NY's Lower East Side is gentrifying, hell, why not?
China Twon is still, now for years, as I could remember, a well defined 3rd world enclave within the turbulences of gentrification, velocity, digital revolutions, big money, big data and big media.
Still, folks in China Town are wearing the same clothes they wore in the time of arrival. An arrival that could have been happened in 70ies, 90ies or three years ago. It does really not matter, when they came to NY, or why they chose NY as "exile", they work hard, as they did in other places, they earn their own money, and, indeed, they reject any kind of symbolic, representational or material assimilation with non-China-Town areas of NY or other urban epicenters of USA.
Still, folks in China Town have similar habits on streets in regard to body movements, direct contact, noise production, symbolic gestures, wearing clothes, combing hairs, and looking people in the eyes; they had previously somewhere else. A subtle charm, a curious and distant gaze, and, more interestingly, a shameless ignorance of the surroundings.
I liked China Town very much, and the people there. Their cool resilience, their calm resistance, their altruistic 3rd world charm and the look.
China Twon is still, now for years, as I could remember, a well defined 3rd world enclave within the turbulences of gentrification, velocity, digital revolutions, big money, big data and big media.
Still, folks in China Town are wearing the same clothes they wore in the time of arrival. An arrival that could have been happened in 70ies, 90ies or three years ago. It does really not matter, when they came to NY, or why they chose NY as "exile", they work hard, as they did in other places, they earn their own money, and, indeed, they reject any kind of symbolic, representational or material assimilation with non-China-Town areas of NY or other urban epicenters of USA.
Still, folks in China Town have similar habits on streets in regard to body movements, direct contact, noise production, symbolic gestures, wearing clothes, combing hairs, and looking people in the eyes; they had previously somewhere else. A subtle charm, a curious and distant gaze, and, more interestingly, a shameless ignorance of the surroundings.
I liked China Town very much, and the people there. Their cool resilience, their calm resistance, their altruistic 3rd world charm and the look.
