Isn't that the saddest thing ever? I asked Lie Bot and he told me that it was. Today I went to a festival in the real Chinatown in Boston. For the benefit of my DC friends, let's go on a tour.
The festival was not advertised and four-fifths of the people on the street were Chinese. I took a picture of this kid with his brand new pet turtle and his dad said something to me politely. He might have been cussing me off. I'm don't know because he didn't speak any English.
The best part about Chinatown are the shops full of weird stuff you can't find elsewhere. I went to a candy shop with salted plums, chunks of ginger, and dried pumpkins. We also ate fresh lychee from a stand on the street. Lychee are little bulb fruits.
Here is Pargol Borojerdi having fun. Our coterie observed a martial arts expo on the streets which was pretty interesting.
I didn't realize how many different kinds of swords and knives there were.
Here is an EDGY DIAGONAL SHOT of a strange trinket store (actually, I was fumbling with the camera).
The kid above is wearing a shirt reading "Wong Family Benevolent Association" (黃氏宗親會). There are a lot of these shady associations in Chinatown and some of them were on the streets today. One advertised themselves as Buddhist so I approached them. They said they were volunteers raising money for earthquake relief. I bought a book from them by Dharma Master Cheng Yen, but not a very expensive one. Now that I'm home I can look them up on Wikipedia and yup, they're legit. The Wong Family is not so accessible. Somehow that's nice in its own way. Orientalism--finding beauty in the mysteries of inaccessible China--is admittedly racist, but I kind of like it.
The lady in the bottom left here promised us the rings she was selling were made of real silver. And they probably were. Boston's Chinatown is a really friendly place.
Falun Gong is pretty cool, except for the part about aliens taking over the world, but I agree with them that truthfulness, compassion and forbearance are all covetable virtues. We had a picnic on Boston Common and ate Thai food. I think MSG makes me sleepy. Then I went home and helped my little brother pack for college, kind of. I hope you have learned something about Chinatown today.
