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Edwin Li
AAS 680
Spring 2009
ExtraCredit
China Town Back Alley Tour
Although I lived in San Francisco most of my life, I did not know everything about San Francisco’s China Town. The tour started at porcelain square around 12 o, clock, where we talk about the history of porcelain square and why it is important to China Town. Our tour guide stood 5.4 ft, carrying an over stuff back pack, and wore her hair in a pony tail. Like most Chinese girls, she was very young looking. I thought she was a high school freshmen but it turns out that she is a freshmen college student. Our group was one out of the many other Back Alley tour groups being conducted in China Town.
As we continued on our tour, we walk by the YMCA, the Oriental School, the Chinese Playground, and Cameron house. We walked by the largest Alley way in San Francisco, which looked like a street to me. The one thing that stuck in my mind the most was the Oriental School. As a kid I never paid attention to the school but our tour guide told us the history of the school and it surprised me. Even though I knew about racism growing up, I never took it seriously. When our tour guide told us about how a little girl was not admitted to the Oriental School, because she was Chinese- it hit home. The history of Chinese American oppression stops becoming texts in a book and becomes something real and physically.
Over all, the tour was very successful, I learn a lot more things about Chinatown then I thought I knew. My biggest regret was that I did not go to the Chinatown Library. That library holds a place near and dear to my heart. I remember going there as a child and barrowing a stack of books so high, I could barely see as I walked home. I felt like I just rob the place. I don’t remember reading the books, just looking at the pictures and feeling smart. Every time I go to Chinatown, nostalgia starts to flow through my mind. I start to remember all the things I saw there as a baby. I remember the local gangs that use to run around the streets and the cool things that the locals only knew.
After the tour was over, I went to the brand new Subway Sandwich that opened in Chinatown. I order the five-foot meat ball sandwich and looked out the window. I took a bite into the sandwich-taste like shit.
