Talk:Chinatown

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chinatown is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article Milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on May 30, 2004.

Article Milestones
Date	Process	Result
April 10, 2004	Featured article candidate	Promoted
September 7, 2005	Featured article review	Demoted
July 27, 2006	Good article nominee	Not listed
Current Status: Former featured article

This article is a frequent source of heated debate. Please try to keep a cool head when commenting here.

This article is part of WikiProject China, a project to improve all China-related articles. If you would like to help improve this and other China-related articles, please join the project. All interested editors are welcome.

This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale. (see comments)

[edit] Vancouver

Question: What is the pattern of Chinese immigration into British Columbia? Does Vancouver Chinatown find into the old/new Chinatown pattern?

chinese coming to vancouver dont usually live in chinatown. they live in and around the boundary area and some in richmond. and tend to prefer the east side over the west.

[edit] Flushing and lower Manhattan Chinatowns

What I know of New York City's Chinatown's makes me doubt much of this thesis: both Flushing and lower Manhattan Chinatowns have supermarkets and such; both have large Chinese populations that are involved in city politics. But maybe this is just New York being atypical again. For the moment, I've noted that NY is different, but left the rest mostly alone (my other changes are copyediting things) Vicki Rosenzweig

Added a link to separate Chinatown, Manhattan entry. Vicki and others with more experience will probably have things to say about a better factoring of Manhattan, Chinatown, Manhattan, and Chinatown entries. --k.lee

I've recently done some further work on this. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:03, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] BC

As far as I know, the first official Chinatown in America is in Victoria, British Columbia. It is really only a street and it is still a tourist area on the Vancouver Island. The Vancouver Chinatown is, sadly, in a decline because the criminal problem in the neighbouring area and because it is kind of replaced by the so-called new ChinaTown in Richmond. -- Wshun

Any documentation on Victoria being the oldest? Any date? -- Jmabel | Talk 23:03, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

The term "Chinatown" in Vancouver is only used for the traditional Chinatown focussed on Pender and Main Streets; and yes the notorious city Skid Road is right next door, and a block further is the Gastown heritage district; it's not as if Chinatown was alone if having crime problems because of that area and its denizens (who have spread out throughout most neighbourhoods, thanks to the effects of a police crackdown in that area a few years ago). Nobody, not even as far as I know the Chinese media here, use the term Chinatown for the emerging ethnic-commercial enclave in Richmond; for which the term Golden Village has been coined. I think the problem with the word Chinatown is that it's been extended to mean all kinds of things by people outside the North American experience of the term (where it was invented) that have nothing to do with the traditional Chinatowns; the idea that Toronto has "six Chinatowns" completely ignores the fact that Toronto's traditional Chinatown still goes by that name, as does Vancouver's, despite the spread of mono-ethnic Chinese commercial-residential enclaves such as Agincourt ("Asiancourt") which Torontonians do NOT refer to as "Chinatown" (I don't know Toronto well, but I think Chinatown is in the area known as "the Danforth", which is the focus of the city's various commercial/ethnic milieux). Anyway, NO, Richmond does not have a Chinatown; only Vancouver and Victoria do; and New Westminster used to (like other towns/cities in the province; but the Chinese abandoned those places — like most everybody else mdash; when the gold ran out...). Vancouver's Chinatown, by the way, is not in decline because of the proximity of Skid Road; in fact there's been a noticeable growth of Chinese businesses in that very area; what's hurting Chinatown is that the "New Chinese" find the place too old-fashioned and representative of a past that, while they like to exploit it for political purposes, they don't have any connection to; so investment and Chinese job-creation/business-creation is in the suburbs and other parts of the city; Chinatown's problem is the attitudes of the new/other Chinese to it, not Skid Road. In fact, for a long time, it was Chinese businesses who were selling cooking wine and aerosol to the rubbies in the days when booze was the main problem down there; and as it happens the Chinese gangs are the main suppliers of heroin to the city, just as in the days when Vancouver was a major opium port (like Victoria). In other words, the troubles of Skid Road are partly because of its proximity to Chinatown; it's different now with crack and crystal meth and so on )crime, like everything else, is thoroughly multicultural here...), but the foundation of the area's problems are as much the fault of the Chinese as of any other ethnic group or economic elite here; that includes the aforementioned crackdown which dispersed the junkies and crazies throughout the rest of the city, which was partly brought on by pressure from the Chinatown (and Gastown) merchants' associations to "do something". The police did, and now it's everybody's problem and not just limited to that area....Skookum1 07:30, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

PS Victoria is NOT in America; it's in Canada. I realize that's an overseas usage - that "America" supposedly means the New World; but it certainly DOESN'T mean that in North American English.Skookum1 07:30, 2 August 2006 (UTC) PS the date on Victoria's Chinatown would be 1858, when the boatloads of prospectors and sundry first arrived from San Francisco; in faact I could probably find you a precise month and day, but I don't have the books handy at the moment; Yale, the next Chinatown to get established, and then Lillooet's, would have been within a few months after that; although it's not clear exactly when Lillooet's was established, as it was a mixed population and there was no town layout until 1860, despite 16,000 people swarming through the place in the previous two years; Yale's came about fairly quickly, but I'm not sure exactly how cohesive it was; New West's may have been more formalized first; the other major colonial centre/port, Port Douglas, was multi-ethnic and didn't last long enough for neighbourhoods to get established. The first Chinatowns in North America would seem to be Oakland's and San Francisco's - the pre-quake Chinatown - as well as any of the defunct Chinatowns in the goldfield areas; maybe Sacramento, too, I wouldn't know but it's a good guess.Skookum1 07:35, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

"Richmond near Vancouver, BC, Canada is also an exception to these trends. Unlike the Mandarin-dominated new Chinatowns in the US, Richmond is practically a "HongKongTown". There has also been some friction between the new wealthy Chinese from Hong Kong and the local population. In particular, some locals see the newly arrived Hong Kong people as increasing the cost of housing, not respecting the environment, and generally being detached from the community. By contrast, the immigrants perceive the locals as being xenophobic and simply jealous of people who have more money than they do."

Where did someone find this information? I'd like to get rid of it, because I think it is highly subjective. I lived there from my birth in 1979 until 2002, I saw the wave of immigration in the 90s, the monster houses, etc.. and I agree it is like a HongKongTown, as opposed to a ChinaTown, but I just don't quite agree with the "friction" part. This sounds like sort of something the media would say; making huge generalizations about different parts of the population and the way they feel. I went through 23 years of my life there, and the only thing I can say about the Chinese is that many of them are bad drivers, AND this is only due to the fact that many of those bad drivers are above the age of 30, 40, whatever, and learning to drive for the first time (I'm told that in Hong Kong many people don't drive, much like in London, England or New York, New York) later in life is a challenge for anyone. All of the young chinese drivers who just turn 16 and get their license are good drivers, just as good as anyone else. Anyways, there is no friction besides that. I have had a few chinese friends at UBC, and my dad often chatted away our chinese neighbors about gardening and did them many favours when they first moved here. My mother is also an elementary school teacher in Richmond, and her classes are at least 80% chinese. And she has never been called "xenophobic" as you say above. Racism is still everywhere in society of course, but it is no worse in Richmond. If anything it is less (at least for me), because of the multiculturalism there.--dave

The above discussion is undated, but seems to have been dealt with. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:03, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

But it does serve as a demonstration of the biases and prejudices and assumptions and generalizations made about non-Chinese that are too common in all articles dealing with the Chinese diaspora/colonization in North America....Skookum1 07:30, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Who originally wrote this page?

Who originally wrote this page?

Like nearly all Wikipedia pages, no single author, but a whole set of folks. Fuzheado 00:55, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The first ever revision was written by an anonymous user with the IP 24.93.53.199. You can find this by clicking on "page history". See Wikipedia:page history for more information. Angela . 00:58, Jan 28, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Reversions, Sweeping generalizations

Yes, I have read the disclaimer below. But it's getting frustrating when I spend time typing something up and it gets erased within a few minutes.

Don't despair, though, you have got good things to add to the article. See the quick edits/deletes/additions as a good thing about the Wiki process. Also, you can sign your name/date by typing four tidles like this ~~~~ when you are writing a comment here. You might consider creating a real login/password to better keep track of pages on your Watchlist, and have a identity in the community. Cheers, Fuzheado 01:07, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Folks, we should avoid too wide a sweeping generalization if possible, especially about Chinatowns and homelessness and drugs. If it's about specific Chinatowns, be specific. Fuzheado 03:31, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Initially, this article wasn't seeing much activity at all when I worked on some of it. Now people are chopping up the text like crazy.

Chopping up in a good way or bad way? :) Fuzheado 23:22, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Both actually.

But this is good stuff. We should probably translate the article on Chinatowns into Chinese as well. Anyone up to the task? (not me) 24.205.176.34 06:27, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC) Steve Cheung

[edit] Naming Chinatown articles

Good to see more Chinatown entries being added, but the naming has been inconsistent so far. I've tried to reorganize and have proposed this:

Main article naming:

Redirect names (ones we should automatically create):

Older redirects (ones I wouldn't automatically create, but are specific to how these articles evolved)

Fuzheado 00:05, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Monterey Park, California was indeed started by Taiwanese immigrants. However, it is now becoming predominantly Cantonese-speaking as Taiwanese Americans now dominate neighboring San Gabriel - this might change as well - and the distant Rowland Heights "Chinatowns". (Note that many Taiwanese Americans have moved out of Monterey Park and relocated to other suburban areas to the east). I propose we should rewrite the "California" sub-section to reflect this change.

Previous talk was by User:172.192.148.177 who forgot to sign.

I just edited the Europe section to make links to Chinatown, London and to two in Paris, but I strongly doubt there is one in Berlin, Germany. Source: statements by the Berlin city government in taz die tageszeitung article by Marina Mai (and other places) where they discuss the idea but find no agreement, yet. What may have prompted the idea of a Chinatown in Berlin is a website so named that lists Asian stores and restaurants, but the addresses did not seem localised. I'm also running down talk of a Chinatown in Tuscany (Italy). Wikibob 22:12, 2004 Feb 28 (UTC)

Looking forward to seeing more details about Europe's Chinatowns. It'll make this article less "Americentric".

172.199.140.25 08:18, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC) Wei-jen

This article is getting large so I recently made a List of Chinatowns as a supplement.

Please add any cities not mentioned and also local streets of the Chinatown (try to limit them to the major roads).

172.193.123.98 23:15, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC) Unknown One

[edit] Anonymous undated gripe

Wikipedia people such as Fuzheado and others are quick to delete and alter (and criticize) other people's work in a matter of seconds, but not so quick in helping add new and useful information. Frustrating.

[edit] Washington, DC

How 'bout Chinatown in Washington, DC, huh? Huh?

There's also Chicago...but DC is more important. To me.

Postdlf 10:04 3 Apr 2004 (EST)

Some kind of sentimental attachment to the place?

[edit] someon e for got BOSTON

Boston has a china town, how come it wasnt mentioned? i mean its important enough for the chinatown buslines to pcik it as their first route?

You can add more information if it's important and you have applicable local knowledge about the area. Just don't be so lazy.

[edit] San Francisco

When I was a child in the '60s, I learned in school that Chinatown is an area in San Francisco inhabited by Chinese people. This was in the Midwest, probably 2000 miles from San Francisco. It seems as if it wasn't until later that it started to be used as a generic term. I suspect that even in 1960 various Chinatowns in other cities were called Chinatown, but it seems as if San Francisco was the one whose existence was universally known among people who didn't live anywhere near that city, and unless context indicated that some other Chinatown was referred to, mentioning "Chinatown" was taken as a mattter of course to mean the one in San Francisco. Could some comments on the evolution of the usage be included? Or is it just me? Michael Hardy 22:50, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

For what it is worth, that is exactly my experience too. - Taxman 19:53, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. Speaking as a New Yorker, certainly NYC's Chinatown was also already enormous and well known by that name... -- Jmabel | Talk 06:09, Apr 23, 2005 (UTC)

See also: Chinatown, San Francisco —The preceding unsigned comment was added by GeoFan49 (talk • contribs) 26 August 2006.

