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Urban spaces serve as affective landscapes, embodying a novel research perspective and direction within the study of linguistic landscapes. This research delves into the linguistic composition of commercial signage within Bangkok’s urban fabric, focusing on the linguistic and semiotic landscape of public commercial spaces. It investigates the organization and narration of the societal affects surrounding Chinese New Year culture, thereby shaping the city’s ethos. The famous Chinese community (Yaowarat Road Chinatown) and renowned commercial hub (Siam commercial district) in Bangkok contributed a total of 236 images depicting Chinese New Year cultural symbols for this study. By employing theories of nexus analysis and place semiotics comprehensively, this research elucidates how linguistic practices within the Chinese New Year festive landscape engender and influence urban affects. The findings underscore that commercial districts, as pivotal agents, craft the urban portrayal of Chinese New Year culture through linguistic and semiotic landscapes, offering residents and tourists alike an affective voyage through exotic customs and New Year traditions. The carriers, emplacement and inscriptions of spatial discourses reflect the attitudes and philosophies of landscape planners who advocate for New Year cultural customs. Furthermore, the interaction order within the landscapes reflects both explicit New Year interactive activities and implicit New Year semiotic artifacts, collectively contributing to the construction of the urban narrative steeped in New Year’s cultural essence. This research into Bangkok’s urban landscapes of New Year affective regimes enriches the understanding of the symbiotic relationship between language and urban affective economies in practical terms.

This article analyses new tendencies in the construction of Chinese spaces within Mexico City. Traditionally, the Barrio de Dolores (Cuahutemoc borough) is identified as the main Chinese point of reference; however, over time it has become a space dedicated more to exploiting the so-called Chinatown brand for commercial purposes than to fostering a sense of community. Based on a recent pilot study, it is argued that in the Viaducto Piedad neighbourhood (Iztacalco borough), where Chinese immigrants have been arriving since the early 1990s, a different pattern of urban integration has emerged. Members of the community live in the area, where they carry out religious and recreational activities; some of them are business owners or employees, and their children attend local schools. That is why the area can be considered Mexico City's new Chinatown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glodok is considered one of the largest Chinese urban areas in Indonesia, featuring shops, dwellings, temples, alleyways, and various other elements of Chinese culture. Several local urban practices can also be identified, including selling and buying, as well as the house-shop relations that are accomplished through the spaces between the buildings or the alleys. The people act as active agents of spatial production in everyday life in this location, supporting their economic, social, and cultural activities. To investigate the interrelationship between Chinese-Indonesian market culture and its influence on interiority, literature studies, and ethnography methods were practiced. The results of the study showed three main aspects affecting the interiority of Glodok, namely the 3-dimensional space of the alleys, the cultural identity, and the activity of the people, as well as experiences. Furthermore, the interiority is manifested in the activity of each individual and experiences within the alley, which exists due to market culture. Through an architectural approach that focuses on accommodating the local tradition, culture, and beliefs, the ambience present in Glodok causes both the people and visitors to unintentionally think about nostalgic experiences and memories, thereby creating an emotional, cultural, and historical engagement.

Questions of change and the future have become increasingly salient in Vancouver’s Chinatown in the last decade, as gentrification proceeds apace. Various actors have used the neighbourhood’s public spaces to express their visions of Chinatown’s future. These claims are articulated through attempts to demonstrate and strengthen the vitality of Chinatown in the face of growing narratives of its putative decline and death. By engaging with the contemporary sociological literature on conviviality, where relatively “thin” versus more radical conceptualizations of conviviality are being debated, and putting it into conversation with both the geographical literature on the politics of public space and political theory discussions of agonism, we argue that the uses of public space must be analyzed without romanticizing conviviality or consensus in order to understand the productive possibilities of “political conviviality” and agonistic encounters. Our focus is the “Hot+Noisy Mahjong Socials” held in recent summers in an iconic plaza in Chinatown. These are organized by a community group that builds connections between mostly Chinese Canadian youth and largely Cantonese-speaking seniors. These groups espouse a goal of “place-keeping” in the context of planning trends toward “placemaking.” Through this case, we consider how activists from marginalized communities build solidarities through agonistic “place-keeping” in the face of gentrification and threats of cultural erasure.

