you an easy prey for a criminal.

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