[edit] Historic Chinatowns vs. modern reality

Many modern Chinatowns aren't solely Chinese. Other asian groups have migrated to the area, and it's not entirely uncommon to find non-Chinese asian businesses in Chinatown.

Seattle's former Chinatown has attracted enough non-Chinese Asian influence that the area is now known (perhaps partly for PC reasons) as "the International District". A bit of a misnomer, though, because the area is more Asian than, say, Latino, African, or European.

KeithTyler 23:31, May 30, 2004 (UTC)

Many non-Chinese Asian groups have their own enclaves. Example: Koreatown.--50Stars 20:27, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

At the time he made this remark, 50Stars removed the following from the article.

The term Chinatown has also been used (mostly by non-Chinese) to describe urban areas where large numbers of people of East Asian descent live and own small businesses, such as the Vietnamese, Japanese, Thais, and Koreans.

I think this is an accurate description of the way the term is often (mis-)used. I think it should be in the article.

By the way, on the specific of Seattle: the name International District dates back at least to the 1930s, maybe longer. It's certainly not an illustration of "PC". Recently, in fact, the name was officially changed to "International District/Chinatown" precisely because people from elsewhere had no idea what an "International District" would be, do the tourists weren't finding the Chinese restaurants. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:04, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese in Spain

There are about 100,000 Chinese in Spain. Most Chinese-Spanish residents are people whose ancestors were coolies from mainland China. Others are refugees from other places in mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, and especially the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, while still others are economic immigrants from Taiwan and other southeast Asian countries.

I don't know much about this, but I'd say that if coolies came to Spain, they left during Spanish Civil War. Most Chinese seem to me recent (< 40 years) immigrants. I never found Chinese people in Spain with Latin American accent.

[edit] Panama

I was under the impression that lots of Chinese (and others) were brought to Panama to build the Panama Canal. Didn't some establish there?

[edit] Surinam or Holland

Aren't there many Chinese people in Surinam, South America, the former Dutch colony? I think I have read that when slavery was abolished there, labor from Java, China and India where "imported" to keep up the plantations there. The last time I visited Amsterdam I both found a Chinese temple and a Chinese store. According to a Dutch friend of mine, there are a couple of Chinese people in Holland, and most of these come from Surinam. Maybe there are Chinatowns in Holland too? Or in Surinam?

[edit] What about Korea Town (K-Town) in Los Angeles

It's an urban area that has expanded and is very vibrant and alive. It's known for being one of the few places in LA that's still open at night and is going against the stereotype of the decaying urban Chinatown losing it's thunder from the suburban Chinatowns. It used to be mainly along Western and Olympic Blvds but it's almost expanded into Downtown LA.

I don't know about Koreatown, but L.A.'s Chinatown is a virtual ghost town by late afternoon/early evening. Some of the Chinatown leaders will have to come up with some solutions.

Might I add that Chinatown hardly has much of a nightlife. If there is a nightlife, it's more likely for the gwei lo (or white folk). Do not compare apples to oranges.

[edit] Glasgow Chinatown

I am going to add a section on the Glasgow Chinatown. I would like to add a page on it and the Chinese School which is next door - both feed on each other. The only question I have is this: should I make a separate article of it. This one is rather crowded.

Do both. You can briefly describe the Glasgow's Chinatown on the main Chinatown article (streets, a short anecdote, etc.), and link to the separate article with even more details, if you have local knowledge of the Chinatown and other nearby Chinese communities in the Glasgow area.

[edit] Asian shopping centers and traditional Chinatowns

Be open-minded.

A March 25, 2000 article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times: "That L.A. Phenomenon, the Asian Mall, Spreads Across U.S., Canada: Development: From Seattle to Atlanta to Toronto, shopping centers spring up to serve growing ethnic populations." by Willoughby Mariano.

http://www.huaren.org/diaspora/n_america/usa/news/032500-01.html

Points from the article:

"Asian American developers behind a number of these malls see themselves as innovators in development. On the West Coast, many mall developers think beyond the paradigm of an urban Chinatown.

"Traffic congestion, poor parking and an aging infrastructure often plague old urban ethnic centers and make them economically obsolete."

An April 20, 2004 article in The Wall Street Journal: "For Asians in U.S., Mini-Chinatowns Sprout in Suburbia" by Barry Newman

http://www.harsch.com/pdfs/Articles/Chinatown_Plaza_PR.pdf

Points from the article

The concept of the ethnic commercial enclave. "These commericial spaces are taking on all the intimate social functions of the old immigrant neighborhood."
"the Asian shopping center a new form of social organization." (quoted in article)

I've checked out some scholarly books on the matter. Scholars can't agree either on what a Chinatown is. It's either a place of imposed isolation where people are forced into or a place where immigrants choose to live and develop economically.

A propose definition might be: Chinatown is a community - sometimes formally established and sometimes informal - where Asian people cluster socially, live, and have several businesses. They may be born there and then die and/or have a funeral procession through Chinatown ("cradle to grave"). It's not limited to urban areas either. There are/were many Chinatowns in the North American and Australian boondocks.

I understand a single shopping center with a Chinese supermarket do not really constitute a "Chinatown" as such, but one should recognize that they still have a major spatial, cultural and economic impact on the old Chinatowns. There is a fine line, indeed, so I am avoiding indiscriminately labeling them as Chinatown. For example, there are shopping centers scattered in the Bay Area and are killing businesses in San Francisco's Chinatown. Edmonton, Canada's Chinatown is also affected by a large supermarket center http://edmonton.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=ed_tandt20030402. They are indeed replacing the old, dilapidated Chinatowns in becoming the new social center. In a sense, these are packaged all-in-ones.

Other accounts: http://journalism.berkeley.edu/projects/drink/ranch.html

http://www.asianweek.com/032698/bay.html

Mainstream community might ask, "Why go to downtown when there are suburban shopping malls?" Same logic. Why go to Chinatown and struggle with parking problems, when there are large Asian shopping centers with supermarkets, restaurants, as well as plenty of parking. Looking back at the lengthy Edit History, parking problems appeared as a generalization and was removed by someone and then restored, but limited parking has been mentioned in several newspaper articles about the old Chinatowns.

172.197.86.85 17:18, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] L.A. other Asian communities

I notice that L.A. has become more in a different kind of Chinatown why is that? Why is the old chinatown is not as known as the San Francisco Chinatown? m.t.

[edit] "Barrio Chino"

In the section of External links to European Chinatowns there is a link to a Spanish-language dictionary definition of "Barrio Chino". As you can see by actually reading the content at that link -- and as I can attest from my own knowledge "Barrio Chino" has nothing to do with Chinese, except maybe (and not very likely) in an origin as an ethnic slur. It's more like "red light district", and with a pretty strong implication of drug dealing as well. The most famous (now a mild shadow of its former self) is in Barcelona.

Unless someone has solid evidence to link this name to a Chinatown, it does not belong in this section, and it belongs in the article only if it is useful to explain that this does not mean "Chinatown". -- Jmabel | Talk 08:51, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Some confusing passages

I'm trying to copy edit this article. I am cleaning up a lot, but I'm finding that a few passages are so confusing that I don't know what to do with them. Any clarifications are welcome.

"In Chinese, Chinatown is usually called in Mandarin Táng rén jiē (唐人街): The street of the Tang people. The literal translation of the word is an uncommon term for the Chinese, used here since the Cantonese, which make up a large proportion of immigrants, were only fully brought under imperial control under the Tang Dynasty)." Several questions:
- The first part of the second sentence here is confusing. Does it mean "Táng rén (唐人) is an uncommon term for the Chinese used here since..."
- Also, do we really want to say "...since the Cantonese, which make up a large proportion of immigrants..."? Shouldn't we say "...because the Cantonese, who made up the majority of early immigrants..."? The name doesn't derive from the (slight) predominance of the Cantonese today, but from their earlier, greater predominance. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:32, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)
Does anyone know what is actually meant by the following (italics mine), "Initially, the Qing government of China did not care for the of these migrants leaving the country"? Clearly someone has mistyped. Is it saying that they didn't care about the people? That it didn't care about their departure? There is no indication of what the later attitude might have been; as it stands, this is somewhere between ambiguity and vacuity.
"As a dominant group, the Cantonese are linguistically and ethnically distinct from other groups in China; Cantonese remained the dominant language and heritage of many Chinatowns in Western countries until the 1970s." Several questions:
- "As a dominant group..." in what context? Clearly not dominant in China. Dominant in early Chinatowns? Is anything useful being said in this phrase, or is it redundant to what follows?
- "...the Cantonese are linguistically and ethnically distinct from other groups in China..." Haven't we already said this, too? Can I cut it? -- Jmabel | Talk 23:42, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)
"...rice porridge or jook in Cantonese Chinese..." I'm guessing this is the same thing as congee. I always thought that word was Cantonese, though. Can anyone explain better? -- Jmabel | Talk 09:19, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

Other than those few points, I'm pretty much done with my current pass. I didn't check the links. I think I've improved the style considerably and removed a lot of redundancies. However, the article is still a bit repetitive and a bit scattershot. It could still use more editing, but having made so many edits in such a short time, I'm going to lay off for at least a couple of days. Kung Hei Fat Choi, though I suppose it's the wrong new-year. -- Jmabel | Talk 10:59, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

In response to your first question, I think the original author was referring to the word "Tang". In Cantonese, "Tang" is used to refer to ethnic Chinese. However, this term is not commonly used in Mandarin; calling ethnic Chinese "Hua" is common in Mandarin. And as you mentioned, I think what the original author meant in the second part is that the term "Tang Ren Jie" became common because the vast majority of the first Chinese immigrants to America were Cantonese.

For your third question, the part saying "..the Cantonese are linguistically and ethnically distinct from other groups in China..." can be cut; it's redundant. The part saying "As a dominant group..." should be kept. It's saying that the Cantonese were the dominant group in Chinese American communities until the 1970s, when Chinese immigration patterns began to change, bringing more Mandarin speakers to America. — J3ff 01:06, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Antiquated features

I would think that gambling dens (fan tan, especially) would deserve more mention than opium dens. And they probably lasted longer in most places. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:54, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Chinatown, Houston

The writer of the entry on Chinatown, Houston said that the new Chinatown (along Bellaire Avenue) has been an area of settlement for Chinese Mexicans. I assume this is a more recent population of Chinese Mexicans that has settled since the 1970's or so. Historically, Chinese Mexicans preferred El Paso and San Antonio.

I'd like to know where the writer got his/her info on the Chinese Mexicans settling in the massive Bellaire Chinatown area. I'd like to know how many Chinese Mexicans the writer believes live in the Bellaire Chinatown of Houston. And I'd like to know when they settled and what they do.

I am the editor of a Univ of Texas book on the history of Asian Americans in Texas, and I found your Wikipedia website very useful for this neighborhood-related information.

Thank you for helping me.

Also, the new Houston Chinatown truly is humongous. It stretches on Bellaire from close to Highway 59 to close to Highway 6. The population is multiethnic Asian but also extremely undercounted. Do you think it is one of the largest Chinatowns geographically?

Irwin Tang

[edit] Split "Social problems in Chinatown"

I noticed this is one of the largest articles in Wikipedia; could/should the "Social problems in Chinatown" be split into another article? This would allow expansion and more specific External links to websites dealing with these issues; while at the same time reducing the main article's size. - RoyBoy [∞] 06:32, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Fine by me as long as we keep a one-paragrpah summary section with a See Main Article notice. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:20, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

I see how this works... I come up with fantastical ideas, then I gotta implement it! Raspberries I tells'ya, raspberries! - RoyBoy [∞] 21:12, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'd do it, but then there's no real incentive for me to spend all that time and effort for an open content site.

