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This paper examines underexplored police photographs of Chinese migrants in Korea under Japanese colonial rule, with a focus on architectural spaces. In 1940, a secret anti-Japanese association known as Ildonghoe was established by a group of Chinese migrants in the Korean city of Incheon. Following the arrest of its members in 1943, Japanese colonial authorities documented with photographs locations and objects related to the organization's activities. This investigation serendipitously created a photographic archive of architectural spaces in and around Incheon's Chinatown, many of which have since disappeared. The paper sheds light upon these police photographs as an "accidental archive," a repository of historical materials that gives rise to unintended outcomes with critical information about certain events, places, and moments. The paper pays particular attention to the peculiarity of police photographs as a form of happenstance yet significant documentation capturing historical moments that might otherwise remain elusive. Reading against the grain of colonial archives, this paper shows how the Ildonghoe photographs invite viewers to envision a different narrative of the racial relations forged under colonial rule and imagine decolonial futures that have yet to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the scholarship on charter schools has examined the reform through the lens of neoliberalism, rightly critiquing it for its negative effects on democracy, public schools, and marginalized communities. While we have developed important understandings of how progressive values are often repurposed toward strengthening neoliberal projects in education, I argue for a serious exploration of the possibilities of using neoliberal tools as a way of advancing progressive aims. Using the case study of a charter school in Philadelphia's Chinatown that was founded expressly as a claim to urban space, Asian American self-determination, and multiracial solidarity, I show how some of the progressive aims we hope to achieve can come from unexpected neoliberal techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinatowns in Canada and the United States are marked by cultural hybridity, where the translation of various types, verbal and non-verbal, takes place to produce distinct urban meanings. On the basis of an ethnographic observation, this article reveals the role of translation in the signification and imagination of Chinatowns. Cultural diaspora in relation to multimodal translation is designed as a theoretical framework, under which linguistic, aesthetic and cross-cultural tensions are explained. It argues that the urban meanings of Chinatowns are generated through an omnipresent practice of translation enacted by the interplay of text, image and culture across time and space. In the meantime, Chinatowns have evolved from ethnic enclaves into cosmopolitan prototypes for future cities. A translational perspective on Chinatowns incorporates visual semiotics into verbal languages to unpack cross-cultural relations, which informs a great deal about the nature of translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this commentary on Elvin Wyly's 'Regarding the Pain of (Indigenous) Others', I comment on the absent ontology of Asian subjectivities in urban studies of neoliberal global cities. Wyly's account of neoliberal Vancouver hellscapes frames racial formations and narratives of dispossession as formed by capital. Asian subjectivities, I argue in this commentary, are also flattened by narratives of capital into purely economic subjects, but what Wyly's reading of Vancouver opens up, I also hope to show, is the possibility of tracing the complex life stories of Asian capitalist characters in Vancouver's neoliberal hellscape. In this way, Wyly avoids the trap of the previous urban studies entries in the post-Chinatown ilk, where global cities are depicted as being shaped by capital with the complexity of Roman Polanski's Chinatown, but ironically have neither 'Asian' nor 'Chinese' characters in them that are subjectively complex. Paying attention to complex Asian subjectivities in neoliberal cities allows for further questioning of the relationship between race and capital in contemporary urban studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most ethnic Chinese living and working in Britain in the late 1960s were from Hong Kong's New Territories. Many of these British migrants blamed the Hong Kong government for importing cheap foodstuffs and driving farmers off the land to build new infrastructural projects. In 1967, Hong Kong experienced a wave of social and political unrest commonly referred to as the 1967 Leftist Riots. The unrest spread to parts of Britain's Chinatown, where a leftist movement emerged in sympathy with the anti-colonial rioters. In response, the Heung Yee Kuk, a legal advisory organisation that represented established interests in the New Territories, proposed to send a 'goodwill tour' to Britain's Chinatowns to demonstrate that the Hong Kong government was committed to their welfare. The unlikely alliance proved politically expedient as both had good reason to foster the political loyalty of Britain's migrant Chinese. In particular, both parties understood the economic necessity of quieting the unrest to ensure the continued flow of remittance back to the colony. The detailed report of migrant Chinese grievances with the British and Hong Kong governments produced by the Heung Yee Kuk delegates led to welfare reforms for the Chinese communities of Hong Kong and Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the linguistic landscape of a new unofficial 'Chinatown' in Kathmandu, Nepal. Located in the tourist hub Thamel, this Chinatown came into being recently because of globalisation and China's outbound tourism boom. Using authentic photographic data, this study examines how the use of Chinese and various semiotic