Chinatowns in North America have been especially hit hard by COVID-19, a reality of anti-Asian racist and xenophobic sentiment exacerbated by the global pandemic. The factors contributing to increased business closures, commercial vacancy, and gentrification in Chinatowns have existed before the pandemic and have only been exacerbated. In order to preserve Chinatowns, municipalities have enacted historic preservation and small business support measures, such as historic designations, technical assistance for businesses, increased permit scrutiny, and legacy business programs. This study investigates the difference in retail changes across three Chinatowns in Vancouver, San Francisco and Los Angeles both prior and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Concurrently, this study also examines the impact of retaining a legacy business program and other preservation measures on the retail landscape. Interviews with city officials, organizers, community institutions, and members of the business community were conducted along with an analysis of existing local programs, policies and reports. This study finds that measures taken through historic preservation, small business support, and pandemic relief have not significantly addressed core needs within Chinatown communities. The most effective forms of relief and preservation was affordable housing, community-ownership of commercial businesses, and direct assistance for commercial rent. This study also acknowledges that some Chinatowns are faring better than others due to the ability of the Chinese community to fight against to historic discriminatory planning practices such as urban renewal, slum clearance, and highway building. The impact of these histories is deeply intertwined with the survivability of ethnic retail within each distinct Chinatown, and depending on the strength of existing community ties that remain will inform how preservation policies should be enacted.

Chinatown is a term for a district in a city inhabited by Chinese ethnic. Most Chinese ethnicities that live in Chinatown on Suryakencana Street, Bogor City, have a livelihood as merchants and store owners. Store name board is one of the important elements of stores then be regulated by the government and inflicts the reduced value of Chinatown. This research aims to know the important values of store name boards as the identity of Chinese ethnic on Suryakencana Street, Bogor City. This research uses qualitative descriptive methods such as interviews and literature reviews. This research result shows that the laws in effect from 1966 to 2000 discriminated against Chinese ethnicities and their identities in Indonesia. That is reflected in store name boards with elements of Chinese culture such as Chinese characters (Hanzi) forced to be changed to Latin script with store's name should have "Indonesian" characters. After analyzing, store board names have deep means and values as the material culture of Chinese ethnic that represent important values about identity, history, and culture of Chinese which can be an added value from Chinatown on Jalan Suryakencana, Bogor City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions of change and the future have become increasingly salient in Vancouver's Chinatown in the last decade, as gentrification proceeds apace. Various actors have used the neighbourhood's public spaces to express their visions of Chinatown's future. These claims are articulated through attempts to demonstrate and strengthen the vitality of Chinatown in the face of growing narratives of its putative decline and death. By engaging with the contemporary sociological literature on conviviality, where relatively "thin" versus more radical conceptualizations of conviviality are being debated, and putting it into conversation with both the geographical literature on the politics of public space and political theory discussions of agonism, we argue that the uses of public space must be analyzed without romanticizing conviviality or consensus in order to understand the productive possibilities of "political conviviality" and agonistic encounters. Our focus is the "Hot+Noisy Mahjong Socials" held in recent summers in an iconic plaza in Chinatown. These are organized by a community group that builds connections between mostly Chinese Canadian youth and largely Cantonese-speaking seniors. These groups espouse a goal of "place-keeping" in the context of planning trends toward "placemaking." Through this case, we consider how activists from marginalized communities build solidarities through agonistic "place-keeping" in the face of gentrification and threats of cultural erasure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While verticality seems intrinsic to the fabric of the modern city—a concrete second nature—understanding this dimension involves negotiations of people, functions, scale, and representations, especially as mobile people transform existing cityscapes. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in Chinatowns worldwide, where generations of Chinese, interacting with complex cities around them, have created places for varied immigrants and dispersed descendants in public and private spaces above and below the street. Verticality here is both intimate and performative, internal and external, “real” and imagined, as this walk through the Chinatown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA) illustrates. Deciphering layers and dimensions of verticality, at the same time, expands our perceptions of both Chinatowns as places and the growth and structure of modern cities.