Comment above made by User:130.182.29.245; please sign your posts in the future. — J3ff 02:17, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Funeral traditions

"Buddhist funeral traditions" was recently changed without comment or citation to "Taoist funeral traditions". I have no idea which is correct, but apparently the matter is controversial, and a citation would be in order. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:27, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure why it was changed to "Taoist" either. It's a Buddhist tradition to burn paper houses, money, etc at funerals — J3ff 10:06, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Is this a mistake?

Shouldn't "Tong yan fau" be 唐人埠 not 唐人鎮? CW 05:11, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Request for references

Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles cite their sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia. Further reading is not the same thing as proper references. Further reading could list works about the topic that were not ever consulted by the page authors. If some of the works listed in the further reading section were used to add or check material in the article, please list them in a references section instead. The Fact and Reference Check Project has more information. Thank you, and please leave me a message when you have added a few references to the article. - Taxman 19:53, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of relevant information

Jengod, I'm a little mystified by some of your recent edits ([1]). Since you didn't leave any edit summaries, but you usually know what you are doing, I figured I'd ask instead of reverting.

You removed "Chinatowns were established in European port cities as Chinese traders settled down in the area. Chinatowns are also found in the Indian cities of Calcutta and Bombay." Seems to me like this belongs in the article; what's the argument against?

You removed the following links, each of which seemed to me like a good citation for facts in the article: [2], [3], [4]. What gives? -- Jmabel | Talk 05:07, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

Chinatowns were established in European port cities as Chinese traders settled down in the area. Chinatowns are also found in the Indian cities of Calcutta and Bombay." Seems to me like this belongs in the article; what's the argument against? >> Belongs in the article, but not in the news-style lead--at least not the second sentence. (The entire series is about where Chinatowns can be found, the lead should be as general and broad as possible.)
As for the cites, I may have been overreaching--lots of the links were dead or redirected, and frankly, they look like hell and disrupt the flow of the article. I understand citations are part of research, but these are not term papers, and these aren't generally controversial assertions. They are *articles*.
Feel free to revert if it makes you anxious, I just like copy editing the Chinatown articles, and I felt like the overabundant footnoting was seriously undermining readability.

Nonargumentatively yours, jengod 18:41, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

Another odd deletion. The following sentence was removed without comment. "The Kuomintang of the Republic of China has established many local offices in Chinatowns all over the world, in order to gain support from overseas Chinese in its ongoing cold war with the People's Republic of China." The removed sentence certainly accords with my experience in several North American cities and in London. I think this should be restored, unless someone can indicate why it is wrong. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:04, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

Again, references were removed from the article. I restored, they were removed again. What was wrong with the following references?

Mexicali's Chinatown, James R. Curtis, Geographical Review (Vol. 85, Issue 3), 1995
The First Suburban Chinatown: The Remaking of Monterey Park, California, Timothy P. Fong, 1994
San Gabriel Valley Asian Influx Alters Life in Suburbia Series: Asian Impact (1 of 2 articles), Mark Arax, Los Angeles Times, 1987

Jmabel | Talk

[edit] Conversely...

Someone keeps adding this link: linkchinatown.com. I think it's rather useless (it leads to Chinese-language classified ads); I've removed it once, it was promptly, anonymously restored. I leave it to someone else to decide what to do about this. I think it constitutes linkspam. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:08, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 'Low Life'?

In the Restaurants section there is a picture of two cooks out the back of a chinese restaurant with the caption "low-life Cantonese often adorn the backdoors of Chinese restaurants right besides smelly garbage bin. Here, cooks at a New York Chinatown restaurant on a break.". This strikes me as rather offensive and judgemental, not mention being a sweeping generalisation. It doesn't fit with the neutral point of view ideal of Wikipedia. Unless anyone has any objections, I'd like to change it to simply "Cooks at a New York Chinatown restaurant on a break."

Update: viewing the history, that line was put in yesterday with some additional vandalism today. I have reverted the article.

User:TimTim - 12th October 2005

[edit] Middle East Chinatown?

I had read an article somewhere- but i don't remember where this is the problem- talking about Bagdad Chinatown (it was supposed to be small) and the effects of the American Occupation there along with coexistance and assimilation into Middle Eastern culture (although i think the article indicated that there wasn't much or at least it wasnt the same as assimilation in the West.) If anybody knows about this it would be good to add to this wikipedia section. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.109.225.92 (talk • contribs) 12 Dec 2005.

biggest chinatown in the world is being built right now in dubai.

[edit] Quite Unprofessional

Who wrote this: "Quite a number of Chinatowns have a Disneyland-esque atmosphere, while others are actual living and working communities"

Disneyland-esque? WTF?

Some are tourist attractions and spruced up to look like them. Some aren't. Jpatokal 03:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

No, comparing Chinatown to Disneyland is a bit insulting. Maybe "touristy" would be better. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.77.98.28 (talk • contribs) 10 Feb 2006.

[edit] cantonese romanisation

For section 3.4.3 should we insert Chinese characters with proper pinyin? I changed the examples slightly to how they might be pronounced by an English speaker, but apparently this isn't the trend on WP? 219.77.98.28 16:09, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Certainly if you know the correct Chinese characters, add them. Pinyin would probably be good, but I'd also preserve Cantonese as well, since it is the language of so many Overseas Chinese. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:24, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism on this page

Some vandal has been putting in strange references to somebody named Yi Ping all over this page starting on March 14 2006. I've removed them. I've also removed link-spam to some Hong Kong company selling fire insurance. —This unsigned comment was added by David s graff (talk • contribs) 16 March 2006.

[edit] Gross generalization removed

I removed this as false and offensive:

Chinatowns were formed in the 19th century in many areas of the United States and Canada as a result of discriminatory land laws that forbade the sale of any land to Chinese or restricted the land sales to a limited geographical area and which promoted the segregation of people of different ethnicities^{[citation needed]}.

Discriminatory land laws? Nope, not in Canada. Laws on sanitation and crowding and opium that were applied as anti-Chinese measures, perhaps, but land laws, absolutely not; except in the case of private land policies, such as the British Properties in West Vancouver where not just Chinese (and Japanese and other Orientals, as they called themselves without fuss back then) were barred from buying property, but also Jews. But that wasn't a land law, that was a private developer's policy. In fact, very much like the modern-day Chinese/HK developers in Vancouver who make a point of not marketing their developments in English so as to exclude non-Chinese. The phrase I put in place of the above LIE is much more to the point; if there's a distinction in the US, then be careful to not include Canada in the same tar-brushing.Skookum1 21:06, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I wrote to HistoryLink.org and got the following response:

Thank you for visiting HistoryLink.org. Under Washington law, non citizens were not allowed to own land. Asians were prohibited by U.S. law from becoming citizens. Many immigrants circumvented this by buying land in the names of their children born in the U.S. who were automatically U.S. citizens. There are a number of sources that describe this situation including Report to the Governor on discrimination against Asians; public hearing conducted on March 3, 1973, Seattle, Washington. by Washington (State). Asian-American Advisory Council. [Seattle] 1973.

David W. Wilma, Deputy Director

HistoryLink.org, the online encyclopedia of Washington State History

www.HistoryLink.org

Someone might want to follow this up, but it does look from this that at least in Washington State there would have been at some significant truth to the claim that Chinese could not own land. - Jmabel | Talk 15:42, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd still like to see the precise statutes, rather than a cite of a Report to the Governor from politically-correct 1973. There's also no date on this Washington law cited by historylink.org, i.e. was it before or after Seattle's Chinatown was established? And did the Chinese own their properties in the original Chinatown and/or in the post-fire Chinatown (which is part of today's International Village, Seattle); i.e. is this the same kind of vague cite as the footnote/referenced one citing an 1870 California Law (which is unquoted on the sourced website chronology and therefore vague) despite Oakland's and San Francisco's Chinatowns already being VERY established since 1848-49. In Washington's case the laws in question might explain why Tacoma, Bellingham, Everett and Olympia didn't have Chinatowns (I think Spokane did though), but I'd like to see the exact law and if it pertains directly to the creation of Chinatowns, which is the whole point of this discussion.Skookum1 16:08, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Clearly this is going to take serious library research from someone, not just browsing around the web. You seem very interested in the topic. Is there any reason you're not interested in taking a shot at it yourself? - Jmabel | Talk 05:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I probably would, given better access to American legal statutes and newspaper archives and sundry; I'm in British Columbia and very familiar with the early history of my own turf, concerning all peoples and in a non-partisan way (as said somewhere else here, or on another related page, I bedrub Central Canadians for their own fuzzy histories and pat mythologies; likewise Americans re Canada/BC (see Talk:Oregon boundary dispute, for example, and check the edit history of the main article); and I also will lay into my own city's vanities and various conceits to the same degree; I'm interested in seeing correct histories in Wikipedia, on any subject, because there's so much hearsay and unsubstantiated opinion in published histories, especially in curriculum materials and in the rehash of ethnically-biased histories popular with journalists who need copy and also have agendas of various kinds (here in Canada it had to do with the Head Tax Redress issue, i.e. that got the media spewing all kinds of spew; all of us are tired of it - I'm just willing to speak out and happen to know the source materials well...for BC/Canada. Obviously there are some significant differences between the American and Canadian/BC experiences - although you wouldn't have known that by much of the content on this page until I found it; some has been corrected, but a lot of assumptions and shoddy conclusions and questionable cites remain. I've been called all kinds of nasty things for daring to dispute the supposed p.c.-truth; if it was truth, no problem, BUT IT'S NOT. So re the laws that supposedly created Chinatowns, I'd really be curious to know which Chinatowns we're talking about; since it seems more like an exception, than the general rule - which is how the popular mythology, and the text of the article overleaf goes. It's not enough to cite an ethnically-funded/written history, like the Digital Collections cites or the listing of only negative aspects of American-Oriental experience as in the two cites re this particular issue; the actual statutes and locations and dates and circumstances should be addressed; or that entire phrase/paragraph should be ditched like the garbage it seems to be. And again, I don't have access to US libraries, and the statutes and civic histories required would be there, not in the Vancouver Public Library or either of the major university libraries here (UBC and SFU)Skookum1 06:57, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RE: Settlement patterns and history of the earliest Chinatowns

Why are London's and Paris' listed; they're anything but the earliest ones in the West; or is the idea that they're the first in Europe/UK? Victoria's and Vancouver's are next-oldest after San Francisco (unless there was one in Sacramento), although re Vancouver's the extinct Barkerville, Yale, New Westminster and Lillooet Chinatowns are much older.Skookum1 19:17, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First cite for bear-parts and tiger bone trade challenge

Gee; took me all of one googling: http://www.hope-care.org/02%20Chinatown%20undercover.htm Anthony Marr is an example of honesty and virtue you should aspire to, Hong (I've actually met him). More cites coming, including details of prosecutions of Chinese animal-parts dealers/smugglers when I can find them; if you really need the details, that is. Anthony Marr's story should be enough.Skookum1 19:39, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I really do wonder when you are going to stop your hostility toward me. I did not deny the existence of such trends. I only think that if you're going to add a statement like the one you did, you might want to cite your sources. --- Hong Qi Gong 19:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Hong, you've called me a racist WHEN I'M NOT. Should I feel perhaps compassion for you instead of hostility? No, I'm returning kind-for-kind. Attacking me, then accusing me of attacking you when I respond; pls look up passive-aggressive Skookum1 20:09, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Once again, I did not call you a racist. I said you have a bias against Chinese people, and that you were borderline racist. I really am not going to go around in circles with you again, but my justification is the past comments you've made, comments like these:

