Good Fortune in Chinatown

The Chinatown Crüe and I took a quick tour of Chinatown last Monday, peeking through unmarked doors and down alleyways, searching below the surface for something exciting to show the ESF class. One of the first places we discovered was on Waverly Place, which I, embarrassed to admit, had never heard of until that day. Waverly Place has apparently gained the nickname the “Street of Painted Balconies” for all of the colorful terraces that line the street. We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to climb to one of these painted balconies during our discovery of Tin How Temple, one of the oldest Buddhist Temples in North America. Actually, we were fortunate to have even found the door, inconspicuously lodged between storefronts, the small English letters “Tin How Temple” barely visible below the large Chinese characters. The temple was cramped and choked with incense as people came to worship. The woman who ran the temple was nice enough to give us a brief history and overview of the temple and Buddhist religion, explaining the significance of various sculptures and objects around the room. After one of our classmates had his fortune told, we scurried down to New Asia, an incredibly popular dim sum restaurant (that doubles as a wedding banquet hall) full to the brim with customers. The wait was longer than expected, but well worth it. It isn’t very often that I go out for dim sum with large groups, but it is certainly an experience to be had. Flagging down cart-pushers for the food that you want, violently shaking your head no for the food that you don’t (that for some reason they feel the need to force on you), wondering exactly what something is the second before you pop it into your mouth. I’ve learned that more often than not, it’s something containing shrimp. Oddly enough, I’m not a shrimp fan at all and the only time I enjoy it is when eating dim sum. Dim sum in a large group in only makes it that much better, because everyone can engage in speculation at a certain dish someone ordered and dare each other to try it. Sometimes the more experienced dim sum eater will be able to identify the food before anyone tries it. Other times, everyone can identify the food and no one will want to try it. This happened on Saturday when a fried chicken foot mysteriously appeared on our table. Chicken feet=dim sum? That’s a new one to me, but a quick google search told me it’s common. We all stared anxiously at it wondering who’d be the first to try it. I volunteered myself, claiming I take a bite if someone else did first. Unfortunately for me, Professor Silver was all too willing to take me up on my offer and dug his teeth right in. “Tastes like chicken,” he said. I reluctantly grabbed the chicken foot from him, nibbling a the smallest nibble I could manage and feeling to completely nauseated afterward, even though he was right, it tasted like chicken. The chicken foot went around as person after person pecked at the foot and made a face in disgust. Well, this had to be better than the cow’s stomach the other table ordered. After we had had our fill and I had eaten the pork bun’s I’d been begging for, we grabbed the check and hit the alleyways for Chinatown’s last fortune cookie factory—The Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory. Another hole-in-the-wall place, this narrow little factory has about two Chinese women hand-folding these soft circular cookies into fortune cookie shapes and slipping a fortune inside. Apparently The Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory is known for their “adult” fortune cookies with racy fortunes that are actually just random words strung together. If you’re lucky, the fortune might actually make sense.