Many unique ethnic enclaves have been established in Australia due to the country's rich and diverse immigration history. Chinatown Melbourne is one of the oldest and most iconic examples that date back to the gold rush period in the 1850s. Previous studies have examined many aspects of the precinct, such as its architectural styles and demography shifts. However, there is a lack of research investigating the enclave's urban characteristics and the consequent urban identity. This knowledge gap can lead to unfeasible heritage conservation decisions with a lack of emphasis on the precinct's unique identity. Hence, this study aims to scrutinize the precinct's past urban evolution and its present characteristics to better understand its heritage value and enhance future urban policies. Qualitative data are collected using archival and literature review, map analysis, and field observation. Overall, by elucidating Chinatown Melbourne's urban characteristics and key urban movements, the study depicts the precinct's identity, addressing elements like the main, laneway, gateway, and public space. The output of the research provides insights into how future heritage policies and initiatives can benefit from the case study in enhancing heritage protection and sustaining its urban identity. Further research is recommended to incorporate quantitative research methods and compare results with this study's findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Petak Sembilan is a Chinatown area located in Jakarta, where many Chinese hereditary communities stay. There is a famous Petak Sembilan Market that becomes the meeting point of mostly Chinese hereditary merchants with their customers. The interaction that occurred for years has always been interesting to be studied for the dynamic of their communication. The aim of this study is to identify the intercultural communication and interaction patterns between customers and merchants who are culturally diverse. The verbal and nonverbal communication were addressed in their interactions. This research employed a qualitative approach with a case study method. Data collection techniques used were observation, interview, and documentation for literature review. The results of the study are presented in the form of descriptive writing. The findings show that intercultural communication that occurred between the merchants and customers is a linear two-way communication. Verbal and nonverbal cues were identified from the observation conducted. During the interaction, the merchant and customers tend to use the same language to avoid misunderstanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many unique ethnic enclaves have been established in Australia due to the country’s rich and diverse immigration history. Chinatown Melbourne is one of the oldest and most iconic examples that date back to the gold rush period in the 1850s. Previous studies have examined many aspects of the precinct, such as its architectural styles and demography shifts. However, there is a lack of research investigating the enclave’s urban characteristics and the consequent urban identity. This knowledge gap can lead to unfeasible heritage conservation decisions with a lack of emphasis on the precinct’s unique identity. Hence, this study aims to scrutinize the precinct’s past urban evolution and its present characteristics to better understand its heritage value and enhance future urban policies. Qualitative data are collected using archival and literature review, map analysis, and field observation. Overall, by elucidating Chinatown Melbourne’s urban characteristics and key urban movements, the study depicts the precinct’s identity, addressing elements like the main, laneway, gateway, and public space. The output of the research provides insights into how future heritage policies and initiatives can benefit from the case study in enhancing heritage protection and sustaining its urban identity. Further research is recommended to incorporate quantitative research methods and compare results with this study’s findings.

Melbourne's Chinatown is the oldest in Australia. A large amount of research on this unique ethnic enclave has been conducted to elucidate its formation history, heritage significance, cultural influence and architectural features. However, the discussion of the precinct's spatial characteristics remains mostly marginalised. As a heritage precinct in the centre of an urban grid form, the precinct offers a unique spatial experience to its visitors. To better fathom the street layout of the area, three objectives are addressed in this study, including understanding: (1) the precinct's street network in the grid system, (2) the visibility relationship within the precinct and (3) the relationship between buildings and streets. A joint methodology framework is established to fulfil the research objectives by incorporating space syntax methods and field observation. The findings facilitate policymakers and planners in understanding the precinct's unique street layout and making relevant preservation decisions. Further studies are encouraged to scrutinise other spatial and urban characteristics of the precinct and test the proposed methodology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First created to nestle immigrants who had left their countries, mostly from Hong Kong and China, London’s Chinatown (near Soho) progressively allowed for the emergence of a transitional space, a medium, or a place in-between which helped those immigrants to adapt to the new habitat. Gradually, the cultural and economic landscape of London’s Chinatown has become an attraction and Chineseness, an object of consumption for both local residents and outsiders. The place branding process of London’s Chinatown has contributed to creating new ways of reading the place, and is not only carried out by the Chinese as some form of self-fashioning, but also by local authorities, networks of associations and mostly Shaftesbury—a British real estate investment trust. Highly marketed as a commodity, London’s Chinatown has been re-imagined and transformed into a hybrid social, economic and political construct that is intrinsic to the West, and more particularly to London.