I look forward to the day when Chinese culture and society is as self-critical and self-examining as European/British/North American societies have become; but by the look of the cant kicking around the press, the net and Wiki, it'll be a while yet..... [5]
"Celestial" is in reference to "subject of the Son of Heaven" and is somewhat akin on context to "British subject", and was meant in a complimentary, even respectful fashion; but Chinese insecurities demand that it be pronounced "racist". Fix your own language's many racist and sexual biases before demanding other cultures kowtow to your need to rewrite history to suit yourselves. [6]
it was a racist response to racist times; natural enough, but don't pretend it's not based in racism and the attached insecurity; the clue here is that word "humiliation", apparently one of the driving forces of the Chinese cultural ego. [7]

You have a problem with certain Chinese people in Vancouver that you think are rewriting history. That's fine. But you've been attacking Chinese people and Chinese society in general. Read your comments above, and ask yourself what conclusion you yourself would come to if you switch the word "Chinese" with "white" in the comments you've made above. Anyway, that's all I'm going to say. --- Hong Qi Gong 20:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Most of the Chinese doing the re-write of our history are recent arrivals; as can be easily discerend by the ESL-quality language on the CCNC site (one of the main propaganda sources) and also as we know from local media; and local friends of the old-stock Chinese families who will generally admit to the unspoken successes of the Chinese instead of belabouring (over and over) the record of oppression; and it's clear from the content of other Chinese-history pages (Chinatown, the cuisine pages, HongCouver) that people are arriving here from Asia with a VERY skewed version of what Canadian and BC history is about. My effort is to correct that set of misconceptions, mythologies and OUTRIGHT LIES; and the observations above about humiliation/face and the lack of self-critical examination in Chinese culture is common knowledge, and also was taught to "us" in explanation of certain behaviours and attitudes which conflict with OUR culture (read that Anthony Marr piece for a good taste). OK, so you're not a racist bigot; but you've also engaged in generalizations about white people (which I'm not going to bother hunting up and citing, as you've done FOR THE SECOND TIME ABOVE) that are even more questionable and clearly indicating you have a jaundiced view of North Americans, Canadians, whatever. Your attacks on me, and the pretense of profanity and personal attack (which as another editor observed, weren't but which were clearly a sign of your intense desire to find something insulting to complain about ..... there's that persecution complex again, the white bogeyman syndrome. The distinction with someone from Vancouver, including the old-stock Chinese (who coined that term the "New Chinese" you don't like, or put "so-called" as a qualifier too), is that we are the front-line of the culture conflict, and we also being colonized; and our media and academia are being colonized; this is why the nameless poster who needs to portray me as a "disgruntled white guy" has missed the mark; apparently it's OK for the Chinese to express disgruntlement, but not anyone else; the clincher is he's in Washington DC (I checked his IP) and so the historical context and immediate social/cultural intensity of the Vancouver milieu - "Asiafication" is the usual term on the streets, by the way, for the imposition of the new culture, and it's used in both pro and con terms - is something he can't believe exists because it doesn't exist where he is. Same as with you supposing that the meaning of word is constant across geography, class and era of use; language is flexible, which is why the Chinaman debate/word cannot be simplified into "inherently racist in meaning". I object, very strongly, to the badly-written and prejudiced views of Canadian history that Chinese-biased historiography and journalism has perpetrated on BC and Canada, and will always speak for the truth; even if it gets me called names by people who are looking for things to complain about persecution/bias over, without admitting to it or looking for it in their own thinking; self-reflection and self-criticism, instead of always trying to "blame whitey". If you can't admit to the importance of "face" in Chinese society, that's just evasion; and I learned about it from the Chinese guy down the block myself, and it's often a subject in the editorials/columns explaining "cultural sensitivity"...which trot it out as a reason why Chinese drivers wave and smile after cutting you dangerously and without any thought for local traffic customs or our standards of courtesy; I'm serious; this was the reason the media spokespeople offered during our driver's license scandal years ago and all the media dialogues/defenses (from Chinese) in defence of Asian-style driving in North America...your highlighting of my words without considering their potential validity strikes me as just more knee-jerk pretentiousness of the p.c. kind.Skookum1 20:47, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Invalid cite

The second paragraph:

Chinatowns were formed in the 19th century in many areas of the United States as a result of the Chinese Exclusion Act and other anti-Chinese policies[1], which forbade, to the Chinese, property ownership and sometimes even residence in certain cities or towns.

The problem is that footnote 1, while discussing the Chinese Exclusion Act and other anti-Chinese policies (1889), has NOTHING to do with the creation of Chinatowns, which WERE ALREADY EXTANT. This is not only sloppy history, it's sloppy logic. A has something to do with B but the conclusion is Q, which has nothing to do with A and B. What's needed for a proper cite for the claim in the above sentence are examples of property ownership laws that CREATED Chinatowns. The Exclusion Act implicitly was to prevent Chinatowns, if you think about it (no Chinese, no new Chinatowns, that simple). This is the kind of badly-thought-out mythology that has an emotional value to Chinese versions of North American history, but on close inspection is a only a cherished claim; and on lose inspection the cite given turns out to NOT have anything to prove the statement being made. Which certain cities or towns banned Chinese from taking residence, by the way? And what does that have to do with the creation of Chinatowns (except that there wouldn't be any Chinatowns in such cities and towns)?Skookum1 01:24, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Skookum1, would you have any problem with the statement that the Chinese Exclusion Act was at least symptomatic of anti-Chinese racism that tended to confine Chinese to their own neighborhoods in U.S. cities? -- Jmabel | Talk 20:17, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

That's still a stretch, as despite anti-Chinese attitudes among some Americans - not all, please note, or there would have been no tolerance for their immigration/presence AT ALL - it wasn't those factors that "confined" Chinese to their own neighbourhoods. It is a world-wide pattern that Chinese choose to settle in the same areas and live amongst each other rather than mingle with the other peoples in the countries they have moved to. This was the case in Bangkok, also in Djakarta, also in Victoria and Vancouver and in the frontier/goldrush towns of Yale, Barkerville, Lillooet and more (all in Canada, but originally Canada was included in the same GROSS generalization in this article). more pointedly in today's Vancouver suburbs, as also in the various parts of the Bay Area in California where "new Chinatowns" are emerging (in Richmond, BC's case it has to do with the synonymy between the city's name and "rich man", and also its very favourable feng shui). You guys are looking for facts that don't exist to shore up a mythology that's built into the victim-psychology of the particular view of North American history you've all been inculcated with by way of white-hating revenge. And yeah, white-hating is the operative term in this mythology. In all Chinatown cases mentioned above, there are no precise boundaries and Chinese merchants and residences intermingle(d) on their fringes or throughout with the other communities; THERE WAS NO SEGREGATION, certainly not officially-mandated ones. Wanting me to agree that the restrictive laws (still uncited and imprecise, other than a website mentioning that they were passed after Chinatowns in California were already well-establish) it was "symptomatic" of white pressures on the Chinese is nonsense; in Oakland and San Francisco the Chinese aggregated together by choice; perhaps partly for security, but moreso for community and so as to be able to live everyday life in Chinese, instead of having to adapt to North American life directly as other immigrant communities readily did so, despite discrimination (e.g. the Irish, the Scandinavians, the Poles, etc.). A couple of my Chinese-Canadian student buddies (egad! - I have some Chinese friends, doncha know?) responded to a story concerning the linguistic discrimination against Norwegians in my father's birthplace of Winnipeg (b.1906, when the city was polyglot in an extreme way) and they said "you mean not only Chinese people were discriminated against?" (jokingly); and the response was a serious "look, the British discriminated against everyone, each to their own kind - and including their own kind, depending on class/county/profession". Just because someone was white doesn't mean they didn't experience discrimination based on language, class, origin, trade, marital status etc. "Racism" is a post-1960s term that has little application in an age when ALL states were biased against outsiders, including and most especially of all China itself. One lesson of history, if you read the stories of the polyglot, multicultural empires (Austria-Hungary, the Ottomans, and others) is that the entrenchment of separate cultural communities inevitably leads to discord and strife; it's when cultures blend and merge that they survive and create a new culture - generally with a common, binding language (as English was for so long in Western Canada, which despite core British stock was heavy on the non-British European element as well as French, native and Asians). Much of the anti-Chinese resentment in the 19th Century, as now, has to do with the cultural insularity and aloofness of Chinese immigrant society, the barriers put up to keep non-Chinese out (and that would include the security guards at Yaohan and Aberdeen shopping malls in Richmond BC who will come up to non-Chinese and indicate they should find another shopping mall; and by non-Chinese I mean also Filipinos, South Asians, etc as well as whites).Skookum1 16:03, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Digital Collections are not valid cites

Digital Collections are useful for pictorials, but you will note that the page you cited has no cites of its own; it is only a litany of the same myths. I want a town named, I want a city named, I want a zoning statute establishing or causing a Chinatown. You might very well find one in California or New York; but in BC you won't find them, other than the (temporary) restriction of Orientals and Jews from West Vancouver's British Properties development (and I think Uplands in Victoria). There is a BIG difference between restrictive laws concerning immigration, and restrictive zoning and civic policies which "created" Chinatowns. The Chinese on Vancouver's Dupont Street (now Pender Street) chose to live in that area; a temporary Chinatown at China Creek at what was then the southeast corner of False Creek was caused by the riots of 1885; but no zoning or bylaws of any kind restricted the Chinese to create Chinatown. Likewise Barkerville, Victoria, Lillooet, Yale - these were organic mutual associations. Likewise Montreal's and Toronto's. Pretending that Chinatowns are the product of whites forcing Chinese to live in ghettos is an attempt to paint the situation as something out of Nazi Germany or the antebellum South. There was nothing like that in North America, despite all the breast-beating, including that Digital Collections page. Digital Collections, by the way, are a federal program meant to sell multiculturalism and spread money around ethnic communities towards that end, i.e. to buy votes; they are not valid academic cites and too often are full of mistakes, ranging from dates and places right through to causes and effects; they are also often written by high-school students.Skookum1 02:18, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

The statement in the article that is in question here is not applicable to Canada, as it does not mention Canada. So don't worry, nothing in the entire article itself says that any cities in Canada is in any way racist toward Chinese people. Furthermore, Digital Collections is a government website, and as such, should be a reliable resource. --- Hong Qi Gong 03:15, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

That it's a government website is in and of itself reason to doubt its validity (actually it's not: it's a government-funded community-written website). Multiculturalism in Canadian official-speak is a tightly-controlled doctrine that has a clear political, partisan agenda. Even so, citing a Canadian site which parrots a US site/source (which is what that site does, leaving it open by implication that the same situations applied in Canada/BC, which is/was not the case). I see the 1870 law in California on the US-cite page restricting employment and residential opportunities; but this does not say that the Chinese were forced into Chinatowns; and in 1870, if you consult your chronologies, the San Francisco and other California Chinatowns were already established and self-perpetuating. The cited page does NOT specify the laws (you'd think it would) and AGAIN there is no validity in the idea that Chinatowns are the result of anti-Chinese regulation; show specific cause to specific effect is the name of the game in proper historical enquiry. You, nor the pages you've cited, have done that. What they (and you) have done is say A plus B equals Q, but if B is long AFTER Q came along, how can B have caused Q?Skookum1 03:44, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll try tracking down a citation. I don't know about Canada on this, but I'll be astounded if there were not at some time laws against Chinese owning land (at least most land) in much of the Western U.S. I reluctatly agree with Skookum1 that, on a controversial question, that is not a good enough citation. It's prima facie evidence, but that's all it is. - Jmabel | Talk 20:27, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Why "reluctantly" agree? - is the myth that cherished that you must be reluctant to agree that it's wrong?? There were, I think, land ownership laws in the State of Oregon from day one, particularly concerning African-Americans, and in point of fact I'm not sure that Portland did have a Chinatown, at least not until recently (if it has one now). I just checked International District, Seattle, Washington but there are no specifics of the original pre-Great Fire (1889) Chinatown's origins. Not sure where else in the US had Chinatowns in the period in question (19th C-early 20th?) but I think it behooves the claimant to provide exact citations of WHICH Chinatowns were created by restrictive legislation; what remains on the page (which is one reason for the POV tag) makes a sweeping generalization that we know doesn't apply to San Francisco's or Oakland's Chinatowns - the two earliest ones in Cali, unless there were some in the goldfield cities (and Sacramento?); LA's wasn't born until the post-World War I boom created that city of thin air, dust, and water rights-scandals (see Chinatown (movie), where presumably the spoiler will have some of that history; as also L.A. Confidential). New York's Chinatowns date to the 19th Century; but again I need to see proof that the city legislated the Chinese into Canal Street and Mott Street, which I don't think was the case. The original entry here made the same unjustified claim across the board, including Canada and implicating London (Limehouse), but again without proof or actual citation of the laws in question. To me, this is fictional history of the worst kind, and used for political brow-beating and outright cultural/historical LYING. You may hate me for pointing out, and you may have to "reluctantly agree", but unless you can pull the rabbit out of the hat I suggest you get the act off the stage.Skookum1 07:10, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why the NPOV tag?

