Red Harvest Moon Weekend

This weekend was pretty busy for us. The Shao and Dai  performed at the Oak Street Fair (video to follow) then went home to quickly rest before going to a wedding. I stayed on in Chinatown to do the Lantern Festival performance. While I was there I decided to go on the Chinese Progressive Associations tour of the artwork that is supposed to draw attention to the housing crisis in Chinatown.

And I just used the words, "Housing crisis in Chinatown."

When I use these words. I sort of know what I am talking about. And maybe people who read what I am writing vaguely know what I am talking about. But ultimately when you just start repeating big words and other people repeat them and nod or shake their heads and shrug there shoulders you get the feeling that  nobody REALLY knows what their talking about, for or against the issue, because nobody really even knows what the issue is.

"Can you explain the housing crisis in small words?" I asked Lydia Lowe, who was leading the tour. Now this may sound antagonistic, and it was. But hey you can't just preach to the choir. I mean Grace just wanted to leave after the first three big words. But that doesn't mean she doesn't care about Chinatown.

Some examples of real people were given.

Like a family may have rent that is $900.00 one month, and then the next month it is $2,000.00 or their property isn't fixed up because ultimately the developer or owner (who may be Chinese btw) wants to knock the place down and build condos.

We need ONE of these stories to be the rallying cry, a personal story. Because everyone likes a story, with pictures instead of big words.


Now, I didn't really know Lydia Lowe but I had heard about her. What I had heard was usually not flattering. But I will say that she was no where near as radical and to the left as people make her out to be, and she was actually really nice. A lot of the other student types in the crowd were the glasses wearing protester types that have been around since the 60's and tended to block the way or workmen carting vegetables in and out of the restaurants. I think I really pissed one of them off when he was talking about the Tufts park as being "technically public but it feels like we're not allowed."
"I taught Kung Fu there everyday for Kwong Kow." I said.

He nodded with a face that darkened like an 11 year old Irish American Catholic die hard Dropkick Murphy's fan learning about Theobald Wolfe Tone for the first time.

I could see him bringing a mental cursor over to my image and comment and right clicked and then scrolled down to delete.  

In the alley by Oxford place I asked Lydia about the family associations and she talked more about the Chinatown land trust (which I think doesn't have much land at all right now) and different strategies for keeping parts of Chinatown in the Community.

One of them was the fact that some of the buildings are historical, here since the 1850's

The other is the buildings owned by the family associations.


Without getting all left and right and communist or socialist or republican or free market let's just back pedal and say what the R Visions artwork is about.


We don't want Chinatown to disappear completely.

That's all. All the rest is just about how to do it.


Lydia, like her or not, is the only one working full time on the project.
Their trying to get laws passed with the city.


Here's where I pushed for how we can get involved.
"I grew up here. I know a lot of people who grew up here. They don't live here anymore but their parents do. They have moved out into the suburbs, they are big shots (and also some no career types like me) but a lot are big shots and have money and are brilliant. But their not going to join the CPA. They usually come in and out of Chinatown. But that doesn't mean they don't care."

Gears turned in Lydia's mind as she formed an answer that mostly re-affirmed that what I said was true but which ended with, "But how do you tap into that? The answer is I don't know."

Damn it! I was hoping, like her or not, that she had an answer. A meeting. A date. A rally.

"That's a lot like Egypt." said one of the crowd, who, I am guessing, is Egyptian. "You have all these brilliant people who left because the economy was bad but then that brain drain further affects the economy."

"But these people are around." I said. "They can come back. They do come back, they just don't get so directly involved."


We went over to the lantern festival and I had already been getting a lot of what felt like, "What the F are you doing following that Lady with a flag" from people I knew. And I had to stop and talked to people I knew. You can't just walk by people. And I also didn't want some people to see me on this tour.

In any event, I lost sight of Lydia and her flag. I stayed to watch 6 year old Mason from Hung Ching perform his lion dance and I wished that Shao had got to see that. Maybe these kids should hang out.

Then I went to Moh Goon where I stared out the window at One Greenway and talked to Jing about the tour I had just been on.

"You and me can't see the future." he said, "But we know the past."

A lot of the property around Chinatown had belonged to On Leurng or you could say, Ping On. A ton. And a lot of that property had been well... at any rate in no longer belongs to Chinatown. One can only assume the same trend will continue.

 One Green way is great I think. Because what was there before. Nothing. Yeah it sucks that Chinese can't afford to live there. It would be great if part of it is section 8 so that some Chinese could live there.
But One Greenway is technically the Financial District. The city building up is great compared to it utterly collapsing and looking like a third world country the way a lot of Philadelphia does.

It would be great if at least the CCBA building could stay.

I thought of that Polish American Citizens club in Dorchester where we went to a festival.

Just try to hold onto what you can in the form of nonprofit organizations so everyone will still have a base to go to and socialize.

Well went over to the Lantern Festival and waited for a while to perform. I posted the video already actually.

Waiting, I tried to socialize with other Kung Fu guys and Sifus and stuff. Mainly to try and sell my book and to become more of a Chinatown Blogger journalist type. I explained that not a ton of people read my blog or watch my channel. But hopefully they will. I just didn't want to pretend like I had become a big shot when I hadn't.... yet. More than Kung Fu applications and that type of stuff I was interested in stories and lore. Just look at my Kung Fu books. There's not a whole lot of "Now turn your front foot 45 degrees step into sei ping ma and chop." There's some. But that isn't my focus.

I talked about a lout of Chinatown disappearing.

Larry Wong, who runs Nam Pai and has lived in Chinatown longer than I've lived, mentioned "You know if we're not careful our Chinatown might disappear.

I sounded out Bob Rosen who had run Wah Lum longer than I've lived probably. "I'm always around. Just call me or come find me."

I talked to Tim Lavallee a white man in a Kung Fu uniform from Chiu Moh Goon just to test something, a hunch, "I know I don't know you, but what do you think about gentrification in Chinatwon. Knee jerk reaction."


He took a deep breath. "Well there's always the problem of people being priced out of their homes. As good as it is that a community develops and is cleaned up and all that you still want to leave room and give consideration to the people who are living there, the immigrant population that makes it what it is. That makes it Chinatown."

He went on to talk about his Uncle who lived in Lake George and had to move out because the community became more for rich people who vacationed there and the actual community simply had to leave.

"This is the same problem that is happening everywhere. And a lot of it has to come top down with legislation from the city to prevent it from happening." He had to go because his team was going back to their Moh Goon. But I was heartened by what he said. Not only did everyone at the festival, Chinese or not, have an interest in Chinatown staying but there was also a way to connect to other communities across the country about this issue. The CPA, Chinese Immigrants getting priced out, and even the Chinatown Community was not alone in wanting Chinatown to stay. I knew that. But there was even more heart in that answer than I had expected.

And,

like her or not, Lydia's strategies are some of the most obvious ones.

We have to all work together somehow to appeal to the city, or to vote a certain way, and get as many people as possible involved and working together despite other differences rivalries and competition to preserve Chinatown. At least a part of it.

After that it was off to a wedding at Chau Chau City in Dorchester. Which Grace said was the best wedding she ever went to. And maybe my next post will be about the Chinese Communities popping up outside of Chinatown.