You might be wondering why did my friend and I travel through four cities in the span of 12 days. It’s not typically how I would like to travel; that’s too many destinations in such a short timeframe. My preference would be to spend at least a whole week at a particular city. Travel days - the days when you have to get on a plane or train to go somewhere else - really drains you. Another friend of mine just came back to San Francisco from Hawaii. She was utterly drained, even though all she did the entire day was sit on an airplane for five hours.
The hectic schedule was dictated by the want of my friend. The whole reason for our trip was to visit the various Chinatowns in Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, and Portland. My friend has a travel Youtube channel that’s currently focused on Chinatowns. His goal is to visit as many as possible, culminated in actually doing a long tour of China. Please go give it a watch and subscribe!
It’s super interesting to actually visit the Chinese communities that have sprouted up throughout the country. I think it’s fantastic our people back then did well to build their own communities and support each other. It’s invaluable to the newly immigrated who lack any knowledge of the language and customs of their new country. Take a walk through San Francisco’s Chinatown and you can see all sorts of services specifically catered to Chinese people who don’t yet have the ability to navigate from themselves. My family have certainly used translation services way back when.
It’s important then for our generation - and younger - to not forget about these enclaves. It’s great that we’ve largely assimilated to American culture and achieved monetary success. Now we must use those resources to keep Chinatown communities going for the next wave of immigrants. It’s also about protecting the traditions and culture. The concern is that once the older generation of Chinese proprietors currently operating in Chinatown retires, there wouldn’t be any successors to continue on. I sincerely hope the people in charge of Chinatowns have a plan for that.
The train station in Anaheim.