Chinatown, past and present
We were able to sleep in a little bit on our first morning in San Francisco, and got a great start to our day at 9am with some typical Chinese breakfast foods from a small shop near our hotel. We tried all sorts of new things- sesame balls filled with sweet red bean paste (ma qiu), long fried strips of crispy dough (you tiao), and steamed buns filled with things like pork and vegetables (bao zi). We washed it down with some tea and soy milk and headed off for our tour of Chinatown.
Our skilled tour guide has been performing these tours for 29 years! She told us all about the history of the Chinese coming to America to search for gold, and how they found opportunities to serve the local community by opening Chinese restaurants and laundromats. We discussed how life had changed since its establishment in the 19th century but how certain elements still remain the same. Chinatown is an incredibly populated area and most apartments are one bedroom, about 4 x 5 feet in size! Entire families will inhabit these rooms, sometimes along with their uncles, cousins and grandparents. But even Chinese families who don’t live in apartments inside Chinatown will often drive in on weekends to shop, buy groceries or visit the local medicine shops. We learned that traditional Chinese medicine is completely different from anything we would ever be prescribed by our doctor. Eastern medicine focuses on natural remedies to keep your mind and body in harmony, using some very unique substances such as scorpions and animal bones to be boiled in water and sipped as a tea. We watched pharmacists filling orders consisting of different roots, herbs and dried insects. We were told that medicine shops will often give out a small pack of candy with each purchase as these traditional remedies tend to not taste very good! We eventually moved on to a shop selling something that definitely does taste good- homemade fortune cookies. We each got to try a sample from a fresh batch just out of the oven.
Our tour concluded with a dim sum lunch including delicious dishes such as shrimp dumplings, steamed barbeque pork buns, and our favorite, fried noodles. When we were full and rejuvenated, we headed off to a music workshop to learn about some traditional Chinese instruments. Our friendly instructor David told us that unlike western instruments, Chinese instruments are divided into 8 categories based on the material used to create sound: silk, stone, wood, metal, gourd, clay, skin, and bamboo. He played instruments such as the “er hu” for us, showing us the difference in sound between old traditional songs and more modern, folksy songs. Afterwards we even got to try the instruments out for ourselves! We didn’t sound too bad for our first try, but we think it will be a while until our first performance.
When the jam session was over, we headed to a local vegetable market to take a look at how the residents buy their fruit, veggies and seafood and broke into 5 pairs to complete another challenging language activity. This time we had to hunt for various items including sauces, spices and produce for sale to figure out their Chinese names as well as what they are typically used for. Having sharpened our scavenger hunt skills on the previous activity, we were able to rake in many more points, but the duo that brought in the most was Lilly and Ben. Great job guys! Yet another team that will receive a special mystery prize at the end of our trip…
We took some free time around Chinatown to do a little souvenir shopping before regrouping for a Mandarin-only dinner. Our Chinese speaking skills are improving every day! We were met at the restaurant by our tour guide Linda who took us on a nighttime ghost tour of Chinatown. We learned about the Chinatown of the past and all of its secrets, while listening to stories of gambling, unsolved murder mysteries, and ghosts who supposedly roam the streets of Chinatown to this day. We burst small firecrackers on the ground to ward off ghosts as well as pay respect to their memory. We were told that ghosts mostly make their presence known through photographs in which you can see “orbs”- small dots of light that are the physical energy of the ghosts’ spirits. We can’t be sure, but a few photos showed some mysterious looking dots that were eerily similar to the ones described by our tour guide…
After a very eventful day we are now certified experts on Chinatown, from past to present. We’ll turn in now to get some sleep for a very early start tomorrow morning!
