Dear lord that street is clean!! ...It's sad that I find that kind of weird. I'm used to NYC Chinatown... (Not clean at all, very busy and loud.) Japanese Chinatown seems so.. sanitized. Like they sterilize it every other weekend. Kind of creepy. But, I bet it smells good, with all the roasting chestnuts. Only other place I've been that had them was NYC, but not very many.
That doesn't sound unusual to me... I went mooncake-shopping for the Mid-Autumn Festival in a run-of-the-mill Chinese supermarket a few weeks ago, and found that the only non-shady ones came in $30 tins (for 4 mooncakes). :( Mooncakes are apparently very time-consuming to make, and one cake is 4 servings, so it makes sense.
Otherwise... how weird! I wonder what happened to all the Chinese people there -- if they assimilated, or if they just all moved away.
Oh, I was going by prices in CA, hah ^^;; Off-season, one mooncake costs $3. We usually can find good quality tin sets for $10-$20 at a supermarket, on average at the Harvest Moon Festival that costs $15-$25.
And Evan tells this better I think, but I'm pretty sure WWII made Chinese people very not welcome anymore ^^; I know there's still some old angst depending on the generation.
Luckyyyy! I guess prices in NYC are inflated. :( And I can hardly ever find off-season mooncakes here. Granted, our Chinatown sucks (dirty, dingy, not as pretty/tourist-friendly) in comparison to SF's, though.
Yeah I'd imagine that WWII had a lot to do with it... When I first started liking anime/sushi/Japanese culture, my family kind of disapproved because of lingering bitterness about WWII.
Aha! Wikipedia comes to our rescue.
In 1923, the Kanto Area was devastated by the Great Kanto Earthquake. Around 100,000 people were killed and approximately 1.9 million people became homeless. Chinatown also suffered and with many immigrants choosing to return to China instead of rebuilding their livelihoods in Yokohama.
In 1937, full-scale war between China and Japan erupted, effectively stopping further growth of Chinatown.
LOL, thanks wikipedia! I guess that answers our question :D Yeah, Boston Chinatown used to be reaaaaally dirty too, but then they worked hard on cleaning it up. I think the cleanest (like practically Yokohama clean) I've ever encountered was in Calgary and possibly Ottawa. Of course they're in Canada =_=;
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That doesn't sound unusual to me... I went mooncake-shopping for the Mid-Autumn Festival in a run-of-the-mill Chinese supermarket a few weeks ago, and found that the only non-shady ones came in $30 tins (for 4 mooncakes). :( Mooncakes are apparently very time-consuming to make, and one cake is 4 servings, so it makes sense.
Otherwise... how weird! I wonder what happened to all the Chinese people there -- if they assimilated, or if they just all moved away.
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And Evan tells this better I think, but I'm pretty sure WWII made Chinese people very not welcome anymore ^^; I know there's still some old angst depending on the generation.
Reply
Yeah I'd imagine that WWII had a lot to do with it... When I first started liking anime/sushi/Japanese culture, my family kind of disapproved because of lingering bitterness about WWII.
Aha! Wikipedia comes to our rescue.
In 1923, the Kanto Area was devastated by the Great Kanto Earthquake. Around 100,000 people were killed and approximately 1.9 million people became homeless. Chinatown also suffered and with many immigrants choosing to return to China instead of rebuilding their livelihoods in Yokohama.
In 1937, full-scale war between China and Japan erupted, effectively stopping further growth of Chinatown.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama_Chinatown
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