I arrived early so I decided to look around a little bit.
I had been through Dudley before, but never bothered taking in the environment. Just like Chinatown it is "the hood" but quickly becoming gentrified. In any case there have been a lot of changes over the years.
It definitely has an old historic feel.
I used to walk past stuff like this at Ruggles station all the time and never think anything of it. I mean my mom would stop and look or I might buy some food from a vendor. But I never realized that not every neighborhood has stuff like this and that therefore it is something really special and gives a neighborhood character.
And of course Chinese food is everywhere in all types of forms. Does this mean I can post this to the Chinatown Blog? Just kidding.
This building is a Citizen's bank. But the sign says it was some other bank that was opened in 1805. That's pretty historical.
I thought this sign was humorous. One way you can tell this neighborhood is different, I wouldn't say that this aspect makes it more "hood." because it's not like it's bad... but there was a guy with his own taxi service soliciting people off the street. I actually had only ever heard of this. I guess someone tried to pick me and my mom up once in the South End when we were waiting for the school bus, had a license and everything, but yeah you don't see that in every neighborhood. In China (and I'm sure other countries) it is simply how things are done everywhere. There are a ton of Moped "taxis." Another thing was someone was soliciting the use of his phone. So that means a lot of people around here don't have cell phones. People usually laugh at me because I don't use a smart phone.
We went over to Dudley Dough. Which I thought was just a regular Cafe. But it's actually this really cool thing, check out their website and check out this Boston.com article. Adrian paid for my soup (Thanks Adrian!) and he had the same soup with Sriracha sauce. This brand has a Tiger, which I've never seen before. You usually see the Huy Fong Sriracha sauce with the Rooster. Apparently this one was good too.
Adrian got some kind of salad with Bok Choy in it. I've never had or thought of having Bok Choy in a salad before. In fact I have a drawer full of Bok Choy right not. Maybe I should go ahead and eat it raw.
Anyway, I asked Adrian what exactly it is a community organizer is and I really should have taken notes. Adrian is a veteran at this. He has organized Unions in New York, and done Community organizing in Boston for years. He explained how Unions are more top down and that the Community Organizing is more grass roots, and that it is really an awesome job because you can really get stuff done in the Community. The job I was applying for was at the Chinese Progressive Association, and I shared a little bit about how even though I had always been involved in the community through Lion Dance and Kung Fu, I had stayed away from actually joining up with some of the groups because, well, of the Politics.
For instance. I went to Kwong Kow Chinese School. Kwong Kow was funded by the KMT from Taiwan. Why? Because if you go far back enough. the 1911 revolution, wher the KMT overthrew the Qing Dynasty, was funded by overseas Chinese. I.E. Chinese from Japan the United States, and yeah people in Boston's Chinatown. If an activist group even appeared to be slightly leaning toward the left, the KMT would pull funding. That's only one reason why Chinatown is pretty political.
But Adrian talked about all the cool stuff he had been working on, from farms right in the city, to public artwork. Everything. Again I should have taken notes. But alot of the issues were the same. DSNI started because of illegal dumping. That's something that AACA clean up Chinatown Comittee is dealing with right now.
By the end, I realized I could learn a lot about how to help Chinatown, by working in other communities. In fact, we talked a little about Community Gardens and whether that would work in Chinatown. Today, as I taught my Kung Fu class at little panda, I noticed that the new park had sprinklers in it that were mostly watering concrete. Not only that, but they were soaking the little yard where we were doing our Kung Fu class. It was freezing today! Why have the water sprinklers going? One of the teachers commented in Cantonese, "Wow is this water really without cost? They've been spraying non-stop for three days!"
A short term solution is just to shut them off. By why is the design so bad? They just built these These are brand new. It's nice that there is a park.. a new park (there was one there before.) But if the grassy spaces were used for community gardening, that would be better. Better for the City, because it would save money, Better for the Community, because those vegetables could be sold to restaurants so now you can have organic Chinese food, which the gentrifi-ers will go crazy for, and better for the environment. Because you won't be wasting water like that.
Well we'll see if I can ask some people and maybe put together something with the groups already in place. That will probably be more complicated than just sweeping the street.
Share you ideas and thoughts in the comments and share this post so that we can get some of these ideas out there.
Truth is I always wanted to have like a Kung Fu Garden. Where a community garden doubled as some sort of Kung Fu school. So far all I've done is write stories about those ideas in my books. But now maybe I can make them into reality.
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