Source: me.

There are many Chinatown's in this world, some small, some large, some spanning entire city districts and some maybe only occupying a corner of a town.

Each Chinatown brings with it momentos representing our places of origin. Doesn't matter if it's a Cantonese-influenced Chinatown, with it's southern flavour of shops and eateries managed by a few big families from either Hong Kong or Guang Dong (Canton) or from the Mainland, devliering us an intense slice of China entire within the confines of what each Chinatown allows.

I've always felt all Chinatowns across the world acts as a nexus point for us Chinese. No matter what dialect we speak, which country we come from, whether one is a nobody or somebody, part of a family or a wayward grasshoppa; whenever I come to Chinatown, i always feel a sense of comfort. It's one of the very few places in the world where i do allow my guard down momentarily.

Chinatown is a place not limited to a geographical location. I see it more as outposts for those who have had to flee the motherland and our cultures; i think the correct term to describe Chinatown is it being an "ethnic enclave". A sanctuary of momentary safety and a temporary experience of home away from home. Nowadays it's hard to find a Chinatown that's either fully Hong Kong influenced or China influenced. More families are merging and as the old bloods move away, the new young grasshoppas take the reigns. There will always be a part of Chinatown that is run by the Triads, but even that's dyin off.

I used to be able to recognise the key players of certain root-families who established themselves in Chinatown, in my city. Everyone and everything was connected. Most of the old families who started here in this Birmingham-Chinatown all came from Hong Kong. Most of these elders grew up together in the 60s-90s Hong Kong; either they were school buddies, or from old HK street gangs, or from the same district or even from the same martial arts schools. They all fled to England before 1997, the passing over of HK from British occupancy back to the Chinese Government after the 99 year contract ended.

I'm a 1st generation wayward grasshoppa, considered to be a banana (yellow on the outside, white on the inside) or a Sweet Potato (same meaning as banana with the added "idiot" connotation that comes with calling someone a potato). Chinatown resonates with me very much, being a guest in these foreign lands i find myself born in, never fully part of here nor there. I guess i will always be a Banana to the East and West, but that's okay. I hold to my lineage and hold to my heritage.

At times I consider whether it's in the cards for me to return Home. Home, true home, where my people's at. I would very much like to retire in Guang Dong, or Foshan, or Hong Kong if given the chance in this life. I know deep down that can never be though. All throughout my years dipping in and out of Asia, i have never found it comfortable to set any roots there - the climate, the customs, the language, the sociatal-values expected, the lifestyle is totally opposite to my modus operandi. The English-influenced upbringing has flavoured me differently as a yellow-skinned. But I don't mind.

Stomping around my old hang in Chinatown, i remember the stories, the fights, the prosperity of the Lee family business. I got to be a part of this Chinatown's history, the Lee family being one of the old families to establish themselves here in Birmingham. Our comrades used to span all boroughs and to other Chinatown-Enclaves, but now everyone is wind-blown. It would be nice to see a familiar face again.

Everytime i return to Chinatown, i know there will be a pair of chopsticks for me, a cup of hot yin-yang (that's coffee and black tea together + condensed/evaporated milk) and a bowl of rice. It's symbolic. No matter where i sojourn i can always return to this Enclave and that's good enough for me; makes this sojourn that much more bearable.

I'd just like to end this dialogue with a poem from the Book of Odes. I like this poem because it uses the imagery of a pear-tree. Pear in Chinese is not only a fruit, but alludes to the history of where the Lee family clan comes from (another story for another day); phonetically the word sounds like "Lee" in my language:

甘棠

蔽芾甘棠、勿翦勿伐、召伯所茇。
蔽芾甘棠、勿翦勿敗、召伯所憩。
蔽芾甘棠、勿翦勿拜、召伯所說。

-- 詩經 "國風; 召南"

Sweet-Pear

This umbrageous sweet pear-tree;
Clip it not, hew it not down.
Under it the chief of Zhou lodged.

This umbrageous sweet pear-tree;
Clip it not, break not a twig of it.
Under it the chief of Zhou rested.

This umbrageous sweet pear-tree;
Clip it not, bend not a twig of it.
Under it the chief of Zhou halted.

-- Book of Odes; Section 1 "Lessons from the states", Chapter 2 "The odes of Shao and the South"