­Os entrego un texto rapsódico, deliberadamente escolástico, que se propone tan solo reducir la complejidad a su nivel divulgativo. Un texto que es sencilla organización de los tópicos, generalidades ­y… guía mínima de antigüedades chinas. Estos son tan solo Apuntes.

In the last few decades, migrants’ past experiences and memories have become increasingly recognized as a heritage. While this can be seen as a positive shift towards a more inclusive evaluation of the past, migration heritage is still overwhelmingly portrayed through a binary between the country of origin and country of settlement. This tendency obscures the multiple transnational connections migrants sustain with different locations along the migration process. Drawing on examples of Chinese migration to Europe, this article argues in favour of forgoing the national(istic) approach to heritagization and instead focusing on the connections formed during a century of Chinese migration to Europe.

Far from occupying a prevailing position in the field of preservation of the ancient centres of active cities in South-East Asia, UNESCO is nevertheless gaining in influence through programmes open to the socio-economic and environmental aspects of urban heritage protection. Observing this trend and its implications for the internationalisation of the heritage field in South-East Asia, the present article addresses two themes: the entry of heritage interventions into the world of urban projects, and the internationalisation of the heritage vocabulary used to qualify spaces, with the translation issues raised by expressions such as « cultural landscape » and « creative city » ensuring their assignment to related intervention programmes. These reflections are based in particular on a critical reading of the contributions to the book UNESCO in Southeast Asia. World Heritage Sites in Comparative Perspective edited by Victor T. King (2016a)—an author from whom we borrow the term “UNESCO-isation”.

Decolonial and feminist studies scholars have long recognised the intricate ways in which the personal and academic are deeply interwoven and that the co-production of knowledge is essential for social transformation. This article examines the cultural organising of the Chinatown Art Brigade, an intergenerational collective of artists, activists, writers, educators and practitioners driven by the fundamental belief that cultural, material, and aesthetic modes of production have the power to combat gentrification. Specifically, I situate the collective within a longer lineage of Asian American cultural organising in Manhattan Chinatown and draw from years of movement-based research as a member of the collective. Incorporating personal reflection and interviews conducted with brigade members, this article speaks to how the themes of power, temporality and affectivity show up in movement-based research. How can we think more capaciously about academic and non-academic collaboration, to push the boundaries and explore new possibilities that honour the time, expertise and trauma of directly impacted communities? In reflecting on my work with the Chinatown Art Brigade, I discuss the nuances of intergenerational co-production of knowledge and interrogate how a feminist ethics of promiscuous care can uncover new possibilities for collaboration between cultural workers, organisers and movement-based scholars within and beyond the neoliberal academy.

