Travel

China Without a Passport

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Want to know how to visit China without a passport? Just do like my wife and me, and head to Grant Avenue, near downtown San Francisco. That’s the heart of Chinatown.

Our Muni bus regurgitated us into a crowd of Asians, like we’d been shanghaied, and sped away on it’s electric cable, leaving us disoriented in the Orient.

The iconic Transamerica Pyramid building towers above nearby Chinatown. At 853 feet, it was the tallest building in San Francisco from 1972 until 2018, when it was surpassed by the 1,070 foot Salesforce Tower.

Chinatown is aptly yclept. It’s abustle with throngs of Chinese immigrants, peppered with a few befuddled, agog, and somewhat frightened tourists. It occupies 24 square blocks of steep boulevards, mysterious alleyways, and hieroglyphic Hanzi characters on storefront signage.

Notice the alley beside this Buddha shop? Chinatown is famous, or perhaps notorious, for its alleys. Here, hidden from street view have been brothels, gambling halls, and other disreputable or low-profile establishments. And a Chinatown alley hosted the secret office of exiled Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, where he raised money to support the Chinese Revolution of 1911.

Most of the denizens of Chinatown are immigrants from Hong Kong or mainland China. They speak little or no English. And they eye foreigners like my wife and me with wariness and animosity. Or so we imagined.

A typical Chinatown street.

If you visit Chinatown, I suggest you learn Cantonese first, or bring along a translator. Mandarin was once the dominant language. But that started to change in the 1960’s, when Cantonese-speaking immigrants began arriving in earnest. But hell, it all sounds Greek to me.

We wandered the streets like lost foreign tourists, eyeing the exotic goods offered at storefronts with a mix of wonder and morbid curiosity. The sidewalks were difficult to navigate, due to the ruck of Asian pedestrians on this Wednesday afternoon. I understand that weekends are even worse.

Red seems to be the favorite color of the Chinese. Red represents good luck, in Chinese culture, and is also thought to scare away evil spirits.

Chinatown is the most densely populated community west of Manhattan, with 54,000 people per square mile (Manhattan has 70,000 per square mile). Many of the immigrants here were professionals of respectable status in China, but have had to settle for low-paying livelihoods in restaurants and garment factories, upon arriving in Chinatown. As a result, they live in impoverished and overcrowded conditions.

I wonder if these red cat souvenirs are meant to scare away evil mice?

I put my wallet in my front pocket, and kept my hand close by. My wife clutched her purse. We chuffed and staggered up and down steep streets, trying to figure out what to do in this byzantine warren of legs, traffic, and loud city noises.

My wife caught my attention and cupped her hand to my ear. “I’m scared!” her voice quivered. “Get me out of here.”

That’s all it took to bring out my knight in shining armor. “Of course, my fair lass, I shall lead you to safety! Just follow me!

“But first, I’m hungry. I want to try some Chinese food.”

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None of the eating establishments looked very palatable for western stomachs, until we passed by a rather large-looking restaurant buried in one of the many, ubiquitous old brick buildings. My wife’s face brightened and appeared relieved. “Hey!” she shouted above the din of traffic, “this place looks big and clean, like they cater to Americans!”

We stepped inside. It was a grand, brightly-lit, high-ceilinged eatery, decorated in traditional Chinese ornamentation. A clean-dressed waitress walked by, pushing a stainless steel cart, and smiled at us. She gestured for us to come in further. Hers was the first friendly face we had encountered in this suspicious community, and it helped us regain our confidence.

We were seated at a large table by a waitress who spoke a bowl of Cantonese with one or two garnishments of English. We had captured one of the last available tables. This large eatery was packed with jabbering diners of eastern dialect. We were the only westerners in the building.

Suddenly a train pulled up beside our table. It was two waitresses pushing and pulling a large stainless steel food incubator. They opened up covers, displaying various Chinese dishes. “You want? You want?” They inquired as they pulled out steaming dishes and proffered them under our noses.

We were flummoxed. We’d never encountered this type of food service before. We were accustomed to menus, indited with English descriptions, and with numerical price tags. You know, where you choose from the menu, and someone writes down your order, as you calculate in your head how much this is going to lighten your wallet. We waved off the waitresses, hoping for a menu option.

They gave us annoyed looks and pulled away. But within seconds a new train pulled up, with new waitresses, and new offerings of exotic meals.

At this point we realized there would be no menus. So we carefully examined each dish. Finally we chose some spicy barbecue pork, and wontons that turned out to be stuffed with ground shrimp.

“Drink?” a new waitress walked up and inquired.

I wasn’t sure how much all of this was going to cost, so I decided to just order water.

“No free wata!” the waitress scolded. And she left in a huff.

Fortunately, complimentary tea was served, and although tea is poison I went ahead and slaked my thirst with the hot leaf juice anyway. And come to think of it, I’ve heard you should never drink the water in China, so perhaps tea was a safe choice for the circumstance.

