In the December Newsletter we began exploring San Francisco, California the site of the 2007 ICA Conference. San Francisco is one of the most distinctive and cosmopolitan cities in the United States, known for its lively mix of finance, art, culture, and politics. December’s article discussed Union Square - the heart of the city, the largest shopping district on the West Coast, and the location of most of the ICA Conference activities. In this issue, we move northward to Chinatown.

A short walk or cablecar ride up Powell Street (and steep Nob Hill) from Union Square, San Francisco’s Chinatown is the second largest enclave of Chinese immigrants in the Western Hemisphere (exceeded only by Manhattan's Chinatown), the largest in area, and the oldest, having been established in the 1850s.  At that time, it was something of a ghetto for the city’s Chinese railroad workers, but after the district was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, its residents redesigned and rebuilt it with a tourist attraction in mind. The neighborhood that exists today still reflects this character, especially on the central thoroughfare, Grant Avenue.

At the intersection of Grant and Bush Street is the famous Chinatown arch, a 1969 gift from the People's Republic of China. The arch, topped with slithering dragons, is the gateway to the neighborhood. Grant Avenue - the oldest street, incidentally, in San Francisco - runs northward and uphill from the arch and is crammed on both sides with souvenir shops, street merchants, restaurants, calligraphic banner signs, and dragon-entwined Chinese street lanterns. Not surprisingly, Grant Avenue is also usually crammed with people: some are the Asian residents and workers in the neighborhood, but most are tourists from all over the United States who fill the restaurants and knickknack stores. Although a walk up Grant is essential to a visit both to Chinatown and to San Francisco overall, those who don’t want to deal with large crowds might want to spend as little time there as possible.

The other major corridor in Chinatown, which runs parallel to Grant Avenue one block west, is Stockton Street. Though heavy with traffic, Stocktown is far less crowded with pedestrians than Grant - and is also far more authentically Chinese. In particular, the street is known for its dozens of exotic food markets: produce stands, grocery stores, open fish markets, butcher shops, and small restaurants with chickens hanging in the windows. Running between Stockton and Grant are multitudes of skinny alleyways, which tend to be home to small family-owned businesses and again provide an authentic Asian feel.

One of these alleyways, Ross Alley, is home to a small storefront that seems to be full of barrels, but gives off the aroma of a warm bakery. This is the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, where for 45 years the owners have been making 20,000 fortune cookies a day by hand. What is particularly unique about Golden Gate, however, is that the factory offers tours to all comers for free — "tour" meaning that you are allowed to walk from the door to the far end of the room and watch the two women who own the store crouch over a conveyor belt and wait for circles of baked dough to come through so they can stuff them with fortunes and fold them. But you are also allowed to munch on some cookies, and can buy 40 of them (in either regular or chocolate flavors) at a bargain price of $3. You can even write your own fortunes for the cookies and buy them in increments of 100. For those with more eclectic tastes, the Golden Gate also makes almond cookies and other Chinese baked goodies.

Another of Chinatown's many alleyways is Waverly Place, perhaps the most famous of Chinatown’s alleys and certainly its most picturesque (it's sometimes called the "Street of Painted Balconies"). Only two blocks long between Washington and Sacramento Streets, Waverly nonetheless manages to cram in a dry cleaner, two funeral parlors, several Chinese temples (including Tien Hau, the oldest in the city), and any number of secret societies. Although far less inclined to tourism than the always-packed Grant Avenue, Waverly is nonetheless one of the most highly and frequently recommended stops for visitors to San Francisco’s Chinatown; its ornate buildings and balconies, as well as its density of Chinese signs and architecture, make it one of the most popular photo opportunities in the neighborhood.

In addition to food markets and cookie manufacturers, one of the most prevalent - if exotic - businesses on Stockton Street and environs is the Herbal Pharmacy. These pharmacies are the practices of those who work in traditional Chinese herbal medicine. Walking into one of these storefronts, you might encounter all sorts of plant extracts and animal parts, marked for specific health purposes: ginseng root to prolong life, pearl pills and creams for skin, and gecko lizards for an energy boost. Many of these have enticing names and labels, but DO NOT purchase any of them without consulting the proprietor, who is usually a licensed herbal doctor. Many of the herbal and pharmaceutical ingredients are poisonous, or at the very least ineffective, if taken in the wrong doses or without the proper mixture of other ingredients.

San Francisco's Chinatown is quite a large neighborhood - far too large and dense for a single person to see and absorb everything in a single afternoon. As luck would have it, though, ICA offers a walking tour of Chinatown as one of its excursions during the annual conference in May. In the afternoon of either Friday, May 25, or Saturday, May 26, conference attendees can see and learn the history of most of the sites mentioned in this article…along with an authentic Buddhist temple; a Chinese-language school; a number of buildings notable for their history and/or architecture; a tea-tasting demonstration and lecture at the only authentic Chinese tea house in the United States; a 10-course dim sum luncheon at one of Chinatown’s most popular restaurants; and, to make sure you have all the highlights, each participant will receive a copy of the 2007 Insider's List of recommended shopping and restaurants in Chinatown. Price is $35.00 USD. Reserve your ticket now to see the exotic and fascinating character of the largest and oldest Chinatown in the United States!