Decolonial and feminist studies scholars have long recognised the intricate ways in which the personal and academic are deeply interwoven and that the co-production of knowledge is essential for social transformation. This article examines the cultural organising of the Chinatown Art Brigade, an intergenerational collective of artists, activists, writers, educators and practitioners driven by the fundamental belief that cultural, material, and aesthetic modes of production have the power to combat gentrification. Specifically, I situate the collective within a longer lineage of Asian American cultural organising in Manhattan Chinatown and draw from years of movement-based research as a member of the collective. Incorporating personal reflection and interviews conducted with brigade members, this article speaks to how the themes of power, temporality and affectivity show up in movement-based research. How can we think more capaciously about academic and non-academic collaboration, to push the boundaries and explore new possibilities that honour the time, expertise and trauma of directly impacted communities? In reflecting on my work with the Chinatown Art Brigade, I discuss the nuances of intergenerational co-production of knowledge and interrogate how a feminist ethics of promiscuous care can uncover new possibilities for collaboration between cultural workers, organisers and movement-based scholars within and beyond the neoliberal academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2017, the Terengganu Chinese Peranakan Association (TCPA) withdrew its participation in the 4th Annual Terengganu Peranakan Festival (TPF) organised by the Terengganu Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (TCCCI) because of a dispute over the combined term "Mek Awang". To TCPA members, Mek Awang is a derogatory term, which the Malays used to refer to someone as being "soft", effeminate, or a cross-dresser. However, TCCCI has appropriated the term Mek Awang and used it as a brand name to promote the festival, and to highlight the "uniqueness" of the Terengganu Peranakan Chinese community. This case is an example of how local cultural terms or practices have been readapted to suit tourism interests. Tourism is often accused of reinventing culture for capital ventures. Consequently, many academics and social critics have come to regard official national heritage sites and heritage tourism with scepticism and disdain. Combining ethnographic data from our in-depth interviews with the Terengganu Peranakan Chinese and our participant observation during the festival, we argue that the dispute over Mek Awang is not only a simple change in reference, but is also an indication of a deeper contemporary global process that affects ethnic minorities and their identities. We conclude that various attempts to commodify the peranakan experiences and culture in Terengganu as well as the intention to place the peranakan as a marketable heritage in Chinatown can be interpreted as attempts to replace a heterogeneous community with a homogeneous, uniform, genetic and identifiable ethnic category with a Peranakan1 (with capital "P") identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the history of Jakarta, Chinatown played a significant role to the formation of the city. The Chinatown area accompanied Jakarta along its journey and has been around since the city was still known as Batavia. The Chinese were among the actors who played a major role in the formation of urban space when Batavia began to develop. After four centuries, Jakarta’s Chinatown, which is now known as the Glodok area, continues to exist and is a bustling commercial area. The research conducted tries to dig further into the existence of Jakarta’s Chinatown to reveal what lies behind its current formation. The Chinatown that can be found at this time is the second phase of the Jakarta Chinatown. At the beginning of Batavia, the Chinatown area was part of the city center. In 1740 there was a massacre that killed almost the entire Chinese population in Batavia. After the massacre, the Chinese no longer lived in the city center but filled the area outside the city walls. Through the study of archives and documents, the research tries to trace Jakarta’s Chinatown from the 17th to the 19th century to examine the spatial transformation that occurred when the first Chinatown was destroyed and a new Chinatown area grew. This research is a study of architectural history to better identify the formation of hidden layers in urban space. The findings show that there is an important role of the city gate or Pintoe Ketjil as a transition area and a starting point for the renewal phase of Chinatown. The market that develops from people's houses is a characteristic that enlivens the area. Glodok was originally the final boundary for the area before the relocation of the city center turned Glodok into the gateway for the new Chinatown. Pecinan memiliki peran yang signifikan di dalam sejarah terbentuknya kota Jakarta. Kawasan Pecinan telah mengiringi Jakarta di sepanjang usia perjalanannya dan hadir sejak kota berdiri saat masih bernama Batavia. Penduduk Cina adalah di antara aktor-aktor yang berperan besar dalam pembentukan ruang kota pada saat Batavia mulai dikembangkan. Setelah empat abad berjalan, daerah Pecinan di Jakarta yang kini dikenal sebagai kawasan Glodok masih terus hadir dan merupakan kawasan perniagaan yang ramai. Penelitian yang dilakukan mencoba menggali lebih jauh keberadaan kawasan Pecinan Jakarta untuk mengungkapkan apa yang berlangsung di balik terbentuknya Pecinan saat ini. Pecinan yang dapat ditemui kini adalah fase kedua dari Pecinan Jakarta. Pada awal Batavia berdiri, kawasan Pecinan merupakan permukiman penduduk Cina berada di pusat kota. Hingga di tahun 1740 terjadi pembantaian yang menghabisi hampir seluruh penduduk Cina di Batavia. Pasca pembantaian penduduk Cina tidak lagi tinggal di pusat kota melainkan memenuhi area di luar dinding kota. Melalui kajian arsip dan dokumen, penelitian mencoba menelusuri kondisi Pecinan Jakarta di abad ke-17 hingga akhir abad ke-19 untuk menelaah transformasi ruang yang berlangsung pada saat Pecinan pertama musnah dan tumbuhnya kawasan Pecinan baru. Penelitian ini merupakan studi sejarah arsitektur untuk lebih mengenali formasi dari lapisan-lapisan tersembunyi di dalam ruang kota. Temuan menunjukkan bahwa terdapat peranan penting wilayah pintu gerbang kota atau Pintoe Ketjil sebagai area transisi dan titik awal tumbuhnya Pecinan fase kedua. Pasar yang berkembang dari rumah-rumah penduduk adalah ciri khas yang menghidupkan kawasan. Glodok pada awalnya adalah batas akhir kawasan Pecinan, sebelum kemudian terjadinya perpindahan pusat kota mengubah Glodok menjadi pintu gerbang Pecinan baru.

