Mott Street is like the spine of a dragon. Its head lies on Canal, at the pagoda-roofed headquarters of a secretive tong society; its back curves down beyond Bayard, past restaurants and trinket salesmen; its forked tail whips through Chatham Square and loops back around the Bowery to reach toward Mott again as two tiny lanes called Pell and Doyers. In fact, the dragon has grown far beyond these boundaries in the last twenty-five years, but this remains its core, the nerve center through which throbs all the essential life of New York City’s Chinatown.

Chinatown’s narrow thoroughfares are still full of the smells of the Middle Kingdom, its festivals explode with ancient traditions, and its air rings with the sounds of a language that is sung, not spoken. It is a place where an obsession with tradition can be mixed with a curious disregard for the past. Chinatown is where everyone seems to be selling something, where firecrackers are used to frighten evil spirits, where the arrangement of furniture in one’s apartment can affect the outcome of a business deal. Chinatown is hustle. It is ritual. It is magic. And for several generations it was my family’s home.

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