elements (e.g. colour) contributes to the making of a commodified ethnic enclave and space of consumption, where a foreign culture is inscribed and embedded in the existing built environment. Unlike the traditional old-world Chinatowns, simplified Chinese characters are omnipresent in this Chinatown and many Chinese-run business names are highly up-to-date and reflect the latest trends in their home country. The exclusive use of monolingual Chinese is also commonplace. Interestingly, awkwardly hand-copied Chinese and Google translated Chinese are used as part of local businesses' marketing repertoire in what can be called 'linguistic jugaad'. Additionally, some local businesses resort to creative, affective and playful language to attract and engage with Chinese tourists. Contributing to research on ethnic enclaves and urban sociolinguistics, this study highlights language as commodity in transforming/constructing a cosmopolitan transnational space in our globalised and mobile world, illustrating how South-South population flows can leave material traces in a place's linguistic ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medan is a port city in Sumatra, Dutch East Indies, developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A special case among colonial cities, it featured a large number of Chinese migrants – a third party in addition to the colonizer and the colonized – who played a key role in its urbanization process. Highlighting a trichotomous power framework formed by the Dutch colonizer, the indigenous people and the Chinese diaspora, this paper argues that the Chinese diaspora, with the arrival of commercial elites, obtained opportunities to shape the backbone of the city through skilfully transforming their economic power into political and spatial power. Chinese economic activities such as property investment and co-development not only led to unconventional Chinese quarters but shaped the zoning and axiality of the whole city. The Chinese diaspora also shaped Medan’s streetscape and architecture through individual building design, which, in turn, strengthened their economic power by the careful manipulation of architectural elements from various sources to suit different purposes. The planning history of Medan represents an alternative trajectory to colonial urbanization often led by Europeans, highlighting an ambiguous and shifting power relation among three parties in a transforming colonial society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the fall of 2004, archaeologists, students, and volunteers from the Field Museum, DePaul University, and the community conducted archaeological survey and testing of an empty parcel adjacent to the new Chinese American Museum of Chicago. The lot, still at the original nineteenth-century street level, was over 3 ft below the modern Twenty-Third Street level. Shovel probes yielded in situ deposits, and subsequent test excavations unearthed layers of material culture and subsistence remains that reflect demographic change in this Chicago neighborhood from its beginning in the late nineteenth century through the 1911 restart of Chinatown and beyond. The hands-on archaeological project and resulting historical exhibition formed a stronger bond between Chinatown's past and present for young Chinese student participants, community members, historians, and anthropologists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.

Responding to a recent call for interdisciplinary research into 'night studies', the present study attempts to put the nighttime at the centre of the sociolinguistic enquiry, seeking to explore how the nocturnal linguistic landscape (LL) differs from the diurnal LL by drawing on Singapore's Chinatown as the research site. A total of 1091 LL items constitute the database. Altogether 808 LL items were collected during the daytime and 283 of these LL items were found to be illuminated during nighttime site visits. The quantitative analysis reveals that the nocturnal LL differs from the diurnal LL in several ways: at the top-down level, the nocturnal LL shows a strong monolingual English tendency, while the diurnal LL has a tendency towards multilingualism; at the bottom-up level, fewer languages are used in the nocturnal signs than in the diurnal signs and Chinese is used as the prominent language in nocturnal signs, whereas English has a leading position in the diurnal signs. Our findings complicate previous scholarly understanding of bilingual and multilingual configurations in Singapore, suggesting that the LL has its own unique representation at night. The potential for integrating nighttime as a new dimension to examine LL is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Toronto's Chinatown was born out of a form of resistance which paired infidelity to official definitions of Canadian citizenship (who was allowed to belong) with fidelity to its community members (who belonged). Historical representations have often been unfaithful to the Chinatown community, and architectural imagery has often tended to erase it from view entirely. In this essay, the authors explore Linda Zhang's appropriation of architectural technologies (such as photogrammetry and pointcloud scanning) as a form of antidisplacement resistance to the ongoing and centuries-old erasure(s) of Toronto's Chinatown. Her project, Chinatown 2050, uses speculative futurist 3D reconstructions and community storytelling to reimagine what Toronto's Chinatowns might be like in the year 2050. Unfaithful to the present and past "official" demarcations of the neighborhood, it is a form of social organizing and imagination towards a more generative future. In countering technological acts of erasure, Zhang's work illuminates the broader sociopolitical implications of technological choices and critiques the ways in which history often silences marginalized communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1893, China boycotted the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in