While research about contemporary Asian arts exhibited in mega museums has attracted growing attention, there is little dialogue concerning community-based art practices in everyday Asian and Asian American neighborhoods. This interview article highlights community-based art projects led by a grassroots organization, the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco (CCC), to help understand Chinatown's stories as shared and lived by the community during a challenging time. Hoi Leung, CCC's chief curator, explained how the organization mobilized art to share diverse local stories, celebrate a sense of belonging, and raise public awareness about racial justice issues within the communities it serves. To counter socially constructed assumptions about Chinatown and its residents, CCC actively develops cross-sector partnerships to centralize underrepresented voices through community-based arts and projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For only 1.7 miles of rail, San Francisco is spending $1.58 billion. Traveling from Chinatown to King Street, the premise for the project — one of the most expensive in the nation — doesn't stand up to critique. But even after decades of political maneuvering to make the project reality, the general public didn't learn about it until the boondoggle was unstoppable.

In this paper, I survey the life of Alice Yang, a thirty year-old second generation Chinese-American woman. I begin with Alice's parents – their time in China, their immigration to the United States, and their initial experiences living in America. I then go into detail about Alice's life specifically, describing her childhood and her time growing up until reaching present day. I attempt to place these experiences within the broader contexts of the various social and historical conditions affecting Chinese-Americans at the time, such as the various immigration educational policies in place. Particularly, I analyze how these factors have affected Alice and her family’s lives in their decisions and actions. Furthermore, I discuss the ways in which Alice and her family have either strayed away from the common trends seen with Chinese-Americans, or have helped shaped the observed trends themselves.  In other words, I shed some light on how independent Alice’s life was from her identity as a second generation Chinese American, and how much her life in turn contributed to the trends among Asian Americans witnessed in general.

The city of Prato is arguably one of the most widely studied multicultural urban con- texts in Italy and more generally in Europe. Yet, in the analysis of the dynamics that enable this conceptualization of the city as a space of cultural complexity little atten- tion has been paid to the way in which localized processes of transculturation have, since the early 1980s, changed both the visual landscape of Prato, and the way in which it is imagined and understood by the different people that call it home. This paper focuses on Macrolotto Zero, one of the city’s most multicultural neighborhoods particularly marked by decades of Chinese diasporic movements. It explores how pro- cesses of exchange/conflict between local and migrant residents, artistic collectives, activists and policy-makers have profoundly changed the way in which the neighbor- hood is imagined and conceptualized at a local, national and transnational level. Draw- ing from fieldwork, interviews with local artists and historical research on the neigh- borhood’s visual and aural changes, this paper argues that this historical industrial area of Prato has been undergoing an extensive process of re-imagining. This process has been driven by bottom-up participatory art interventions and by residents which have repositioned the neighborhood as a creative and innovative space of experimentation that testifies to intricate cross-cultural entanglements.

London’s Chinatown and the Quartier asiatique de Paris are two Asian ethnic neighbourhoods located respectively in Soho – London and the 13th arrondissement of Paris. In both neighbourhoods, there are signs that strategies of cultural branding are used by some political and economic actors. This article compares this process of place branding in the two places by taking into consideration the similarities and contrasts between them, in terms of specific styles of branding used by local authorities – the Westminster City Council in London and the municipality of the 13th arrondissement (Mairie du 13ème arrondissement) in Paris. In the London case, branding is very much about ‘touristification’, in which neighbourhoods and businesses are marketed as cultural attractions for the general public, in relation with urban regeneration and the cultural representation of ethnic groups. Such a strategy has not yet been truly initiated in Paris, or, only implicitly if at all. The article will show to what extent the representation of these ethnic enclaves is informed by different models of cultural diversity management. London's approach remains decidedly influenced by a multiculturalist understanding of urban regeneration and economic development. In Paris, similar approaches are met with scepticism in local authorities.

