Talk:Chinatown/Archive 2

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)

Red lampposts do not make a Chinatown
I had a close up look at, which says it's of Vancouver's Chinatown, but it's anything but representative of that Chinatown, though definitely taken from within it (on the periphery actually) and the only Chinatown-features visible are the decorative red-painted lampposts; the location of the shot is from just south of Pender Street looking northwards - nice shot of the mountains - but other than the fact those are probably Chinese-owned vehicles parked on the street, the majority of the buildings visible are either part of "the strip" - the notorious "Downtown Eastside"/East Hastings slum/drug market which Chinatown makes a point of not being associated with (even though it's only a block away); the large building on the left is the former BC Electric Railway building, home to various film and entertainment industry offices (no Chinese entertainment offices, though) and the large one in the back, with the out-curving top, is "The Van Horne", a new gentrification project on the far side of Carrall & Cordova in Gastown. The axis of Chinatown runs east-west on Pender Street (and is mostly to the left here, although the Sam Kee Building is on the near left-corner if you know what you're looking at, and one of the Chinese papers has an office on the far right corner; looking across Pender Street implicitly provides a view that spans Chinatown, East Hastings and Gastown.......nice shot of the North Shore Mountains mostly; but could the person who took this go back to the same location, stand on Pender just west of Carrall, and shoot east up Pender towards Main Street? Other suggested views woul be down Pender or Keefer from Gore, looking west.  Those would take in store signs and the sidewalk markets.....again, this shot is not really of Chinatown, though taken from within it.Skookum1 (talk) 12:42, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I removed it after noticing it's still here, and nobody's made an effort to get a better shot. It's not of Chinatown, though taken from a side street within Chinatown; I suppose the idea was to try and promote the mountain vista which is a current theme with promotional pictures of Vancouver, but the desnity of Chinese signs and businesses does not say "Chinatown"; only the luxury vehicles and red lamp posts do, the big buildings are in Gastown or on East Hastings Street.  Sicne this was apparently taken by a Vancouver contributor, if you (who took it) don't like it being taken out, might I suggest you go BACK to Pender & Carrall and instead of taking a shot looking north from Carrall, you go up to Pender, turn right, and take a picture of "downtown Chinatown".  Or shots taken from Gore & Pender or Gore & Keefer looking back down into Chinatown; even a shot similar to this one looking up Main from Keefer or Georgia would be far better, given the number of Chinese signs; upper Pender or Keefer would be best because of the street market that typifies the area, and around Pender & Columbia there's of course the big neon of the Ho Ho and others....This article DOES need a shot of Vancouver's Chinatown.  But that wasn't it.Skookum1 (talk) 12:59, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * For non-Vancouverites who don't understand the difference between "of" Chinatown and "from within" Chinatown, this area of Chinatown in Vancouver is barely a block wide; immediately north of it is the two-block wide Downtown Eastside, which verges on Gastown, also narrow; the red lampposts end halfway between Pender and hastings, Hastings bein the street the big building on the left is on; the building on the right background is in Gatown and is a ulxury condo, nothing to do with Chiantown historically or modern (though probably has Chinese residents, like any high-priced condo in Vancouver). Chinatown's too narrow to be photographed "transverse" like this, it has to be photographed lengthwise in order to ''look like" Chinatown.Skookum1 (talk) 13:02, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Chinatown In Yokohama left out
Chinatown In Yokohama left out ?

I was surprised to see that Chinatown in Yokohama, Japan isn't included in the page !

Check here for a ton of pics, its definately the best place in the Tokyo area for Chinese food:

 --Sean-Jin (talk) 02:24, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Article bloat & repetition
Aside from plugs for new Chinese-retail areas in the main Chinatown sections, there are two sections about "invented Chinatowns" - "New Chinatowns" and "Artifical Chinatowns" - these sections should be merged. Much content seems to be plugs for individual malls and businesses. Wikipedia is NOT a directory and should not be used to list services or talk about places where Chines people shop that are not Chinatowns; the usage here of the word Chinatown to refer to new Chinese commercial districts is inappropriate and un-encyclopedic as well as promotional in nature. Talking about what kinds of foods can be found in Chiense restaurants belongs in American Chinese cuisine or Canadian Chinese cuisine. This article is grossly bloated and full of distortions and conflicting claims; - Golden Village's claim to be the highest concentration of Chinese malls in North America is highly subjective, and also conflicts with claims made by other centres; similarly Vancouver's 2nd largest Chinatown (v. San Fran's) vs Toronto's claim to be 2nd largest is typical of the conflicting boasts found throughout the article. I took out information on the bus service connecting New York's and Boston's Chinatown, which is pure promotion and not about either Chinatown (that the bus station is near Boston's Chinatown is really only incidental).....also, having been there, I know that Boston's Chinatown is not that "cramped" but if there's a reason people don't go down there it's because it's in a highly dangerous area known as "the Combat Zone". This article overall needs major culling and stripping, and a lot of teh linked articles seem to be advertising pages for individual businesses and real estate developments and should be deleted.Skookum1 (talk) 10:55, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Chinatown overburden
apparently most editors working on this page and its sister articles are more interested in adding to the problems it has than solving them. I've added subsections to the lengthy list/travelogues that are in the "History" section, the whole section being really indistinguishable from the content/purpose of Chinatowns in Asia, Chinatowns in Canada and the United States, Chinatowns in Europe, List of Chinatowns etc. and the oddly named and totally redundant Chinatown patterns in North America.....also having similar content is Chinese American, Chinese Canadian, List of Canadian cities with large Chinese populations and others such as the US and Canada immigration hstory articles. A combination of merge and cleanup is needed for all of these, and a lot of the travelogue/promotional material needs junking. The pissing content by promoters of NYC and Toronto Chinatowns has also got to end; either cite sources for NPOV, non-spam content or be prepared to see "my Chinatown is bigger than your Chinatown'content removed point-blank. This group of articles is incredibly over-written and redundant and consolidation is needed; and regular policing for spam-type content and needless (and often untrue) bragging.  Clearly WP:China is pointless as a place to raise this issue; maybe WP:Ethnic groups but nobody there has responded to previous comments of mine about this and similar problems with Koreatown, maybe there's a general admin discussion area I"m not aware of - a merger/content discussion area like an AfD but not an AfD...I'd imagine these problems are the same, or even worse, in Chinese-language Wikipedia.....Skookum1 (talk) 14:37, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

SF vs NYC edit war
Please see Talk:Chinatown,_San_Francisco.Skookum1 (talk) 16:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Who removed info about Brooklyn's Chinatown experiecing an Influx of Fuzhou immigrants?
Who remove info about Brooklyn's Chinatown experiecing an Influx of Fuzhou immigrants? I revised the info about Brooklyn's Chinatown becoming a Fuzhou community.

Manhattan's Chinatown is now hardly experiencing any new increase of Fuzhou immigrants now and the Cantonese population is barely declining. Brooklyn's Chinatown is experiencing an even higher and faster growth of Fuzhou immigrants rather than in Manhattan's Chinatown that the whole Chinese community is becoming like the Little Fuzhou on East Broadway within Manhattan's Chinatown.

The Cantonese population in Brooklyn's Chinatown is now being replaced by Fuzhou immigrants even more so than in Manhattan's Chinatown.

I don't know why anyone removed info about it, but please leave that section alone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.74.74.100 (talk) 12:58, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * It was removed because it was original research, unicted, subjective and about Chinese populations NOT about Chinatowns.Skookum1 (talk) 13:13, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Now that it's been cited, it can be remain - so long as the information in this article matches the one linked, i.e. that there are no secondary speculations or extraneous descriptions that aren't in the source; the items on worries about increase in prostitution, gambling etc should probably be included.Skookum1 (talk) 13:19, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Oldest Chinatown in Europe?
'Home to the oldest Chinese community in Europe, Liverpool's Chinatown dates back to the early 20th century. At the beginning of World War Two there were 20,000 Chinese semen based in the city and London's Chinatown was reduced to insignificance.' - Isn't this contradictory? If it's the oldest, how come it started at the same time as the one in London was bombed? Wouldn't that then be older? --82.70.156.254 (talk) 22:50, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