I can't seem to locate any relevant discussion on the talk page here, I just thought i'd ask if anyone can tell me what that's all about, because since this is a GA nominee, lack of a NPOV would mean it wouldn't pass. Homestarmy 04:10, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

See previous section for one of the main beefs re POV. Another is the idea that various countries are "embracing" Chinatowns; I took out the nonsense about the Irish and Italians being racist in refusing the rights of Chinese to expand their small strip of restaurants into full-blown Chinatowns; they, especially the Irish, have a right to maintain their national culture and identiy. Unless it's OK for others to start building "Eurotowns" in Beijing and Shanghai; last time we tried that it got kind of nasty, didn't it? The idea that these other countries are "embracing" is entirely POV in essence; find another word or delete the crap; same as the bit about restrictive laws creating Chinatowns. Chinatownbs in North America came into existence in the same way that the ones in Bangkok and (formerly) Djakarta and elsewhere did - by choice and the Chinese desire to live together and build a piece of transplanted Chinese civilization in the midst of the colonized country. The operative word here is colonization, remember that. It's perhaps true that the 300-year old Chinatown in Tokyo was created by restriction/regulation, given the penchant of Old Japan for regulating foreigners, even highly-respected ones like the Chinese. But tarring the entire world, and North America in particular, based on accusation rather than fact is getting a little tiresome. It wasn't the case in BC, not at all, it wasn't the case in San Francisco or Oakland, and I doubt it very much in New York or London. Prove it, or take it out. And get rid of soppy words like "embracing", which is entirely POV and sounds like a sell-job. Are the people of Germany really embracing the growth of Chinatowns, or is it the willingness of the German government to kowtow to Chinese interests in order to keep a happy trade balance with the PRC?Skookum1 07:18, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know where you seem to get the idea that the Chinatowns in the United States existed by choice. They were formed as a legacy of anti-Chinese legislation, which enforced legal segregation, and placed restrictions on their rights. My native California passed a series of anti-Chinese laws, passed on both the state and city level which prevented them from living or operating businesses outside of a restricted zone, and did their best to prevent assimilation with anti-miscegenation laws that illegalized intermarriage between whites and Chinese, blocked naturalization and citizenship for Chinese immigrants, and barred them from attending the same schools as white schoolchildren. Nowadays, no one wants to get rid of the Chinatowns, due to the amount of tourism money they draw to their cities. San Francisco Chinatown is one of the city's main tourist attractions, and brings in more tourist money to the city.--Yuje 15:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Finally someone who might be able to actually cite the names and dates and texts of the anti-Chinese laws in California. THAT is what I've been asking for, since the 1870 date on that one page is AFTER the establishment of the Oakland and San Francisco Chinatowns. Were they established by the laws you're talking about, or were those laws enacted later to prevent the growth of other Chinatowns in other cities or other areas? That's my point; the text of this article stated that all North American Chinatowns, in a general sense (and originally stated as including Canada, which was not the case), were created by restrictive legislation. There's a BIG difference between "created" and "restricted". So, since you're a Californian and seem perhaps to know the legislation in question, could you please be specific and cite it directly????? And while on the one hand white California did what it could to "prevent assimilation", I submit that on the other side of the cultural fence there is a good deal of resistance to assimilation, especially today (ref the racist term "banana" for an assimilated person of Chinese ethnicity in North America); and this was certainly the case in the past in Canada, where the choice was made in Victoria, New Westminster, Vancouver, Lillooet, Yale, Barkerville, and more to congregate together and create a distinctly Chinese area of town; even though in all those cases, especially the smaller ones (smaller, so to speak, as Barkerville's and Lillooet's were once among the largest towns in the colony/province; and they were among the largest towns, period. In Barkerville's and Lillooet's case, there were distinct Chinatowns, but Chinese businesses were present in the rest of the town's commercial areas, ditto with New West and Victoria; in the colonial period, the governors actually intervened on many occasions, especially in the goldfields, on behalf of the Chinese; and as the province's cities and bourgeois classes became established and Chinese cooks, gardeners and house servants became entrenched in local society, they were often living in gate cottages or better in the swankiest parts of town; only returning to Chinatown for the night if they wanted to (and many did). And there were no anti-miscegenation laws in Canada, and no segregated schooling unless it was the Chinese themselves who established them (as with Victoria's Chinese-language school, which is nearly 150 years old). So while on the one hand anti-Chinese legislation may have entrenched California's Chinatowns, it should not be taken as the sole reason for their establishment; and I'm still waiting for someone to come up with NYC city ordinances on Canal Street, or those for Seattle's first and second Chinatown incarnations. Because California enacted such laws (please cite them, again, specifically) does not validate a broad brush covering the whole of the United States, or as was originally the case with this text, all of the North American continent.Skookum1 15:30, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't recall all the exact laws off the top of my head, since I last learned them in high school (being taught as part of California history), but a bit of Google-fu came up with this page, and off the top of my head, I recall a chapter devoted to it in two Chinese American history books, one by Ronald Takaki (I believe the name was Strangers from a Distant Shore and another as The Chinese in America by Iris Chang). I have currently have on hand a book called Asian Americans by Sucheng Chan which doesn't go into quite as much detail. Some of the laws targetted "orientals" or "mongolians" in general instead of Chinese specifically. One was the Foreign Miner's Tax, which I was able to find here [8] which specifically targetted Chinese gold miners with a tax of $2.50 a month to limit them from mining. My google-fu finally came up with a nice, if incomplete summary. [9] which does list a the 1890: Bingham Ordinance: Chinese people, including citizens, must not live or work in San Francisco, except in "a portion set apart for the location of all the Chinese." (Declared unconstitutional in In re: Lee Sing 43 F. Cas. 359 (1890)). After attempts by Chinese to challenge laws targetting them in courts, they later became targetted against "individuals ineligible for citizenship", which meant Asians, since immigrants from Europe were eligible, blacks were granted it in the 14th Amendment, and laws specifically prevented Chinese (and Japanese) immigrants from citizenship (Immigrants weren't allowed citizenship at all, and Chinese born in the US weren't allowed citizenship until Wong Kim Ark). Other laws targetted Chinese behavior or business practices, such as the anti-queue acts, or the ones that targetted Chinese business methods (such as that it be larger than a certain number of square feet; Chinese businesses were likely to run on shorter margins and tended to operate smaller shops or own horses, another was a San Francisco law that laundries with one delivery horse were charged a trimontly fee of $2, those with 2 or more horses $4, and those with no horses $15; since Chinese were the ones without horses). In San Francisco, there were at least 14 ordinances targetting Chinese laundries, and eventually when challenged in court, these were later ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, which stated that the spirt of the law, if not the letter, discriminated against the Chinese. The book also mentions similar laundry ordinances lobbied for by laundries run by European immigrants in New York in the 1930s, to require one-person laundries (most of which were Chinese) to pay a $25 registration and post $1000 bond, a fortune at the time. The California anti-miscegynation law was passed in 1880. The California Supreme Court case People v. Hall in 1854 overturned a witnesses testimony in a murder case on the basis that Chinese could not legally testify in court. Originally, Chinese children weren't allowed to attend public schools at all, and when this was challenged by the parents of Mamie Tape, this led to the establishment of a segregated school system in San Francisco. That's what I can come up with for now, since this book focuses mainly on pan-Asian American stuff and mostly 20th century civil rights stuff. --Yuje 16:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes, and I might add, that the modern Chinatown in San Francisco was specifically planned and built together in cooperation with the San Francisco's rebuilding commission after the city (and original Chinatown) was destroyed by the 1906 fire. The current Chinatown was planned, and approved of by the city, in order to create an attraction that would generate tourist revenue for the city, which it did, and which continues to attract millions of tourists to my fair city. Many of the newer Chinatowns outside of historically Chinese areas of immigration, such as in Texas or on the east coast, are specifically being planned and welcomed by their cities as an attempt to replicate the success of San Francisco. Chinatown is hardly an ethnic enclave. "Embrace" is entirely a correct word. Colonization and racism? Don't make me laugh. --Yuje 17:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

You laugh? All I can do is heap scorn on your denials. The business and tourism communities in those cities may be "welcoming" and "embracing" the development of ethno-cultural enclaves; that's supposing a lot about what the common people think. I live in Vancouver and it's a totally different story; we're confronted by Chinese racism on a daily basis; and it's obvious here that it IS colonialism that's going on; even having our governments kowtow to China's over Falun Gong protests and the status of the Dalai Lama; and the other ethnic communities here - Asian, South Asian, African, are of the same opinion about the Chinese influx that so many of the rest of us are (including old-stock Chinese whose heritage here was an honoured and valued thing during my upbringing). Have a look at Talk:Chinese_Canadian where many post-ers lay out their opposition and distaste for assimilation, and their regrets that North American-raised and North American-schooled Chinese are "not Chinese enough". Also in that discsussion and IIRC in the main article is a stat that something like 30-50% of the ethnically-Chinese in our country do not know English and have no intention of learning it; that's between 300,000 and 500,000 people, and growing. And the news is that, within 20 years, because of so-called "balanced immigration", Canada's population will be majority Chinese. Now, before I went to lunch I was going to post a fairly polite reply to you, as you'd raised a number of issues which are in contrast to the Canadian experience, both historical and contemporary; it's a totally different environment here. And it boils down to things as simple as street etiquette and social manners and "well, that's how it is in China, why should we behave differently here?"; but when "we" are in Asia, we're supposed to respect and abide by local customs; the favour/courtesy is NOT returned, let me assure you; we're treated like we don't have a right to our own country, and all the time you hear comments, second-hand orotherwise, that Canadians are lazy and shiftless and unreliable and don't deserve this or that. Bigotry is not the exclusive turf of the white-skinned; even people from Seattle, the Bay Area and L.A. are shocked by the immense contrast posed by Vancouver, and the very OBVIOUS FACT of colonization. A running joke is "the whole city is Chinatown"....well, no not quite, because the South Asians have their own redoubt, and in the last ten years the Koreans have established "Koreatowns". Thing is, when we opened our doors, we were already a mixed-race, multiethnic people who had adopted a common culture and identity and built a society together; but those who have taken advantage of that open door now proceed to redefine what "Canadian" means for us, and we're not allowed to protest or we get called "racist". A lot of people move here from other parts of Canada thinking, oh, I'm not racist and won't have any problems; it usually takes about two years and they change their minds, and seriously so. Maybe you haven't been pushed off the sidewalk by a bunch of Chinese kids who pretend not to see you, or ushered out of a shopping mall because you're not Chinese, or had to try and get service in a wholesaler where it's obvious hardly speaks English above the most rudimentary level - and would rather not speak English at all, much less have to talk a gweilo. Yeah, you can feel the venom, can't you? But get this - I was among the most tolerant, broad-minded of my generation, open to Eastern ideas and thoughts and fascinated by Asian art and philosophy; but too much ill-treatment and arrogant attitude by the new colonists here - who even justify their attitudes by pointing at what "we" did to the Indians (they're often notably anti-Indian, also). I didn't suddenly decide to get "this way": it's a natural defence when your own culture and society is systematically pushed aside and discredited. And if you think I'm bad, you should talk to the so-called "white trash" that the Chinese press like to attribute any outbreaks of traffic hostilities or interpersonal/employment strife to. So that's why "embrace" is a suckhole word, and totally self-serving, and why colonialism and racism are VERY MUCH a part of the experience of the burgeoning "Chinatown" that is Greater Vancouver. In ordinary English, by the way, the new Chinese ethnic/commercial enclaves are not what the word "Chinatown" means; except sarcastically; it means/meant ONLY the historic Chinatown areas, and nothing more. Redefining our language for us, however, is another sign of the colonialist.....keep on with your denials, they're entertaining but also utterly false. And before you remove that POV tag again, find the specific cites for the legislation you have mentioned, and show that it is what caused/forced the Chinese to have to live in Chinatows, as the article continues to falsely assert.Skookum1 21:17, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