Before the Second World War, the majority of London’s modest Chinese population –consisting of approximately 900 people – resided in Limehouse, the East part of the city. The popular discourse saw Chinatown as synonymous with an exotic underworld filled with opium dens and exotic indulgences; a place where respectable Englishwomen were threatened by the lechery of Chinese men, and where less respectable Londoners could indulge in their vices. In this paper, I examine cultural texts that validated and reinforced the image of Limehouse as a place existing outside of Anglo-Saxon norms, where, to quote HV Morton, ‘queer things happen in a mist of smoke.’ Placing my focus on the ways in which Chinese community was represented in the popular media, I combine the analysis of Broken Blossoms (1919) and London (1926) with the critical opinions expressed by film editors and contemporary movie-goers. I also investigate the threat of miscegenation, usually inherent to the representation of Limehouse in the popular press. London Evening News, for example, encouraged their readers to pity ‘degraded’ white women who fell for ‘the Yellow Man.’ In line with the 1920s’ rhetoric of eugenics, other newspapers suggested that wives of immigrants living in London’s Chinatown were declining physically – gradually acquiring Chinese-like features – and mentally, as a result of their morally transgressive behaviour. Was Limehouse represented in universally pejorative terms, and, if so, what kind of social forces made such narratives reverberate?

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Food equity includes the right to food that is culturally appropriate. Immigrant neighborhoods can be sites of contestation over who participates in the production, distribution, and consumption of food. Manhattan's Chinatown is a good example of a neighborhood where food is central to its commerce, cultural heritage, and reputation as a tourist destination. The coronavirus' origin in China caused immediate material impact on Chinese restaurants and food purveyors in New York City as well as in other cities with major populations of Chinese people. Chinatown suffered disproportionate closures of its grocery stores, restaurants, and produce vendors due to COVID-19 as compared to other neighborhoods in NYC. The grassroots response to this crisis is a reminder that people have the power to use food to assert the society that they desire, to shape a highly contested urban space, and to claim their right to the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Locational perspective plays an important role in nurturing and shaping ethnic economies. Be it Little Italy, Little Portugal or Chinatown; ethnic economic ventures fabricate the neighbourhood spaces by creating sincere impression on existing urban landscapes. The Chinese enclaves in Kolkata are a unique case to study because of the existence of a pair of Chinese lived spaces in different portions of the city with their distinctive characters. The old Chinese lived space/enclave was established at the heart of the city bearing cosmopolitan notion of shared community domains while the newer one has been constructed at the city's periphery with restricted, fortified Hakka entrepreneurial activities. The chain of successive migration by Cantonese, Hakka and Hubeinese Chinese helped the community to build a strong co-ethnic network of occupations. Later, the changing socio-economic and political circumstances made these clustered enterprises spread across the city. The present paper deals with aspects of sectoral specialisation and spatial dynamics of ethnic Chinese economic spaces of Kolkata by applying both qualitative and quantitative methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First paragraph: New York’s Chinatown has a century-old produce distribution system that supplies the city with more than 200 types of extremely low-cost fresh fruits and vegetables that are sourced from hundreds of small- and midsize biodiverse farms and distributed to a network of vendors and restaurants. Yet this remarkable supply chain has been overshadowed by the gigantic Hunts Point terminal market and the distribution channels operated by the major supermarket chains. It is also overlooked by advocates of direct farm-to-consumer food retail. Valerie Imbruce’s From Farm to Canal Street unmasks this “alternative” food network, offering important lessons for policy­makers interested in increasing access to healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate food. . . .

This study aims to discover the factors that contribute to the continued success of street trading activities in Chinatown Kuala Lumpur and investigate how these informal economies remains relevant in a modern city. The street trading activities have sustained the place as a living cultural enclave through the robustness of street activities, high pedestrian traffic and the attractive street life experience. The objectives of this study is to find the success factors of the site as a guideline for streets to remain active public spaces and for similar cultural enclaves to be allowed to thrive as living heritage of a city. The mixed method approach through site observation and census-like survey captured an all-inclusive reading of the tangible and intangible aspects of the site. Based on the findings of this research, six emerging characteristics of the street trading activities were identified: high concentration of business activities, variety of choices, availability of food, lively outdoor atmosphere, promotes street walkability and extended business hours. This paper serves to offer a new perspective on sustainable urban planning approaches especially in parts of old city quarters as wells as cultural or ethnic enclaves where the organic place making, some haphazardness and a sustainable living community are recognised and celebrated as exciting characters in the urban fabric of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]