My Day in Chinatown

By Erika Crooks, GCC Member

I had been fortunate enough to have the availability open in my schedule to jump at the chance to be an additional chaperone for the Asian Cultural Exchange (ACE) student group at Germantown High School. They were in need of an extra adult to basically tag along on their field trip and I was in need of a day off of work to go do something fun. It was the perfect opportunity!

The added bonus was that I found out their field trip was going to Chinatown and the Heritage Museum of Asian Art in Chicago! What a treat! I had been to Chicago's Chinatown plenty of times before, but with this field trip, I felt like I was going to be able to experience it “tourist-style” with the ACE student group.

We arrived at Chinatown first and met our Chinatown tour guide in the main large square of New Chinatown. I loved it already because having a tour guide made me feel like I was on vacation somewhere.

In the main square of New Chinatown, our tour guide explained the statues of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals that surround the square. The tour guide said that the Chinese zodiac is a 12-year cycle and each year is represented by an animal and that animal’s reputed attributes. He also mentioned that in Chinese culture, people will ask what your animal year is to figure out how old you really are. Then he warned us by mentioning, if you don't want people to know your real age, be careful giving out your Chinese zodiac animal.

On our walk over to Old Chinatown, our tour guide pointed out one of the main buildings in the area that we walked past: the Chinatown Chicago Public Library. He told us that the same famous architect who designed the Sears (now Willis) Tower and John Hancock building also designed the Chinatown Chicago Public Library. I just love learning these little facts!

Another quick stop on our walk was at Nine Dragon Wall, which is a significant cultural landmark in the Chinatown area, modeled after the wall in Beijing's BeiHai Park. Our tour guide told us that Nine Dragon Wall is meant to symbolize good fortune and imperial power, and is 1 of only 3 replicas outside of China. Everyone had some good photo ops at this stop, even me!

Once in Old Chinatown, our tour guide told us that back between the 1840s to 1880s, the Old Chinatown area was originally populated with Italian immigrants. The tour guide pointed out an old Catholic Church that was built and still active because it used to be an Italian neighborhood. Al Capone's mom donated a crucifix that is still inside the church. By the 1910s, the area started to have more Chinese immigrants move to the area.

The tour guide gave us a little history lesson on how Chicago's Chinatown came about. He explained that the early Chinese settlers had originally established a community in the Loop in downtown Chicago. They ended up needing to relocate from the Loop to the current Armour Square location due to being driven out by the rising rent costs and fear for their safety due to the intense anti-Chinese sentiment during that time.

In Old Chinatown, the Pui Tak Center is a large, very well-known building that is a church-based community center used for community activities and events such as weddings, sports, etc. I truly appreciate beautiful architecture and the intricate detail on this building is so astonishingly detailed and meticulously crafted. It blew my mind. Our tour guide said the Pui Tak building was finished in 1928, and the fishtails on top of the building are there to symbolize abundance and wealth.

Apparently on New Year's, according to Asian culture, you're supposed to eat fish as your last meal of the year because the shiny scales of the fish represent shiny coins/money. But you're not supposed to eat all the fish on that last meal because that would symbolize running out of wealth and abundance. By this point in the day, I'm able to appreciate how many things in Chinese culture have symbolism.

Our tour guide said he wanted to take us to a Buddhist temple before walking us back to New Chinatown for lunch. It really wasn't what I was expecting when we began walking into a regular looking building. Before going inside, we were told to think of this as any other place of worship: remain quiet and be respectful. There was a large altar with about 100 lit candles on it. The altar also had different potted flowers and plants, as well as fruit, such as apples and oranges. This looked very similar to me since my dad is a practicing Buddhist and has visited many Buddhist temples in Thailand.

Once we had a chance to look around the small temple area, the tour guide explained a little about Buddhist practice, mentioning that a large part of their culture is practicing the detachment of worldly things. I spoke up and mentioned the example of Buddhist monks not having any worldly items. The tour guide agreed, saying that Buddhist monks also shave their heads because they are showing their renunciation of worldly things, vanity, and ego. He also told us when people come into the temple to pray, they will usually donate some money as offering and light 3 pieces of incense at the altar before they pray. Someone asked our tour guide why flowers and fruit are on the altar. He said that the fruit, which is usually apples or oranges, symbolizes good fortune and prosperity. Flowers or sometimes a plant symbolize enlightenment and impermanence. Even though we weren't there for very long, I personally thought the stop at the Buddhist temple was an impactful stop that gave a good perspective of being more mindful of the truly important things in life, which are not material things.

