don't come to the manhattan chinatown
they will tell you not to come here.
new yorkers born and raised here will tell you,
"this chinatown isn't all that great"
they'll tell you
"the food here is mediocre"
"there are too many tourists here"
"go to the flushing or brooklyn one instead"
not knowing that each chinatown has their own distinct regional background.
they'll tell you, a native cantonese speaker,
the best chinatown to call your home.
i learned from an early age that your home is your mother tongue.
people can be scattered like months old sand from the beach trip you had the previous summer
but thats okay because they can trace themselves back to the beach they originated from.
but what happens to you if your mother tongue is homeless?
what happens if that grain of sand looks something a little like from that time you visited myrtle beach, but kinda something like that other time you went to panama city?
and what happens if my cantonese doesn't sound like my mother's cantonese or my best friend's mother's cantonese?
and what happens if my cantonese is split between two opposing sides, one too radical for my grandmother to understand and the other looking too much like history repeating itself?
within these streets, i have found a home for my cantonese.
there is a street lined with vietnamese restaurants, paying homage to their sino-vietnamese identity.
wedding shops speckle the area, illustrating the elaborate fujianese marriage.
singapore and malaysia fill the air of grilled meat in homemade jerky shops.
my favorite--and one that i never fail to mention--are the bakery shops reminding me of a long-forgotten tvb drama i had once watched with my family.
i will tell you not to come here.
i, a cantonese-speaking, philadelphian/metro-atlantan, existential-crisis-yielding, non-native new yorker will tell you to not come here if you wish to inhale the food without the context.
every time your mouth takes the nourishment that is being offered, there is another mouth waiting to give a narrative behind the palate you consider mediocre.
my cantonese has found a home.
my mother tongue grazes the roof over her head not once, not twice, but three times when pronouncing "canal street".
and as i sit here to tell you the same thing a new yorker would,
i wonder if it's because they have isolated us here or if we purposefully did that to ourselves so as to protect it.
new yorkers born and raised here will tell you,
"this chinatown isn't all that great"
they'll tell you
"the food here is mediocre"
"there are too many tourists here"
"go to the flushing or brooklyn one instead"
not knowing that each chinatown has their own distinct regional background.
they'll tell you, a native cantonese speaker,
the best chinatown to call your home.
i learned from an early age that your home is your mother tongue.
people can be scattered like months old sand from the beach trip you had the previous summer
but thats okay because they can trace themselves back to the beach they originated from.
but what happens to you if your mother tongue is homeless?
what happens if that grain of sand looks something a little like from that time you visited myrtle beach, but kinda something like that other time you went to panama city?
and what happens if my cantonese doesn't sound like my mother's cantonese or my best friend's mother's cantonese?
and what happens if my cantonese is split between two opposing sides, one too radical for my grandmother to understand and the other looking too much like history repeating itself?
within these streets, i have found a home for my cantonese.
there is a street lined with vietnamese restaurants, paying homage to their sino-vietnamese identity.
wedding shops speckle the area, illustrating the elaborate fujianese marriage.
singapore and malaysia fill the air of grilled meat in homemade jerky shops.
my favorite--and one that i never fail to mention--are the bakery shops reminding me of a long-forgotten tvb drama i had once watched with my family.
i will tell you not to come here.
i, a cantonese-speaking, philadelphian/metro-atlantan, existential-crisis-yielding, non-native new yorker will tell you to not come here if you wish to inhale the food without the context.
every time your mouth takes the nourishment that is being offered, there is another mouth waiting to give a narrative behind the palate you consider mediocre.
my cantonese has found a home.
my mother tongue grazes the roof over her head not once, not twice, but three times when pronouncing "canal street".
and as i sit here to tell you the same thing a new yorker would,
i wonder if it's because they have isolated us here or if we purposefully did that to ourselves so as to protect it.
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