09.26.08

A Chinatown in Japan

Posted in Down in Chinatown, Immigration, Japan, Travel Log (Asia) at 1:02 am by Benjamin Ross

Note:   I am now back in the US, and have been taking a little hiatus from blogging while I catch up on time, sleep, and Mexican food.  I will be in Chicago for the foreseeable future, and the blog should be back up to speed this week.

Japan is home to one of the world’s largest overseas Chinese communities, and the Tokyo Chinatown is a major attraction that I missed in my first round to Japan in 2007.  For me, Tokyo’s Chinatown bears a special significance.  I spent my first fifteen months in the Middle Kingdom living in Fuqing, a small town in Fujian.  Like most small towns in Fujian, Fuqing’s primary export is people, mainly in the form of commissary staff.  For many small towns in Fujian, they have corresponding locations abroad where its residents sneak over to, and then in turn help their friends and relatives make the journey.  Whether by arranged marriage, fraudulent passport, transit via shipping container, or in the rare instances with legitimate credentials, the Fujianese have spread themselves further across the globe than any other Chinese demographic.  Once abroad, the typical program is to find a job in a Chinese restaurant, work 70-80 hours a week for an interlude of 5-10 years, and then head back to Fujian with a veritable pile of money.  Even within Fujian, the residents of Fuqing are known for their prowess in sneaking across borders.  As for their destination, Tokyo is number one.

Where specifically do all of Fuqing’s emigrants end up?  A trip to Tokyo’s Chinatown was in order.  For starters, it’s actually a misnomer to say “Tokyo Chinatown,” as the Chinatown is technically located in Yokohama, a separate city which has now been completely engulfed by the Tokyo megalopolis.  On my second day in Japan, I made the 25 minute pilgrimage from Tokyo to Yokohama, in search of anything Chinese.

Like most Chinatowns, the entrance to Yokohama’s Chinatown is marked off by a large 牌坊 (pai2 fang1)*, with the characters 中华街 (zhong1 hua2 jie1), one of the various translations of “Chinatown,” written on it.  Behind the gate is a tangled web of streets and alleys, swamped by mobs of people.  The streets are jammed with stores selling Chinese spices and trinkets, restaurants with names such as “Shanxi Family Chinese Restaurant,” and street vendors galore.  By far, the most common items were smoked chestnuts (板栗) and baozi (包子).

But what was different about this Chinatown were the linguistic sounds emanating from the streets.  The racket of a typical Chinatown is usually dominated by the hyper-tonal sounds of Cantonese, the glottal emanations of various Fujian dialects, and a competing amount of Mandarin, usually spoken with a rough southern accent.  In Yokohama’s Chinatown, all I heard was Japanese.  In fact, it took me seven minutes from the time I walked through the 牌坊 until I first heard any spoken Chinese, during which time I had easily passed several hundred individuals.

If I had to give an estimate, I would say that on any corner of Chinatown, 90% of the people are Japanese, and that’s being conservative.  Like many famous “ethnic areas” in the US, Yokohama’s Chinatown seems to have long expired as an ethnic enclave, and is now merely a destination for Japanese tourists.  Although many of the businesses are still run by Chinese owners, their clientele are primarily Japanese.  The young wait staff can be seen outside storefronts yelling their sales pitches in fluent, but heavily Chinese accented, Japanese.  Even the “Chinese food”  (see picture below), looked and smelled Japanese.  I couldn’t help but conjure images of Homer Simpson eating at Americatown during his own visit to Japan.

So what has happened to the Chinese community in Tokyo?  My best guess (and I would love some feedback from those with more knowledge of the situation) is that as cost of living has risen in Yokohama, the Chinese community has dispersed to other parts of Tokyo.  During my previous visit to Japan, I had been eating Yakitori with a Japanese-speaking American friend in an old neighborhood in Tokyo when it came up that our waitress was Chinese.  She had been from Changle (a neighboring town of Fuqing), and told me that all of the store owners on that particular street were from Fuqing.  In another instance, on my way to Narita airport, I stopped to explore the area near Nippori Station.  While wandering through one of Tokyo’s more neglected neighborhoods, I was startled by an old woman on the street yelling “国际电话卡,”  (Get your international phone cards!)  As I meandered through the run down neighborhood, I encountered a disproportionate number of Chinese restaurants, and even a 刀削面馆 (cut noodle restaurant).  And if that weren’t enough, on my first evening out in Ikebukuro with the same American friend, we were repeatedly solicited services by Chinese hookers standing on street corners.  (I wonder if I could have worked a discount by speaking to them in their native language?)

So as it stands, Tokyo seems to still be a hotbed of Chinese activity.  It’s just no longer confined to a single Chinatown.  If I had more than three days, I probably would have dug deeper into the Japanese-Chinese community, but ultimately I was too distracted by people watching, conveyor-belt sushi, and all of the other stimuli which come with spending three days a city where you constantly feel as if you are inside of a cartoon.  Bottom line, if you’re going to Tokyo and interested in overseas Chinese communities, you might want to take Chinatown off of your must-see list.  Below are some pics from my afternoon in Yokohama.

*I honestly have no idea what you would call a 牌坊 in English.  Maybe “big overhead Chinatown gate thingy,” but that’s my best shot.

Yokohama has less of an urban feel to it than Tokyo…which now that I think of it, that probably applies to just about every other inch of space in the world, save for possibly Manhattan.

This is the entrance to Chinatown with the 牌坊.  The characters read 中华街, (zhong1 hua2 jie1), one of the various Chinese words for “Chinatown.“

This shot probably could have come from just about any other Chinatown in the world.

However, I must admit, Yokohama’s Chinatown probably has the  cleanest streets of any Chinatown I have been to.

Like most Chinatowns around the world, the primary reason non-Chinese go there is to eat.  The picture above showcases the typical fare of most Chinese restaurants in Tokyo.  Usually there is 麻婆豆腐 (ma2 po2 dou4 fu2, spicy Sichuan tofu), some variation of beef with green peppers, and everything else is about as Chinese sashimi and a ham sandwich.

As is also the case in the non-Chinese parts of Tokyo, baozi are the big rage in Yokohama.  A friend of mine who had been living in Japan for six years describes Chinatown as “basically a feeding ground for Japanese people to eat baozi.”

All in all, I knew I couldn’t make it two trips to Tokyo without a single visit to Chinatown, but it certainly was not a highlight of my trip.  I am quite sure Homer’s experience at Americatown was infinitely more cultural than mine in this assumed hotbed of Chinese activity.  But hey, they got great baozi, so how much can I really complain?

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