chinatown 4
july 16, 2002
in one particular plaza in chinatown, you can find loads of kiosks set up selling all sorts of chinese knick knacks. garish reds and sharp greens grab your attention in ways causing sensory overload. on any one kiosk, you can find over a hundred items for sale. it's really amazing. mostly it's tourist stuff but it's still fun to browse through and you can be sure bargaining is de rigeur.
i stopped in at the famous queen's bakery for some "rice puffs" aka in cantonese, "ma jai". since the rice puffs were in a box, i took a photo of the misc breads instead that were laid out on the counter for sale. red bean toast, cake bread, walnut bread and so on. the queen's bakery has been around ever since i was a really little kid. they had this horrid grey screen door to keep out the flies (which didn't work) but it was always packed. even with the influx of other bakeries in the china'hood, queen bakery still remains extremely popular for cantonese baked goods.
the sad part about chinatown are the many many shops that have closed down even though the structure still exists. perhaps serving as a ghostly reminder of days past with their wrought iron gates and yellowing decayed walls with flaking paint.
many of the structures have signs posted all over with "liquidation" and "for lease" on it. *shakes head* i mean, i can easily envision this place as a club or an old fashioned tea house for locals and tourists.
wing hop fung. yes, the wing hop fung that sells all sorts of medicinal herbs and chinese goods. this is a very busy place in chinatown that requires you to check in your bags at the front. yes it's that strict. i don't come here often because i rarely buy medicinal herbs but sometimes i pop in to see what neat stuff they have for sale and it's interesting to see how many non-Chinese folks are at the counters buying their eastern medicine prescriptions.
some of the posters on this window are so old that it cracked me up. back in the 80's one of my favorite chinese tv dramas was middle one on the left side. it was called "foh fung wong" (fiery phoenix) and it starred an up and coming actor at the time, chow yun fat. :) he was so dreamy in that 80's perm. *sigh*