Piece removed from Film section
I have removed the following badly expressed, badly spelt, badly capitalised and nonwikified section from the Films entry, pending someones improvements: - Adrian Pingstone 16:21, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Confesion of a Opium Eater, 1962, Vincet Price, the horror film aboot opium smoking in Chinatown, San Franciso in 1902
 * High school high, 1996, Jon Lovitz, story set and filming in Chinatown, Los Angeles
 * gideon oliver: Tongs, conncerning tong ware in new york chinatown
 * Fast and furious, 2001, scene of the race scene with motorcycle gang set in a fictional Chinatown of Los Angeles (complete with Confucianist statues and a Chinese paifang), but actually filmed in Little Saigon in suburban Orange County, California
 * Just to note also that that Vincent Price film, which I've never seen, is (very loosely) based on Alester Crowley's autobiography, Confessions of a Dope Fiend, which as I recall was given the more polite "Opium Eater" title by his American publishers....not sure about that but I do recall Price being connected to a film version of one of Crowley's books; that sounds like it......Skookum1 (talk) 12:45, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure that the film in question is based on Thomas De Quincy's Confessions of an English Opium Eater and that the title of the Crowly book you are referring to was Diary of a Drug Fiend. The Film seems to share very little with either book, but it is EXPLICITLY based on the 1822 De Quincy novel (as is indicated on the film's box cover/posters and the fact that Price's character is named Thomas De Quincy)--Curien1000 (talk) 04:53, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Suburban Chinatowns
I'm drafting a short section to mention the phenomenon of suburban Chinatowns. Can others help?  Will Beback   talk    06:52, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * ''Fundamentally different from traditional urban Chinatowns are suburban Chinatowns, part of a phenomenon called "ethnoburbs". Monterey Park, California has been called the first suburban Chinatown. Other places characterized as suburban Chinatowns include Flushing, New York, ..., ... Compared to urban Chinatowns, residents of suburban enclaves tend to be more affluent and may come from different provinces with different dialects.
 * I guess this is less controversial than I'd feared. I'll try to improve this and add it to the article.  Will Beback    talk    12:55, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * This whole discussion, and the extended use of "suburban Chinatown" is entirely and wholly WP:Original research and WP:Synth and should not be given equal, or even approximate weight, as the REAL meaning of "Chinatown" in its proper context as a proper name.Skookum1 (talk) 20:35, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * And, IMO, is part of an agenda seeking to rename Chinese enclaves in the San Gabriel Valley back to "Southern California Chinatowns".Skookum1 (talk) 20:36, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Considering that I argued to move that article to the current "Chinese enclaves" name, your statement is not only rude but is obviously incorrect. Please do not assume editors have agendas, which is a failure to assume good faith.
 * As for the term "suburban Chinatown", it's been used by scholars and journalists for decades now. I'm just saying we should have a short section on it, just a paragraph describing the phenomenon and listing some prominent examples. It would appear at the end of this article and have very little weight. Omitting it entirely represents a failure to cover the topic completely.   Will Beback    talk    21:53, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * it's a rare and not-common usage, and if only used in academia it should not be given weight as if it were a common meaning of teh word "Chinatown"....areas that are being labelled with it don't describe themselves as Chinatowns, or adopt the sobriquet "Chinatown". There's a BIG difference and while this term should be included, it should not warrant the inclusion of so-called "modern Chinatowns" in t he Chinatowns category, or in List of Chinatowns.  Not even remotely.Skookum1 (talk) 22:01, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Not to worry: this isn't about those issues. We're just drafting a short paragraph for the end of this article.   Will Beback    talk    22:49, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Please don't even think of including Flushing's Chinatown as part of such a discussion - it's not even close to being suburban, with a density likely higher than San Francisco's Chinatown. 96.242.217.91 (talk) 03:46, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


 * This article seems about a Chinese theme park. In here (Povoa de Varzim, Portugal), we have a suburban Chinatown (located in Varziela Industrial Park, Vila do Conde municipality) and it is known by its large Chinese shops, the Chinese are constructing an even larger Chinese-only shopping center and illegal casinos are known, one was dismantled by the police a week ago, and it had quite expensive gambling material! People say there are at least two more casinos in that area alone and only Chinese people are allowed to play there, many do all their living there. There is one legal casino here, they also go there a lot, but it is in the city center.-Pedro (talk) 21:34, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Australia v San Fran
RE this edit, what was the state of San Francisco's Chinatown in 1851? Already established? and wondering about Yaowarat in Bangkok, which surely is older? PIssing contests about "we were first" or "longest lasting" are just WP:TRIVIA really anywaySkookum1 (talk) 05:01, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Infobox
Why are the different non-relavent languages used? Vietnamese, Russian, Japanese, Italian, French and Spanish? EN.wikipedia? Chinese and English are the only ones that should be used. Deleting. Murry1975 (talk) 20:34, 20 February 2014 (UTC)