protest of the Geary Act, which renewed Chinese exclusion for ten years. In the absence of an official Chinese exhibit, a group of Chinese American merchants drew upon a set of theatrical elements associated with Chinatown tours to construct the Chinese Village attraction. For two decades, Chinatown tours had functioned as a form of aggregate entertainment featuring a set of archetypes—including the Restaurant, the Joss House, the Opium Den—that advanced the idea that Chinatown was a "Yellow Peril" to white Americans. The Chinese Village took this aggregate entertainment and attached a different cultural message, one which promoted the Chinese Village as a nonthreatening experience defined by consumption, surface aesthetics, and theatrical performance. In advancing this message, the Chinese Village contributed to a cultural shift that redefined understandings of Chinese immigrants for much of the next century. [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]

This study investigates the sociosemiotic practices of the chop suey letterform in three historical Chinatowns of Los Angeles. Created to index Chineseness in the 1880s America, the chop suey letterform has been controversial in use yet remains highly visible in today’s global linguistic landscape. This study examines visual data to capture the diachronic changes and synchronic variations in typographic ideologies over temporal space. It analyzes the dynamic meaning-making processes involved to construct ethnocultural identities, sustain power relations, and negotiate social re-positionings. In doing so, it proposes a new constitutive frame analytical approach to reveal the changeability and interconnectedness of discursive frames in political-economic transformations. On one hand, it critiques the chop suey letterform as symbolic capital utilized to create and sustain hegemonic regimes of racialization, domestication, and commodification. On the other hand, it highlights the progressive role the letterform plays through semiotic negotiation in social re-positionings and identity transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the collective memory and identity of a Chinese neighbourhood at the old city centre of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Since the 1990s, this old neighbourhood, which has a famous Cantonese name – 'Chee Chong Kai' (CCK) – has been contentiously rebranded by the state as 'Chinatown'. The purpose of the present study is twofold. First, by drawing on observational data, interviews, questionnaires and photographic data, this paper uncovers the collective memory of the neighbourhood. Second, this study offers a critical insight into the renaming and rebranding of the CCK, identifying the ways in which the renaming/rebranding has affected the neighbourhood's collective identity. The findings reveal concerns over the changing landscapes in the neighbourhood that have affected or erased its character and heritage and the potential contention between the official and the 'vernacular' collective memory/identity. More importantly, the renaming/rebranding of the place itself reflects, paradoxically, the pressure to forego the neighbourhood's Chineseness. Drawing on the wider international tourism market and other power-related concerns, this study argues the need to reposition the CCK and an absence of major efforts to sustain the urban space and urban heritage in a way that would represent and proclaim a truly integrated (and inclusive) Malaysian society. [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]

The concentration of Chinese-owned businesses has been increasing in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. This study aims to analyse the extent to which local Chinese businesspeople are inclined to declare their presence as a solidified ethnic community in a metropolitan city. Drawing on the concepts of 'ways of being' and 'ways of belonging', the qualitative interview data suggest the unethnic characteristics of the ways of being in business practices. Chinese entrepreneurs embed their businesses into local institutions and markets, which may render ethnic ways of belonging, such as ethnic association activities and ethnic community-building, at odds with their interests according to their perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An urban space's linguistic landscape represents a multimodal and multilingual discourse, indexing the historical, socio-political, cultural, and ethnolinguistic aspects of the locale. Contributing to sociolinguistic research in our global cities, this study zooms in on an unexpected Chinese ethnic enclave, or Chinatown, in Dubai, a superdiverse urban space and multilingual contact zone in post-colonial UAE. Drawing on a corpus of authentic LL data taken from Dubai's emerging 'Chinatown', the study shows that a multilingual triad involving Arabic, English and Chinese is a pervasive sight in this area, deviating from the taken-for-granted and 'choreographed' bilingual LL in Dubai overall featuring Arabic and English. Notably, Chinese, as an index of ethnic, linguistic, and cultural identity and marker of boundary, is the most prominent and informative, whereas Dubai's official language Arabic often appears in small font size and is rendered inconspicuous. This gives rise to a scenario I call 'small-print multilingualism' – a conscious attempt for small-business owners to include Arabic reluctantly only to get the 'job' done and conform to relevant rules and regulations. Theoretically, this article argues for the relevance of Bakhtin's concepts of centripetal and centrifugal forces in helping shed light on the dynamic and negotiated relationship between official top-down regulations and bottom-up linguistic practices on the ground in ethnic enclaves. Ultimately, this study adds to our understandings of language and multilingualism in (super)diverse global cities [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.

