The original Chinatown, in San Francisco, reinvents itself through contemporary art and cuisine while preserving its intrinsically kitsch character

San Francisco’s Chinatown remains one of the Californian city’s key attractions even to visitors from China, thanks to its blend of Chinese and American culture

The Chinese Culture Centre helps visitors see past its kitschy architecture to its history of activism and anti-Asian violence, and presents contemporary art

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In San Francisco’s Chinatown, the Chinese signage fails to hide the essential Americana, producing a result that’s neither Chinese nor American. At the same time, it is reinventing itself through art and cuisine. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley

Published: 11:15am, 18 Jul 2023

If you have seen one Chinatown, you have seen them all: the same downmarket dim sum, the same strings of fading red lanterns across the streets and the same self-consciously Chinese kitsch on sale.

Nevertheless, at 24 densely populated square blocks, San Francisco’s Chinatown is the first and the greatest, at least in North America. The arrival point for generations of immigrants, it remains one of the seaside city’s key attractions, even to visitors from China.

That’s because, while it has a layer of the alien – and many Americans get their ideas of Chinese culture there – Americana shows through, and the result is equally alien to most Chinese visitors.

Columns of Chinese characters may tumble down advertising signboards, but these are clamped to old brick buildings laced together with iron fire escapes, quite unlike anything seen in China.

A cocktail bar in San Francisco’s Chinatown exemplifies the desire to maintain the enclave’s kitschy Chinese-American style, while also moving with the times. Photo: Peter Neville-Hadley

There is a growing recognition that many of the enclave’s artfully Oriental features are specifically Chinese-American creations, developed in San Francisco and exported to Chinatowns elsewhere.