I could take or leave the wontons, but the pork was heavenly, and I slurped and smacked down as many helpings as my clumsy chopsticks could handle.

As we ate, more food trains pulled up, with multiple offerings of delectables. The waitresses were pushy, and I began to wonder how much they expected us to eat here. Finally I shouted in my best Spanish, “No mas! No mas!” Spanish is the foreign language I’m most familiar with, so this was the best I could do for communication. But I think my angry look got the message across, and the food trains ceased.

I quaked in my hiking boots as we approached the cashier. The check was written in Hanzi characters, so we had no idea what this would cost. Were they going to try to soak us for $100? $500? $1,000? Would we be thrown into a Chinese prison if we refused to pay an exorbitant tab, and then have to contact the American Consulate?

It came to about $23. We threw in a $4 tip and then got the hell out of there.

We finally found a Muni and got on board. Within minutes the bus transported us back to America and dropped us off near our hotel.

We were back home safe, in our motherland. And we did not have to pass through Customs, or show anyone our passports. Which kind of surprised us. The contrast between Chinatown and the rest of San Francisco is very stark.

And as for China itself, we have both concluded that it’s a country we never have to visit. Because we’ve already been there.

We’ve been to Chinatown.

Categories: Travel

61 replies »

  1. Thanks TG, for making me laugh once again! That pretty much sums up what I thought of Chinatown too, when I visited many years ago. Made me think how others would feel being dropped into my (foreign to them) predominantly white community. Good for my privileged self to be put in someone else’s shoes for a change. 🙂

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    • I think the language barrier is what makes things so difficult in Chinatown. Maybe they are more bilingual in Hong Kong (except that one restaurant you went to). I suspect that another difficulty arises from suspicion. The Chinese of San Francisco were persecuted and discriminated against for more than a hundred years. So maybe they haven’t fully developed a trust in outsiders.

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      • I was walking back from the Hong Kong Museum of history and I didn’t want the KFC, McDonalds, Subway that seemed to be everywhere, so I ducked into a place that I thought looked good. I didn’t have trouble with the menu thanks to the pictures, but I had the hardest time ordering sparkling water. The waiter guy kept saying “soda”, but it took me a long time to figure that out because of the inflection he used. Anyway, I enjoyed the food and ambience.

        Hong Kong has a long history of being occupied by some government or another (not always Europeans). But, i think that it is such a big world city, that a white guy is just part of the background there. I felt much more out-of-place in Singapore or Malaysia. I took the subways and trains around Hong Kong and had no trouble with that; it was fantastic.

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        • Sounds great. I’ve heard a lot of other high praises of Hong Kong, so it must be an enjoyable city to visit. Perhaps one day, after our Chinatown experience has faded, we’ll make the trip.

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  3. I am laughing! You asked for water but couldn’t get any, and so you actually settled for “poisonous” tea!! Sounds very similar to what happened in my train story. LOL! But hey that tea wasn’t poison, shocker, eh! I love Chinese tea!

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  5. Because a night in shining armor must have sustenance or cooked cat (Hopefully not) before rescusing his damsel in distress. I would honestly have no interest in going to China or China town. It’s just not for me. I could guess you’ve had your share of it too.

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  6. I love how your many helpings off the food train cost only $23. No free water, but they will give away free tea? Tea has free water in it, you know. When hubby and I went to Bangkok, we knew enough Thai to order food but because it is a tonal language, we still made mistakes. Hubby ordered holy basil chicken (gai) and ended up with a plateful of holy basil hard-boiled egg halves (kai). He also knew some phrases from working in a Thai kitchen. At the night market, a teenager was selling adult t-shirts for $1. He said to her “Eee bah” (you’re crazy). She reduced the price to 50 cents and said “Khuṇ kalạng ḳha chan” (you’re killing me). I love Chinatowns and Asian markets, it’s fun trying to guess what’s in the cans or packages from the pictures. I’m told that any product (rice, noodles, canned goods, etc) with a Buddha or an elephant on the package is top of the line because those are such revered icons. Glad you guys made it out alive and without too big a dent in your wallet. 🙂

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  7. “Notice the alley beside this Buddha shop? Chinatown is famous, or perhaps notorious, for its alleys. Here, hidden from street view have been brothels, gambling halls, and other disreputable or low-profile establishments.” ~> not to mention the Opium Dens . . . and the Tea Houses. 😛

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      • Toronto actually has a huge Asian population. Chinatown in the downtown area is just one small area. I will on the north east end of the city which has the highest concentration of immigrants than any other jurisdiction in the country. “White European” makes up less than 20% of the population – I looked up the census stats a few years ago.

        I do occasionally buy things I’ve never tried before, but that list is getting smaller and smaller. To be honest, most of the time it’s a one-time purchase though. 😏

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