My sympathies for the oppression you have endured at the hands of your racist colonial masters. The strongly-worded scorn you have heaped upon the facts is stinging indeed. After having seen your views, I can truthfully say that I'm glad not to be living in Vancouver. Glad to know though, that you're not racist and wouldn't let your personal opinions and prejudices be editted into the article. If it's any consolation, other places in the west overrun by the Asiatic hordes, such as Hawaii (41% asian) haven't quite descended in barbarianism down to the levels of Balkanized ethnic conflict just yet. In any case, I'm sure you'll be dead before Canada reaches that point (for which I'm sure everyone, including me, will be glad). As for the citations, I'll try to get them once I have a chance to visit the local public library. Good luck finding a lasting solution to the Chinese problem. --Yuje 02:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Wishing me dead, huh? That's a class act. Reminds me of the young Chinese-import laywer who opined on national TV here two Canada Days ago (that's July 1 to you) that "we've almost done away with the old British Columbian culture; we're just waiting for the rest to die off". Yeah, uh-huh. Like old Tibetans faced with Han acculturation, or any one of the hundred-plus ethnicities in China which are now marginalized and "cute", if present at all. But as for the general tone of your post, the smugness and sarcasm you're trying for belies the fact that much of what you said, if taken deadpan, is more on the mark than you want to know. Your arrogance and dismissiveness in face of my complaints of overt Chinese racism and colonialism in Canada - which is at a different order of magnitude than anything going on in the United States - is typical of the very self-same colonialist mentality and counter-racism that's built into the "New China" mentality in Canada (that stat I mentioned, by the way, where Canada is projected to be 50%+ Chinese in twenty years, was a federal government announcement, and not hick propaganda). Thing is, guys (or girls?) like you are considered "bananas" as, though you may not be aware of it, YOU have been assimilated; by their standards, that is; you are "white on the inside" even though you maintain Chinese customs, worship and language at home. You don't work in a Chinese-only workplace, and likely don't have Chinese-only friends/society (*?), and don't expect the local governments to provide you its services in Chinese, or expect English-language newspapers to carry Chinese-language election coverage/information (as was the case here in the last election). or voice suggestions that Mandarin should be an official language in Cailfornia or in the United States, or that more money be spent on developing more Chinese-culture/language commerce and facilities "because we're the dominant group now", as the line goes. And the justification for this often is "well, it's what you did to the natives"; well, "I" didn't do anything to the natives (and I happen to speak one of the old languages here, have studied three or four others, and also speak five non-North American languages other than English, and have lived and worked among natives, many of whom know exactly where I'm coming from about the new colonialism, as they've seen it before - and they're not particularly happy about being yet another someone else's "new colony", either); and it's not as if what the colonialist expansion of the US or Canadian populations/territory did to native societies was a good justification for someone else to do the same thing. Two wrongs do not make a right; but if you read through Talk:Tibet you'll see it's a common theme; revanchism is poisonous; and so is the revision of history that's built into the Chinatown article and others concerning North American Chinese history. As with this nonsense about there being legislation which created Chinatowns by "forcing" the Chinese to live in them. Name me one Chinatown and one specific piece of legislation that created it or forced its creation; San Francisco's deliberate creation of a new Chinatown after 1906 obviously doesn't count any more than the City of Richmond (BC)'s designation of "Golden Village". So WHERE were the Chinatowns that were created explicitly by anti-Chinese legislation?? W*H*E*R*E???? Calling me names, and equating my views to Naziism by your boring incantation of "a final solution to the Chinese problem", still doesn't answer that very pointed question about the POV content of the article overleaf. And playing the Nazi card is just another example of the "hey, it's a white racist, let's discredit his views" methods of evasion and denial that are built into the new revisionism, and the new colonialism. I'm not calling for a "final solution"; it's my culture and identity that are being overrun, not theirs, after all. And they have the dough and the clout to keep the Canadian government in their hip pocket; another sign of colonialism. You may not be so smug in twenty years when the US wakes up to discover an imperial Chinese proxy state on its northern frontier when the inevitable war over Taiwan or North Korea comes....Skookum1 18:07, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

And to answer your other point, which doesn't have any relevence to the article, but I'm sure is of interest of you, what exactly do you mean by resistance to assimilation? If you're talking about politics, I know as much about the history of my country and its institutions just as much as the next guy, I participate in the political process and vote and write to my elected officials just like any other good citizen, I pay my taxes and serve my jury duty, and proudly donate back to my community (such as my public library and my old high school). My mother is an employee for the US government, as is one of her brothers, while another served in the US military and yet another was a California highway patrol officer. Of the generation before them, one served in the US army during the Korean War while at least two others in World War II. If you're talking about cultural assimilation, then I'm blatently unapolegetic about that. In the US, freedom of speech and the press isn't restricted to English only (we're not like Quebec, after all), and I feel no guilt at all over having the right to worship my own gods, speak in my languages of choice with friends and family, patronize the businesses I choose, and prefer Chinese food. --Yuje 17:07, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not talking about freedom of speech and freedom of the press (there are four Chinese-language dailies in Vancouver - and only two English ones, I might add - and at least two Chinese-language radio and TV stations each); I'm talking about exclusionary hiring and housing practices, and the complete disrespect shown for other Canadians' ways of doing things. And I'm not talking about assimilated bananas like you, I'm talking about the new breed who don't speak English, don't want to, and don't mix with ANY other group, not even other Asians (well, OK, they'll accept Japanese customers at Yaohan, but only because they're richer).Skookum1 18:07, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

"Right"? Why, then, is Hawaii not independent, if indigenous people have a "right" to maintain their national culture and identity? Why doesn't the U.S. belong to Native Americans?

Because they lost their wars sadly enough; I happen to support the Regency of the Kingdom of Hawaii in its efforts to overturn the illegal US annexation, and I'm also a more than pro-native poltical supporters). But this is an old red herring argument I've seen before in talk.politics.tibet, and here's the reply: "TWO WRONGS DO NOT MAKE A RIGHT". Pointing at the US Conquest and colonization of North America as a ajustification for Chinese colonization of the Americas is BULLSHIT. Imperialist bullshit to boot, and just more wheedling and snivelling from an overtly aggressive culture that wants "its place in the sun", i.e. its shot at world domination. Have fun; one thing about aiming for the top is everybody else wants to drag you down AND EVENTUALLY WILL.Skookum1 06:41, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the "embrace" statement anyhow, because it's not true - historically in the U.S., for example, Chinatowns were painted as places of crime and villainy (many older Hollywood movies show this). There's a sizable minority in Vancouver that believe that there are too many Chinese in Vancouver (see HongCouver). I'm not sure what you mean by building "Eurotowns" in Shanghai and Beijing - Shanghai has many foreign company headquarters already.

Yeah? And how many non-Chinese residents? Is English widely heard throughout Shanghai, and are there suburban areas where English-only shopping is the norm? German-only shopping? You're being disingenuous, unless PRC education doesn't talk about the expulsion of foreigners from Shanghai and the other foreign enclaves; or the bloody slaughters of missionaries and others in the Boxer Rebellions. The point is that China itself would not tolerate the same level of cultural colonialism on its soil that the Chinese diaspora is creating in other countries {"embracing" is hardly the word, again); and in the past China has explicitly forbidden the entry of foreigners at all. And the "embrace" statement wasn't about the 19th C. US, it's about 21st Century Germany, Netherlands, the UK. But again you're moving the goalposts to suit your own cultural prejudices; "embrace" implies that the people of those countries are whole-heartedly onside. And I can tell you about Vancouver that, of the non-Chinese, a majority think there are already too many Chinese; who soon will be the majority, and already are in Richmond. What "we" would like (and this includes members of other Asian and West Asian nationalities/ethnicities as well as Latinos, Africans, and bona fide Europeans, i.e. from Europe, not "European" as a synonym for "white", is genuinely balanced immigration, not the creation of an ever-yet larger cultural ghetto that lives apart, thinks apart, and has a separate political and cultural agenda from the rest of us. Colonialists, to be blunt; imperialists...Skookum1 06:41, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

As for the people of Germany, and other places, I believe that when somebody that's perceived to be the "other" moves in, the original inhabitants believe that the new people are encroaching on "their" territory (even if immigration is needed to replace population or to work jobs). It doesn't matter if it's the Turkish (the immigration of which seems to be raising more of a hackle in Germany) or Chinese. --ColourBurst 03:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Again all you're doing is pointing one wrong to justify another; and given the German "embrace" of the Turks hasn't worked out too well, and many Turks in Germany hate Germany, I suggest that it's folly to expand the Chinese colony in Germany. Maybe if your PRC schooling had educated you in the history of the German people you might be a little less wary of establishing cultural ghettos there....Skookum1 06:41, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

"PRC Schooling"? May I point out 1) WP:AGF (and you've unfortunately strained mine very badly based on your personal attacks from the get-go), and 2) I was actually schooled in North America, just like you. You're trying to discredit me based on your perception of what I think, which is incorrect, you've attributed political views which I do not hold. I do not appreciate this. You've made many, many assumptions. --ColourBurst 19:48, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

ME made assumptions?? What about the unjustified content of this article which is based on nothing more than assumption and accusation and not on facts. You may have been schooled in America, but it doesn't show; why the raw assumption that simply because somebody wants to live in Germany, they should not have to live as Germans, but import a culture from thousands of miles away simply based on ethnic biases/identity; I've been assumed and accused right and left here, and have responded accordingly; you've equivocated and tried to justify things said in the article which are pointedly POV, such as the use of "embracing". If you don't want to sound like you have the political views you sound like you do have, you should be more careful in your responses; which I find to be specious.Skookum1 08:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chinese in WWI France - different figure

During World War I, 140,000 Chinese arrived in France as temporary labour, replacing French male workers who went to the war.