We walked back to New Chinatown to eat lunch at Imperial Restaurant, which I found out that the president of the ACE group had picked out and GCC donated money to pay for. We all sat down at different tables; I had the pleasure of sitting with a group of girls, which included the president of the ACE group. I chatted with them a little, asking questions to get to know them a bit. They ranged from sophomores to seniors; most were of Asian ethnicity, referring to some of the things we saw earlier and food we were about to eat as some of the things they regularly see or have at their own homes. There were two girls sitting next to me who seemed to be friends. I noticed that they were very quiet and I could barely hear them when they spoke to each other, which I thought was rare for high school girls, especially the girl who sat right next to me. When I spoke to her, I noticed she would look at me but didn't speak back. A little later I noticed the two girls were speaking Spanish, which again I thought was interesting. But I had to remind myself that the Asian Cultural Exchange group celebrates Asian culture and is also a fully inclusive student group, accepting anyone into their group no matter their ethnic background. And I absolutely love that!

Our food came out family style and we all passed it around using the Chinese version of a lazy susan. Now, I can usually use chopsticks fairly well, but for whatever reason, my fingers were not working well that day. The girl next to me saw I was struggling and, even though we weren't able to verbally communicate, she obviously wanted to help me. She held her hand out for me to give her my chopsticks. So I did. Then she grabbed a napkin and laid it on the table. She placed the chopsticks end to end on top of the napkin. I honestly had no idea what she was doing until I saw her start to roll the napkin with the ends of the chopsticks inside. When she was done rolling up the chopsticks in the napkin, she picked it up, folded the napkin roll in half bringing the two chopsticks together and handed it back to me. She made me chopstick cheaters!! I was dying! She just quietly smiled at me. So adorable. And it just goes to show that acts of kindness are a universal language. I absolutely loved it! Honestly, I was so thankful she helped me out because I didn't want to use a fork.

I will add that the Imperial had some of the very best traditional East Asian cuisine I've ever had in my life and I highly recommend eating there when visiting Chinatown. Most of us were bummed that we didn't have more time to do a little shopping in New Chinatown or even stop to get some Boba tea before having to leave, but we were on a tight schedule to get back to the high school on time.

So, next up was the Heritage Museum of Asian Art. On our ten minute drive over, I noticed how much the weather had warmed up. With the sun shining so bright, I felt like today was the perfect day to skip out on work for this lovely day trip in Chicago!

Our museum guide told us that 60% of what we would see on display came from one person

alone who was a collector. That person had passed away and their family ended up donating the whole collection because they did not want to keep it. Can we say total score for the Heritage Museum!?!

The Museum had so many incredible art pieces on display, all of which were labeled with where it was from, what time period, and usually which dynasty era. They had a whole section with just jade carvings, including one that caught my eye. They were carved jade cicadas symbolizing reincarnation because cicadas always come back year after year, every spring. Made me appreciate cicadas a little more…well at least the jade kind.

Our museum guide explained that the reason why we usually see the head of a Chinese dragon is because in Chinese culture the lion has significance of power, fierceness, and authority. We saw so many more pieces of art, including pottery, imperial porcelains, textiles, and furniture. All with the same immaculate attention to detail as even the Pui Tak Center building in Old Chinatown. At the end of our tour at the Museum, we still had a little time to check out their gift shop and bring home our own small souvenir of Asian heritage art!

I had the best time getting to tag along with the kids from the Asian Cultural Exchange group. I thought I was going to basically be with a group of high schoolers who were just looking to be on a fun out-of-state field trip. But, what I really ended up learning is that the ACE students not only showed that they pride themselves on learning, celebrating, and sharing Asian culture with others, but I got to know and realize that the basis of their group focuses on promoting all cultural awareness and diversity. And I can't say it enough how much I absolutely love that and love that type of mentality for our young people, who will eventually be running this country someday.