Tiny though it is, The Hague's Chinatown is clearly presented as such, with Chinese lanterns, municipal street signage in Chinese characters, and sayings in Classical Chinese lining the streets. Doing fieldwork in the area, however, has shown that it proves to be less Chinese than its visual representation suggests. Few Chinese still inhabit the area, which used to flourish after it had ceased to be a Jewish neighbourhood. Now, only about forty per cent of the establishments – primarily restaurants, nail parlours and food shops – are of Chinese origin. Despite municipal attempts to present Chinatown as a tourist attraction, the area has become more generally Asian in character than Chinese, while it also includes establishments that represent The Hague's other major ethnic communities (Moroccan, Turkish and Surinamese). Though the Chinese language is clearly visible throughout the area, the script predominantly used proves to be informational rather than having a symbolic function, in contrast to what is found in Chinatowns elsewhere. The answer to the question in the title of this paper therefore proved to be negative, while the ongoing changes are typically characteristic of superdiverse cities elsewhere in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the history and the socio-political and cultural life of the streets of Calcutta's Chinatowns through an examination of the gradual assimilation of Chinese immigrants that fostered the existing cosmopolitan character of the city. After providing the history of Chinese immigration to the city, the essay highlights the civic, political, economic, and cultural life of the streets of the Chinatowns, where each section chronologically examines how the influx of other Indian communities, political instability, urban development, and rise of capitalist enterprises influenced and transformed the Chinese street life. [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. [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]

Religion for many of Canada's earliest Chinese community was not about faith or belief in God, the Buddha, or the Goddess of Compassion (Guanyin). While the majority of Chinese migrants did not convert to Christianity or Buddhism before 1947, a very large number of them joined and became converted to Chinese nationalism (Zhongguo guomindang, aka KMT). This paper reflects on the findings of sixteen years of ethnographic and archival research to understand how sixty-two years of institutionalized racism in Canada, along with bioregionalism and the built environment, determined Chinese migrant religious identities and behaviors in Canada up to 1947. Different Canadian provinces not only had different race-based laws that restricted individual rights and freedoms, they also had varying bioregional characteristics that influenced experiences and interactions with the built environments of churches, temples, and clubhouses. Chinese migrants adapted to legislation that limited their personal rights and freedoms by being efficacious or ling by professing Christian identities in public settings. They might have made offerings to Buddhist deities and frequented Buddhist temples in their home village before migration. But in Canada, being Buddhist was associated with being Japanese, and it was efficacious to be a practicing Buddhist in private. For Canada's Chinese migrants, it was conversion to Chinese nationalism and the veneration of Sun Yat-sen that was the epitome of ling. Being a devoted member met important practical as well as spiritual needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's Chinatowns serve as a social gathering place that can help us in understanding its inhabitants' relationships with the host country. With food culture as a meaningful aspect of the Chinese experience, this research analyzes the capacity of signage as a communicative device that punctuates our gastronomic expectations and experience. John Bower's (1999) theory of design is used to analyze 65 Chinatown restaurant signage to discover the essence of European Chinatown restaurant signage that contributes to their gastronomic identity. By delving into the design attributes that contribute to the appearance and types of the signage, observable patterns can be established to suggest the gastronomic visual identity of restaurants found in Milan (Italy), Vienna (Austria), Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Antwerp (Belgium), and Paris (France). The data suggested that there are three major essences that evoke the unique Chinese attributes in signage: i) persistent and overwhelming applications of Chinese attributes in naming; ii) a universal preference for the red color, and iii) application of design elements with cultural attributes, calligraphic type styles, and architectural characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinatowns, as neighborhoods for overseas ethnic Chinese, have garnered considerable scholarly attention from linguistic landscape (LL) researchers in recent years. These investigations tend to treat old immigrants who have been tied to the neighborhoods for generations as the key text producers of LL, with far too little attention paid to the LL practices of new Chinese immigrants in Chinatowns, who are often associated with transnationalism and the rise of China. Focusing on Singapore's Chinatown, the present study attempts to explore Chinese Singaporean and new Chinese immigrants' linguistic choices concerning the Chinese-language signs displayed in the LL. Drawing on 326 instances of signs collected during site visits, the study found that Chinese Singaporeans and new Chinese immigrants make different linguistic choices when projecting their respective authenticities and identities. These findings suggest that there is indeed a linguistic basis for previously expressed arguments that Chinese Singaporean authenticity is threatened by new Chinese immigrants, shedding light on the need to examine the heterogeneity of Chinatown from the perspective of LL. This study enriches the scholarly understanding of LL practices within Chinese diasporic settlements in the East. [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.

The concept of "Aging in place" has not been fully validated among older immigrant groups living in diverse cultures. The study used a qualitative research approach and interviewed Chinese immigrant older adults across three Chinese enclave communities in New York City to identify whether Chinatowns are a place for Chinese immigrants to age and explore their experience of aging in Chinatowns. The findings showed that Chinese immigrants did consider Chinatown as the place, which conveyed practical, linguistic, social, emotional and cultural meaning. Aging in Chinatown, older adults sought independence, security, and autonomy through various social resources. However, older adults, especially newly arrived immigrants, have faced obstacles that undermine their aging experience. Older immigrants' unique aging experience has provided profound insight in understanding migration and AIP, which help develop proper policies and programs to support the AIP initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]