In 1950 Manhattan from bottom of Manhattan to the north end of Central Park was my World, classroom and playground. I learned more about life roaming those streets than what he learned while I was in school. Walking the narrow streets of New York’s China Town piqued my curiosity and made me want to know more about the people that lived there. The restaurants, shops and open-air stalls there all displayed strange and exotic foods that often I could only guess at what I was looking at. My eyes were-dazzled by the splashes of color, my nose by the smells, and my ears by the sounds of their language. All of this, in a backdrop of jumbled old buildings, concrete paving, the cacophony of traffic and crowds of shoppers.
My mom was a terrific cook and baker, whatever she made and put in front of me I ate with pleasure and gusto. But nothing she prepared could match the mouth-watering looks of some of the delicacies I saw displayed in the windows of restaurants and food shops in China Town. Though tempted, I kept himself from trying those exotic looking foods until I was much older.
It bothered me when I asked a person in China Town a question the response, I often got was a shrug of shoulders as if to say, “I don’t understand you.” Sometimes the person would turn their backs on him and walk away as if he wasn’t there. When I did get a polite answer in English it never led to conversation. For me the denizens of China Town were inscrutable. As inscrutable as the calligraphic signs in Congee of the restaurants and stores, interesting to look at but unreadable to me. There is a small park west of City Hall that is popular with the residents of China Town. On weekends in good weather, it’s packed with people playing cards, chess, and other games. Whenever I walked through that park a head or two might turn or look up at me without a smile or nod of greeting. Kids playing in the park moved away when I approached, they made it plain they wanted nothing to do with me. Why was it that Chinese folks were so cold and aloof towards me, was it something I had done?
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
On a rainy Saturday at the Ostendorf Library on 2nd Avenue I came across a book that when I finished it almost answered my questions. It was an oversized book detailing the construction of the Trans Continental rail road from 1863-1869. The Author wrote how important Chinese labor was to the success of this monumental undertaking. He described in written and visual detail the poor treatment, low wages, dangers and racism the Chinese faced.
Photographs in the book showed the Chinese laborers poorly dressed and equipped for the harsh environment and conditions they were working and living in. After helping to connect the East and West Coasts of America the thanks the Chinese workers got was abuse, deportation and later legislation designed to keep them from immigrating and settling in the USA. The newspapers of the time branded them as the Yellow Peril to White Christian America. After finishing the book, I asked myself, “Could the reason for the coldness I get when I’m in China Town be the bad treatment of the Chinese almost one hundred years ago? Maybe it is but it’s not going to keep me from going to China Town.” Over the years, the title of the book and the author’s name is lost to me: the story and images though remain clear in my memory and have influenced me my entire life.