SAN FRANCISCO – The oldest Chinatown in the United States is starting to resemble a ghost town. Red lanterns swinging above the pagodas are reminiscent of tumbleweed. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, tourism has declined drastically, leaving beloved businesses questioning their future.San Francisco’s Chinatown, a historic neighborhood that has been a beacon for immigrants and the “American Dream,” has faced racial discrimination, repressive legislation, a massive earthquake and now a pandemic – one of the greatest tests of this resilient neighborhood’s more than century-long existence.It is in this situation where Orlando Kuan finds himself, on a metal folding chair next to a crowded table of pastries outside his storefront on a Sunday afternoon, frequently known to be the busiest day for business. Grant Avenue, a once-bustling street in San Francisco’s Chinatown, is devoid of tourists. Only the most loyal locals are left to patronize their favorite family-owned businesses.
Eastern Bakery, a cornerstone of the neighborhood, first opened its doors in 1924, and it became the oldest bakery in Chinatown. But business has slowed to a crawl. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, typically one of the busiest times of year, the bakery logged a 70% drop in sales, according to Kuan. Still, he continues to personally greet customers – who once included President Bill Clinton – marveling at his table of famous lotus mooncakes and coffee crunch cake, a traditional recipe that is a big seller.
In early March, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a stay-home order, which restricted nonessential travel, affecting 40 million Californians. In July he called for statewide closures for dine-in restaurants, bars, movie theaters, and family entertainment centers such as bowling alleys, mini-golf facilities and arcades. Now, Portsmouth Square, Chinatown’s living room, is devoid of the usual pack of Chinatown residents who come to the park to mingle, practice Tai Chi and play checkers.
According to the San Francisco Travel Association, tourism to the city has been slashed in half, and tourist spending has plunged by nearly 70% this year.
“As early as January 2020, we were already starting to see an impact. This was during a period when Chinatown generates a bulk of revenue. There was a one-third drop in attendance for the Lunar New Year parade, which was economically devastating,” said Malcolm Yeung, executive director of the Chinatown Community Development Center. “This was definitely behind the racist rhetoric around the coronavirus.”
Yeung is referring to the impact on the Asian American community after President Donald Trump’s use of xenophobic language in an effort to place blame on China for the spread of the virus. “Thank you all for being here, and we continue our relentless effort to defeat the Chinese virus,” the president said to a pool of reporters in March.
Businesses such as Eastern Bakery are not the only ones struggling to stay afloat. Man Hing, a Chinese Arts and Crafts store, also based on Grant Avenue, is going out of business. Owner Eddie Au said that the pandemic is not the only reason for closing after 54 years at the shop. “The economy isn’t good, and Chinatown will take three to four years to recover,” Au said. Eighty percent of his customers are tourists originating from Europe or Mexico, he said. With the economy collapsing, Au saw his opportunity to close up shop and retire.
Chinatown Alleyway Tours, a program from the Chinatown Community Development Center, has gotten innovative. The youth-led and -designed program consisted of a historical tour of the Chinatown neighborhood and alleyways, and it featured groups as large as 15 to 20 people.
Lisa Yu, senior community organizer at Chinatown Community Development Center, said, “Our in-person tours stopped in March, but we plan to do Minecraft virtual tours next year.” The virtual tours, built and designed by the high school youth leaders, are still in production and are being tested internally.
To empower the community and keep spirit alive, the neighborhood is trying to adapt to a changed world. The Chinese Culture Center partnered with 100 Days of Action, Project Artivism and the Chinatown Visitor Information Center in an initiative called Art for Essential Workers to liven up the area, with murals painted by Asian American artists on boarded-up storefronts.
“Chinatown is such a rich community, living, breathing, and depending on tourists. It’s an economic engine tied to tourism – for people afar,” said Jenny Leung, the executive director of the Chinese Culture Center.
The challenges have not let up. This month, San Francisco Mayor London Breed, a Democrat, rolled back the reopening of indoor dining because of a spike in coronavirus cases. The changes have affected a variety of businesses and kept the future of tourism in the city foggy.
Among those hit hardest are banquet restaurants in Chinatown, which rely on the indoor dining experience.
R & G Lounge on Kearny Street celebrates Cantonese cuisine in a formal setting. Designed to bring families together, the dining rooms are generally crammed with round marble tables to encourage family-style meals. At this restaurant on a recent evening, guests were served a 9-inch cod dish and a simmering pot of winter melon soup next to the salt and pepper Dungeness crab, suitable for a party of eight. These banquet restaurants offer an intimate experience over a comforting meal, and frequent visitors say that without them, Chinatown would not be the same.
By one untraditional metric of business, which might be dubbed the fortune cookie index, the slump has been severe. On an average day, Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory would produce 5,000 to 8,000 fortune cookies, co-owner Kevin Chan said. After two months of reopening, the company is making 3,000 a day or less.
The cookie factory is in Ross Alley, formerly a notorious center for brothels and gambling dens, where the usual snaking line of tourists has disappeared. Chan’s mother, fellow owner Nancy Tom Chan, is still delicately folding the individual fortune cookies there with her son. The landmark business is celebrating its 58th anniversary with its biggest economic challenge to date.
“Tourism is the goose that lays the golden egg for San Francisco, whether it’s service jobs or a convention for visitors,” said Aaron Peskin, a Democrat who represents District 3 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. “It’s a multibillion-dollar industry, that San Francisco, despite its challenges . . . has relied on.”read more
Country’s oldest Chinatown fights for life in San Francisco…
