Written By: Irene Hwang
If you’ve ever been to Philadelphia, you probably know Chinatown is one of the most visited places in the city. Welcomed by a huge Friendship gate constructed back in 1983, tourists and locals keep Chinatown bustling with excitement and engagement. Where it all started with one laundromat by Lee Fong in 1870 in order to escape anti-Chinese sentiment, has now expanded into a huge sector of Philadelphia with multiple Aisan enclaves and cultures. Here, you will encounter anything from markets, restaurants both old and new, karaoke bars, and numerous other small businesses.
However, most recently the entire sector has been hit hard — both by Covid-19 and an increase in Asian hate crimes. When the pandemic first hit, restaurants and other service operators were hit the hardest. About a month before the first official outbreak, about 30 Chinese wholesalers and travel agents had contacted corporations such as the Renaissance Economic Development Corporation in order to stay afloat due to increased xenophobia and racism. As soon as the mayor shut down non-essential businesses, this same corporation was fielding hundreds of calls from businesses all over Chinatown. Jin Huang, the owner of Lair KTV karaoke noticed that the song house was only receiving about 30% of its normal foot traffic after news of another coronavirus outbreak was plaguing the city. Other businesses in the same area noticed a similar trend.
Although the state of the pandemic is looking better and traffic is gaining more traction in these businesses, the struggle is still there. I wanted to look at the effects of the pandemic as well as the surge in Asian hate crimes with a business in Chinatown. During my outreach process, I found a very extensive book chapter about Chinatown’s sense of community. The beginning of the chapter recounts a still existing grocer’s called Tuck Hing’s Grocery located on the corner of Tenth and Spring Streets in Chinatown. The chapter interviewed Brandon Lee, a now retired Philadelphia city police officer who remembered the conflict around the neighborhood boundary and harassment from different races during the 1970s. Lee remembers sitting in front of Tuck Hing’s with friends and non-Asians would yell racist slurs and sayings but proudly states his and his friends’ efforts of actively driving them out of the neighborhood to protect it. There was definitely a sense of community, pride, and loyalty to Chinatown, hence the name “Chinatown was the safe space.”
As part of the research process, I was intrigued by Tuck Hing as it is still fully operational and a fan-favorite of locals (according to Yelp) fifty years later. Without a website or an email, I decided to call them. I was quite surprised when the person who received the call starting immediately speaking in Chinese. From personal experience, I had been used to New York City’s Chinatown, Koreatown and even the Koreatown in my own county first receiving the call in English. If I was ordering at a restaurant or grocery store in Koreatown (I am fully Korean), I would switch into Korean — and so hearing Chinese at the other end of the phone was very shocking. I quickly responded in English, explained my situation as a research student at the University of Pennsylvania and my interest in interviewing hopefully a manager or owner of Tuck Hing’s for my research on Chinatown. I was given a quick reply — No manager. Then the phone hung up.
Genuinely surprised, I was taken aback. From the community that I had grown up in, stores and restaurants leapt at the opportunity to publicize their business. Although I would have loved to go there in person, maybe with someone who spoke their language, I also was afraid of the surge in Asian hate crimes and of Covid-19. I soon moved onto another business, then another, and another. I was hung up on every single time.
I tried to change my tactic as I had been targeting small businesses that had been operating in Chinatown for decades. I began reviewing websites that listed the best restaurants in the sector. I purposefully chose restaurants that had a more modern, revised website such as David Mai Lah’s restaurant whose website is completely updated in comparison to, for example, Tai Lake’s restaurant whose website is dated back to the 2010’s. With high hopes, I called David Mai Lah’s restaurant and was given the same answer.
This blocker in my research has taught me so much about the importance of in-person communication as well as the language barrier that is so important in Chinatown. Regardless of my experiences in Chinatown in New York City or other Asian enclaves, I was still completely dumbfounded by the difficulty in securing an interview. Was it truly the language barrier, the nervousness surrounding publicity in the Asian community amidst the political climate, the xenophobia/racism stemming from covid-19, or something else?