According to James Morton, In the Sea of Sterile Mountains: The Chinese in British Columbia, p.229:

China had declared war on Germany in August 1917. Though interneal disorders prevente the Chinese from taking an active part in the war, they setn a reported 200,000 "coolies" to work behind the lines in France. In 1916 and 1917, many of these travelled across Canada in bond from Vancouver. A camp was set up for them at Petawawa, where they rested before continuing to France. ("coolies" would have been in Morton's source, not his or my choice of words)Skookum1 17:14, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Failed GA

First and foremost there is not one reference (see WP:CITE) for the whole article, yet there has been reverts of edits since the nomination saying rv no references. There is a question over the neutrality of the artcile see WP:NPOV. Gnangarra 05:18, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Contributing to a NPOV

There's a lot of impassioned discussion on this page which I hope to avoid at this juncture. I have, however, been so brash as to try to edit out some text that would contribute to a biased perspective. This includes revising the word "embraced" as well as removing several adjectives that include a positive or negative connotation. If removing these implications is considered an irreconcilable lessening of the value of the article, I would suggest adding a section that includes these arguments clearly (not implied throughout the main text) and clearly marked as arguments, for example, a section entitled "Debate on the Culture Impact of Chinatowns". I would caution against that approach however, as it opens a Pandora's box of NPOV questions. 68.175.108.135 07:21, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Could whoever has remaining NPOV issues possibly isolate them down to sections of the article and use {{NPOV-sect}} instead? It looks to me like most of the article should be unobjectionable. - Jmabel | Talk 19:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Confusing hodgepodge paragraph

Latter portion of a paragraph early in the article:

Initially, the Qing government of China did not care for these migrants social misfits leaving the country as they were likely considered socially undesirable and "traitorous" to China. Moneymaking was also frowned upon in Confucianist China, which Chinese migrants were intending to earn wages as sojourners. However, Chinese were not a unified group but were divided upon sub-ethnic lines, as feuds between those of Cantonese (Punti) and Hakka stocks were common. Generally, there were also sub-divisions within the Chinese clan/surnames.

Somewhere in "migrants social misfits" there needs to be some punctuation; I'm not sure what it means to say, so I'm not sure how to punctuate. Also, "social misfits" is a highly POV term, whose point of view is being expressed.
Similarly "likely considered" by whom to be "socially undesirable and 'traitorous' to China"? In particular, whose term is the quotede "traitorous" (no attribution, let alone citation). And traitorous by their being social misfits, or traitorous by their wishing to leave?
"Moneymaking was also frowned upon…": by whom? "…also…" in addition to what?
"…which…": I cannot work out the referent of this. Perhaps it means to say "whereas" rather than "which"?
"However…": this is in contrast to what?
Why "sub-ethnic"? Hakka and Han, for example, are entirely different ethnicities.
"Generally, there were also sub-divisions within the Chinese clan/surnames." Where did we get from ethnicities to divisions within clans, without pausing for divisions between clans within an ethnicity? And a "surname" is just that, a name. The only way I see to have a division "within a surname" would be to put a line between the ideographs forming it, or to pause between syllables in speech. Perhaps "…within clans, each of which shared an identifying surname"? But why mention surnames at all in this context? - Jmabel | Talk 19:58, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

At best, it's debatable whether or not Hakka should be considered an entirely seperate group from Han Chinese. But that discussion is best taken to the Hakka article itself or the Han Chinese article and other similar articles. --- Hong Qi Gong 20:28, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References?

I must say that the Chinatown I know best has experienced exactly the opposite growth from what this article's introduction describes. Three decades ago when I first visited the one in Los Angeles it was a vibrant community and a popular shopping, dining, and entertainment destination. Since then, due to crime and corruption, most of the community's middle class residents have departed and few people visit other than out-of-town tourists. The Chinatown in Singapore, which I visited two years ago, was the only place in that country I visited where buildings were decaying. Where is this renaissance of Chinatowns happening? 72.199.30.31 10:39, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Seattle's for one (significant new construction for the first time in decades, but retaining a predominantly Asian character; one of no more than half-a-dozen Seattle neighborhoods that are typically "alive" at midnight). New York's for another (absolutely booming, it's grown out an just about surrounded Little Italy; there are now other Chinese communities in NYC, but it's a big place, it can support more than one). London's is well-lit and popular, but really only as a "restaurant row" (the cultural life pretty much died out a generation back, lost to gentrification). Oakland's was doing fine last I was there. Vancouver's is not exactly undergoing a renaissance, but it's holding its own in the face of both the competition from Richmond (etc.) and the deterioration of nearby Gastown.

Like any other sorts of communities, Chinatowns don't rise and fall in synch with one another. - Jmabel | Talk 22:07, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fix this...

California

Photos of Boston's Chinatown

it seem out of place. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by GeoFan49 (talk • contribs) 26 August 2006.

[edit] Numbers, numbers

"35,000 residents of Chinese origin now live in this area of Paris" became "68,000 residents". Anonymous. No citation. But what it replaced had no citation either. Does someone have a citation for this? - Jmabel | Talk 04:32, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dispute banner gone?

So it's no longer in dispute? We're all in agreement now? (The Lake Effect 07:19, 7 September 2006 (UTC))

Rather than re-place the tag an ip/anonymous user had taken out, I took out the sentence about North American Chinatowns being made/forced by legislation, which was the core of my objections and no one has yet come up with a usable cite relative to its claims; there are still other objections I have to the overall tone of the article but that was the most glaringly untruthful. The POV that cities should welcome new/expanded Chinatowns is still in the article but seemingly inescapable because of the "gee aren't we great?", chauvinism built into ethnic theme parks/enclaves; but if comments about opposition to Chinatowns in Dublin or Rome go back up being "racist", the POV tag is going back up; I'm also extremely wary of the broad application of "Chinatown", which has a specific historical meaning and, in most cities, locational context that NONE of the new Chinese suburban-takeover areas have a right to be using. Sure, Chinese cultural imperialists want to call everywhere a Chinatown where they've established communities/commercial cores for their own ethnic/linguistic community, and ideologues (as here) can proudly proclaim those to be "Chinatowns". But that's not the meaning of Chinatown in North American English, and I think this article should be limited to a discussion of HISTORIC Chinatowns, not "newly-invented ones" (or so totally rebuilt as to have no resemblance to the original, as with Calgary's).Skookum1 19:20, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Of course, I never wanted to call those other places in Toronto "Chinatowns," but people just don't seem to understand what the heck I mean when I say "Chinese neighbourhood or suburban enclave." I can go for the split between "historic" and "newly-built", but hey, that's a big vote waiting to happen... (The Lake Effect 08:33, 11 September 2006 (UTC))

Hi Lake Effect. You'll note in the following "replies" to my post (you think they'd be thanking me for not putting the POV tag back in) that the regular kibbitzers here don't want to go anywhere near your response; having to discuss the difference is not something that fits in the ideas portrayed on the obverse page, and with the retooling of English vocabulary sucvh that now a sinified suburb is a "Chinatown" in the same sense that the old historic Chinatowns are; but rather than take up that issue, "they" felt they needed to try to make fun of me and mock my "stupid white pig" viewpoints (they don't use that phrase in their comebacks, but its implied enit?). In my view the article overleaf should be broken into two, with the one still called "Chinatown" ONLY about the historic Chinatowns, not with all these new shopping-residential complexes that are supposed to be the same kind of thing, only way better; those need a new name, but "Chinatown" isn't the appropriate one in English because of its associations. Any word can be retooled/rebranded as they're trying to do to this one. But Richmond isn't Chinatown, or a Chinatown, and neither is Markham or Agincourt. There's got to be a different term, and a different article. And some kind of other term for the newly-colonized places. And "colonized" is the operative word, with all its implcations (cf the original Greek context)Skookum1 09:51, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Wow, "Chinese cultural imperialists". Like the ones who, uh, forced Americans and Canadians to develop a taste for their food, or the ones who are lending the money that is propping up the U.S. government without, so far, getting much in exchange other than interest payments? - Jmabel | Talk 04:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Apparently, the Chinese have thrown all their famed business sense, and instead of starting up businesses and tourist traps that freely welcome the money of their customers, they have started setting closed and isolated ethnic enclaves, complete with signs saying "No dogs and gweilos allowed", as part of their colonization plan to eventually infiltrate, dominate, and rule over Canada. The fact that many Chinatowns are commercial successes isn't actually because of the success of their businesses, as was previously thought; it's actually because Chinese are overrunning the native Canadian culture and forcing these poor minorities to patronize Chinese businesses and eat at Chinese resturaunts. This despite the fact that the people running the businesses supposedly steadfastly refuse to learn English and therefore wouldn't be able to viably operate a business. You can see the effects already; the poor marginalized and oppressed people of Vancouver have become another Tibet, with barely have any traces of their native culture left, and even the white people aren't fluent in English anymore. Or so I understand. I'm not Canadian, so I'm sure someone else could explain better how the non-citizen, non-English speaking immigrants could have wielded the political power to colonize the media, academia, education, and government. Perhaps all the Chinese battleships parked off the Canadian coast pressured the government into a treaty of some kind. --Yuje 04:30, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Don't forget, the Chinese are also denying housing to Canadians because they forced Canadians to sign over all their properties to them, and only advertise their properties for rental in Chinese newspapers, which is very racist especially since all the newspapers in Canada are now printed in Chinese, being that the Chinese have taken control of all Canadian newspapers. - Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 07:12, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

It's too late. The Neo-Chinese Cultural Revolution took place, and I have been victimized. Sure I'm Chinese now, but I used to be caucasian... (it happened to Psylocke.) Then again, many of my non-Asian friends still don't know how to use chopsticks, or even know a fortune cookie from an egg roll. (The Lake Effect 08:33, 11 September 2006 (UTC))

Why is it that all you guys are capable of is dig-it-to-the-grave satire. Actually not satire, just bad sarcasm. Funny part is you're right on the mark, and utterly disingenous; there are, in fact, malls in Richmond which might as well have "no dogs or gweilos" posted (Aberdeen and Yaohan in particular) and the point is not "them" getting rich by forcing us to go to their restaurants, but their having created a whole separate economy and society that has no interest in adpating to the Canadian way of life, but rather transplanting the nouveau riche swank of HK to North America in toto and intact. And by the way, like so many of your victimization history mythologies go, the "no dogs or Chinese" sign never even existed; just another overblown bleat to point at whenever whitey gets uppity. And in fact, I do know Canadians who woke up as Chinese-Canadians one day, as they put it, because they never had to consider themselves by their ethnic labelling until the Age of Multiculturalism forced them to. Now there's (according to Talk:Chinese Canadian 300-500,000 Canadian citizens who would rather speak Chinese than either official Canadian language (those aren't my numbers, they're a brag from someone who thought it was really neat). Furthermore, the fact and reality of a separate and completely colonialist Chinese society is part of everyday life in Vancouver and Richmond and other parts of the Lower Mainland; Hong Qi Gong (Hi Hong!) says he doesn't care about what goes on in Vancouver, but the thing is that Vancouver is, in North America, the most extreme case of a recognizably parallel/separate society and areas emerging; displacing other cultures in the process. And it's not just white people who notice all this, so stop pointing the finger at the whitey who dares point it out; East Indians, Native Indians, and others (I'm not going to make a long list, but it's a long list of people I've heard this from) feel that the Chinese have made themselves as special case, that all other groups are less interested in maintaining a separate order and a separate economy: Sikhs are ready and willing to do business all-round, and while Newton and Punjabi Market are distinctly culture-separate from what lies around them, non-Sikhs are not made to feel unwelcome, nor are other people's customs or etiquette held in disregard and openly flouted. Deny this all you want, point your snotty little fingers at me and try and hurt me with mis-placed (and cliched) sarcasm, but the fact of it remains; and you should listen up and realize that just because you can throw stupid comments at some one doesn't mean you can shut them up, nor does it wipe away the truth of what they are saying. And in this case, your comparison to Shanghai's mythology of colonialism (the dogs and gweilos remark) is all too ironic; because if white people were establishing in Shanghai what the Chinese have done to Richmond and so on, and moved in as a dominant force on the local social scene, even having all-white charities and all-white oriented events......sounds like Shanghai before the Foreign Devils were kicked out, doesn't it? You're on the one hand a bunch of ignorant fools; those that know better are a bunch of hypocrites for lampooning criticism with, well, a bunch of stuff that's more on the mark than you think it is. You can be all smug and self-righteous wherever else it is in North America that you are; fine, be smug and self-righteous, suits you, but get this: the degree to which all this has happened in Vancouver is unknown elsewhere in North America. Drastically and exponentially so. Deny it, call me names, make fun of me, fine - be a bunch of schooboys who think they know everything; you'll still be wrong, and you'd still be a bunch of buffoons. Can you find some less cliched comebacks next time, by the way? The ones you've all recited above read like a litany from the "we were victimzed, waaaaah", school of the "how to discredit critics of our superior civlization" manual. That you can't laugh at yourselves, or criticize yourselves, then you shouldn't be doing it to other people (especially post-imperialist white culture/people). Time will come when "you" will be called on the carpet for your own era of colonialism and empire: since you must, as I've said before, you can have the top of the shitheap if you want - just bear in mind that there'll be someone to pull you off it who you've crapped on during the way up. One last point - you little boys (presumably all boys) - should realize that criticisms and complaints (either from me, or as heard from white people, if you actually talk to any...) should be taken at face-value and not pooh-poohed. Why? Because if you don't listen, especially over time, it will be construed as arrogance and will become the focus of resentment, and actually form a lot of the basis of it. You're not beyond criticism, and if somebody doesn't like your way of doing things (or your silly, childish game of taunts and insults that you habitually use to attack critics, many of which are collective-guilt rants condemning me for things other people with the same skin colour (though not nationality) point to what "they" did to "you" a long time ago is scarcely useful, nor really all that relevant; and amounts to one injustice justifying either - "tit for tat", as I said; if that's all you're capable of, well, then you're just like the rest of us and deserve to be criticized like all the rest of us; recognize your own racism and deal with it before impugning that someone else is. Shut your ears and laugh at your frat houses about the big dumb whitey in Vancouver who you think is so easy to make fun of: I'm the voice in the wilderness, telling you things you don't have the balls to face up to and/or admit. Ignore me at your own peril; other people generally do not put such views in print - but their views are much harsher. And that they exist and are deepening should have you guys resorting to something a little more intellectual than dogmatic schoolyard taunts. But foolishness is part of being an imperialist as is arrogance. Welcome to the club, and keep your eyes on the top of the shitheap, and don't forget to, as George Harrison says, "smile as you kill".Skookum1 09:30, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

You know, having read this, I really can't see what's wrong with it. Your French population pretty much does the exact same thing. Despite hundreds of years of integration into the British and independent Canada, they still refuse to learn any English, and insist on keeping their own language, customs, religion, and even have an entire province to themselves. And yet despite this, they still insist on forcing bilingualism onto all the other non-French speaking provinces, while at the same time passing silly no-English signage laws and "English must be half as big as the French" signage laws in Quebec, maintaining in effect a seperate culture and a steadfast refusal of integration and assimilation. And vice versa with the anglophones not learning French. If you're worried about parallel/seperate society in your country, it already exists. In the light of all the rights the second-largest ethnic group is allowed as a seperate culture, to someone down south of the border, it doesn't seem all to unreasonable that the third-largest ethnic group might do the same thing. The French whined loudly enough and got for themselves special rights and priviledges, and I might claim that they were trying to control the country except that they already have the largest political group and run the country most of the time, its inevitable others might follow the same example. And hell, it doesn't even seem like even the most common criticisms of immigrants is applying? They can't be accused of stealing jobs from locals or reducing wages if the jobs they work don't even serve locals and the economy they work in didn't even previously exist prior to their arrival, and if they're indeed refusing to attend public schools and getting private Chinese education instead it seems like they press even less of a burden on social services than the average bloke. If what you say about the segregated economy is indeed true, then I ought to be moving to Vancouver as fast as I can. Businesses that will do business only with Chinese? Why waste my time on engineering when I can show up in Vancouver and any business I start up will enjoy a monopoly over the spending money of the non-Chinese that make up 75% of the population? As for your personal opinions, I'm afraid your words are lost on me, and probably your oppressers as well. Why are you telling me to stay my arrogance and avoid the perils of empire? For that matter, why are you wasting energy typing in English at all? Your colonial masters are the ones that have segregated themselves and can't speak English, remember? Funny how you accuse me of blanketing whites with collective guilt and then proceed to do just that in the opposite direction. --Yuje 12:39, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Postscript/summary: You guys are all so predictable. Getting you to say all those cutesy little sarcasms was like pushing buttons. And there wasn't an original item in the lot. DisapPOINTing.Skookum1 09:40, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

It just occurred to me that a lot of you are in centres where the Chinatowns (historic or invented) are places where Chinese "exploit white people by making them eat Chinese food" or whatever; that's all your Chinatowns are, in fact about. But up here it's whole economic sectors outside of restaurant and specialty retail: huge workplaces where not a non-Chinese can be found (except maybe the Filipino cleaners and the Sikh night guard and the occasional gweilo marketing or liaison person); I'm talking shipping, wholesaling, especially food wholesaling, technology and software companies and other large enterprises; THAT is the whole separate economic and social milieu; it's not about restaurants, which here are more for the Chinese, and patronized by the Chinese, than for anyone else; Golden Village is not tourist-oriented, it's colonialist/expat oriented (expat here meaning expat of China), whereas Chinatown is part of the city's historic fabric and cultivated as a touristic feature in the city deliberately (as with SF's); the colonialism I'm talking about doesn't have to do with dim sum places and bamboo stores and dragon-shaped lamp-posts; it has to do with a separate, and self-consciously separate, society and culture. It may not be happening elsewhere in North America - yet - as it is in Vancouver and to varying degrees in certain other Canadian cities, but the relative numbers for all this are nowhere near the same in any American city and the realities of what I'm talking about I don't think you can really grasp. You do, after all, think I'm talking about the evil conspiracy of Chinese restaurants out to corrupt white youth etc etc. No, I'm talking about a whole economy, a detached, enclaved society. Deny it if you need to; doesn't change the fact of its existence, or of the growing (and coalescing) resentment against it. You guys should be wary of resentment from others; you think you'd recognize it - but it's SO much easier to point out the faults of others than realize you have any faults yourself, isn't it?Skookum1 10:05, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, the most common criticisms of immigration the jobs they take away from locals due to their willingness to work for cheap wages. But apparently, they're not even doing not, not taking away jobs from local Canadians but bringing in entirely new ones, and actually starting up businesses that hire local Canadians. Had they taken that route and worked in the pre-existing economy there'd probably be complaints just as loud about hiring third-world scabs for slave wages and foreigners stealing native jobs. Would you rather have had a population of well-integrated welfare whores or an immigrant population willing to work, even start their own businesses and make their own jobs, and not even steal native jobs while at it? If you find the greatly expanded economy so despicable, here's a remember; living in a free and capitalistic society, there's no one holding a gun to your head and forcing you to patronize their businesses. Businesses don't grow profit from trees, feel free to spend your money on the appropriate alternative businesses instead. Go make those Indian/Pakistani/Filipino/Jewish/Inuit rich at those evil Chinese people's expense. If I were there, I'd be doing my best to make a killing by doing right where you claim all those Chinese businesses seem to be doing wrong.--Yuje 12:58, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

"Colonialism", as defined by Dictionary.com

1. the control or governing influence of a nation over a dependent country, territory, or people.

2. the system or policy by which a nation maintains or advocates such control or influence.

3. the state or condition of being colonial.

4. an idea, custom, or practice peculiar to a colony.

"Imperialism", as defined by Dictionary.com

1. the policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries, or of acquiring and holding colonies and dependencies.

2. advocacy of imperial interests.

3. an imperial system of government.

4. imperial government.

5. British. the policy of so uniting the separate parts of an empire with separate governments as to secure for certain purposes a single state.

So until Hu Jintao starts dictating the lives of Canadians and making decisions for the Canadian government... - Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:32, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NYC/Manhattan Chinatown?

What happened? NYC/Manhattan Chinatown has pretty much been wiped from this article save for some mentions in the captions and the fact that Flushing is the "other Chinatown." Did it just get lost in the shuffle? -- Fuzheado | Talk 02:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Probably. There's been a lot of shuffle to get lost in. - Jmabel | Talk 04:10, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Further deterioration

In my view, at least, this article continues to deteriorate. It now begins by saying (and later more or less reiterates) "This article is about sections of an urban area associated with a large number of Chinese, Japanese, Koreans residents or commercial activities."

I have two major problems with this:

"[[overseas Chinese |Chinese, Japanese, Koreans]]": Koreans and Japanese, wherever they are, are not overseas Chinese. Period. I have never heard anyone but a racist or a fool use the term "Chinese" or "overseas Chinese" to refer to Koreans or Japanese.
Beyond that, though: while a Chinatown may contain significant number of people who are not Chinese, the presence or historic presence of Chinese is a requisite for it to be a Chinatown; the presence of other ethnicities is incidental to this designation. I defy someone to provide even one example of a "Chinatown" that is not, or was not historically, Chinese. There are some places in North America known as Japantown (there were more before the WWII-era internment) or Koreatown; Seattle has a Little Saigon (and I imagine there are others); but these are not Chinatowns.

Separate from this: I'm pretty dubious on using the term "Chinatown" for recent, even heavily Chinese, suburbs outside of China. The term can somewhat loosely include those, but I think we should make it clear that this is a very loose usage, and that the recent, articicial "Chinatowns" constructed as tourist attractions also constitute a somewhat stretched use of the term. - Jmabel | Talk 01:11, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and have removed it from the article. While many Chinatowns are not mono-ethnic, what makes them Chinatowns is a current or historical presence of ethnic Chinese. For your other concern, historically, Chinatowns were areas in which Chinese actually lived, worked, and played, and these were called Chinatowns because of the Chinese people the area, and perhaps some Chinatowns are still like this. Now that many countries in which Chinese live are now more enlightened ones and ethnic Chinese are more integrated into society, the name Chinatown is usually associated with exotified and touristy historical or cultural sections of a city, where ethnic Chinese don't necessarily live anymore. Then there's other areas of cities in which ethnic Chinese do live, and which may have many characteristics of Chinatowns, such as ethnic businesses and paifangs, but are not necessarily called such. And now, are specifically planned urban areas which may not be historically Chinese, but are explicitly being named and promoted as Chinatowns. Perhaps it's these different kinds of areas which leads to confusion and disagreements over what a Chinatown is or should be. --Yuje 06:12, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Split "Chinatown in films, television, and the arts" in new article Chinatown (in the media)

I put this out there for several reasons.

This article is too long.
We haven't yet figured out how to handle this whole "old and new Chinatown yet," and I'm sure one of you guys can be more articulate on the subject than I can. (I have my ideas, but some of you will invariably share them.)
This is long enough to actually create a new article, and it's not going to stop growing.

I've already re-organized the list into three sub-categories but it will definately get more as the contributions pile up. I'm not really interested in "making a list for the sake of making a list." Once this is transplanted into a new article, we add a few choice images relevant to each category, and get a nice introduction on top. Perhaps we can get some real experts in on the subject? - The Lake Effect 20:15, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tongs

In a picture caption: "Benevolent associations and tongs…": as I understand from Chinese-American friends, the term "tongs", used in English, is generally objectionable, overly associated with organized crime. They tend to be pretty emphatic about not considering their benevolent associations and family associations to be tongs. - Jmabel | Talk 06:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

5 days, no reply, I will remove the word tongs. - Jmabel | Talk 09:32, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sam Woo Restaurant

Why is Sam Woo Restaurant prominently mentioned in this article? Although one of the more established, it remain one of the thousands of Chinese restaurants. Is there a specific cultural importance about Sam Woo? Or is this a result of viral advertising? Sam Woo (or Sam Wo) appeared in nearly every Chinatown article I searched and from my experience of living in monterey park,ca for half my life, it's simply another restaurant out there.

Any explanation? Primadog 07:50, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../c/h/i/Talk%7EChinatown_57cc.html"