Chinatown Arts Week 2019
Oct 12-20th! More than a weeks worth of free cultural performances, art & celebration of the arts in Chinatown. Visit our Chinatown Arts Week section for more details!
Art of the Bing: Hands-on Kitchen Class
As a culinary warm-up to this year’s Chinatown Arts Week, Think!Chinatown brings scallion pancakes to Essex Market. Together, we’ll go step-by-step to show you how to get all the layers into those chewy crispy 蔥油餅 cong you bing/ scallion pancakes. Then we'll reward ourselves with a tea tasting from Grand Tea & Imports while we chat about what’s up in Chinatown these days.
Chinatown Arts Week features grassroots arts groups alongside emerging Asian American artists. Highlights include, Opera Teahouse Night in the Bamboo Garden, Illustrated StoryCorps Listening Session at 21 Pell, and a panel discussion on The Art of Designing for Chinatown. All events are free to the public! ChAW 2019 is Oct 12-20th with a preview at Asia Society Oct 4th.
First Friday at Asia Society: Chinatown Arts Week Preview
Time: Friday, October 4, 2019 at 6 PM – 9 PM
Location: Asia Society New York- 725 Park Ave, New York, New York 10021
FREE MUSEUM ADMISSION, GUIDED EXHIBITION TOURS
CHINATOWN ARTS WEEK PREVIEW
Performances, cultural activities, and more with ThinkChinatown
DRINK SPECIALS by Great Performances (Happy hour 6–7 p.m.)
ASIASTORE DISCOUNTS
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Chinatown Arts Week Preview
Chinatown is coming to the Upper East Side for a fun evening of art and culture! Join us for a special sneak peek of Chinatown Arts Week (October 12–20, 2019) including performances, cultural activities, and more, organized in collaboration with our friends at Think!Chinatown. Learn more about T!C and Chinatown Arts Week at www.thinkchinatown.org
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Exhibitions on View
Xiaoze Xie: Objects of Evidence, September 10, 2019–January 5, 2020
Through painting, installation, photography, and video, Xiaoze Xie traces the history of banned books in China.
Wang Dongling: Ink in Motion, September 10, 2019–January 5, 2020
The first public presentation of a large-scale calligraphy work created for AsiaSociety Museum by Wang Dongling, one of the most celebrated living calligraphers from China.
In Focus: Lakshmi, September 10, 2019–January 5, 2020
This exhibition explores the importance and worship of Lakshmi, a beloved goddess who is part of the complex Hindu culture that originated in India.
From Farm to Canal Street: Book talk w/author Valerie Imbruce
Mon, Sept 30th 6:30–8pm Bamboo Garden @5 Essex St
On the sidewalks of Manhattan's Chinatown, you can find street vendors and greengrocers selling bright red litchis in the summer and mustard greens and bok choy no matter the season. The neighborhood supplies more than two hundred distinct varieties of fruits and vegetables that find their way onto the tables of immigrants and other New Yorkers from many walks of life. Chinatown may seem to be a unique ethnic enclave, but it is by no means isolated. It has been shaped by free trade and by American immigration policies that characterize global economic integration. In From Farm to Canal Street, Valerie Imbruce tells the story of how Chinatown's food network operates amid—and against the grain of—the global trend to consolidate food production and distribution. Through a presentation led by Think!Chinatown, we’ll learn about Valerie’s research and discuss what it means for Chinatown’s future.
This event is produced & presented by Think!Chinatown. Thank you to DLJ for sponsoring this free event.
VALERIE IMBRUCE is a professor and director at the Office of Undergraduate Research Center at Binghamton University, SUNY. Her research led to the viral 2016 Wall Street Journal article “Why Fruits and Veggies Are So Crazy Cheap in Chinatown.”
Liang Cha 凉茶 Tea Party in the Bamboo Garden @5 Essex St Aug 5th 6:30-8:30pm
Cool down this summer in the shade of the bamboo garden at 5 Essex with some 凉茶 leung cha / liang cha, Chinese herbal cooling tea. Learn about the traditional herbs behind three teas. We'll discuss the medicinal properties and the preparation methods with Kamwo herbalist Jerry Liu. A reception of tea and snacks to follow.
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KAMWO MERIDIAN HERBS has been the largest herbal dispensary on the east coast since 1973. With over 500 raw herbs, thousands of granule and patent herbal products, along with an extensive offereing of acupuncture supplies and natural wellness options, they've got you covered. https://kamwoherbs.com/
This free event is sponsored by DLJ and Kamwo Meridian Herbs!
Toisan-style joong/zongzi/粽子: Hands-on Workshop @ Essex St Market
Let's get together to celebrate the Dragonboat Festival at Essex St Market's beautiful new kitchen classroom! Chinatown Auntie, Cuijian Wu will teach us how to make both savory and sweet Toisan-style joong/zongzi/粽子, glutenous rice with various tasty goodies wrapped in bamboo leaves. We'll talk a little about the holiday itself and the rituals that are observed. You'll learn about the ingredients and all the steps to make your own joong/zongzi/粽子. There will be homemade joong/zongzi/粽子 in class for you to taste, and a bi-lingual ingredient list for you to take to our favorite Chinatown dried goods grocer and event sponsor, PoWingHong. Best of all, you will bring home joong/zongzi/粽子 you've wrapped to share with your loved ones (or eat them all yourself...that's fine).
Everyday Chinatown Project Reception & Walking Tour - Friday June 7th @ Pearl River Mart 6:00-7:15pm
Experience "Everyday Chinatown" artifacts with new eyes and ears! Artful displays of everyday artifacts are paired with audio stories accessible through your phone. Dial in on your cell phone to listen in on our community members as they share stories about common Chinatown household items in Cantonese, English & Mandarin. Window displays of these artifacts are hosted by several Chinatown businesses from May 31st through July 1st. This project of cultural translation, self-representation, and inter-generational exchange is funded by the Citizen's Committee for NYC.
This Friday, join us at Pearl River Mart for a small reception and a guided tour of the project sites.
Everyday Chinatown artifacts can be viewed daily at these locations:
MK2, 139 Centre St
Universal Optical, 38 East Broadway
Po Wing Hong, 49 Elizabeth St
Pearl River Mart, 395 Broadway
Haven Cafe, 145 Mott
THINK!CHINATOWN Team for Everyday Chinatown:
Wilfred Chan audio story collector/presenter,
Jennifer Lai, Aaron Reiss - audio editing,
Ying Bonny Cai & Leise Hook- display design,
Yin Kong - project production
THINK!CHINATOWN THANKS:
Citizens Committee for New York City, Material For the Arts
Sophia Ng Tsao and Po Wing Hong
Kenneth Ma and Mott Optical
Joanne Kwong, Angela Tung and Pearl River Mart
Lily Huang and Hamilton Madison House
Meemee Chin, Richard Young & all the T!C Volunteers
Help Tell Chinatown's Stories on HowToChinatown.NYC
The HowToChinatown.NYC web project is kicking off again for 2019! We need your help to tell stories about Chinatown's small businesses. Come to our workshop this Sunday— food will be provided.
Part A — Training Workshop: Sun Mar 31, 1:30pm
We'll (re)introduce the project and demo the platform.
Part B — Story Workshop: Sun Mar 31, 2:00pm
Volunteers who have stories in progress: we'll help you finish!
Location: The Florentine School, 219 Park Row. Please RSVP here.
About the Project
HowToChinatown.NYC's goal is to build an online platform to support Chinatown by working with local businesses to build an web presence, while providing an alternative to sites like Google and Yelp.
The beautiful stories of Chinatown you help to create will be hosted on HowToChinatown.NYC website, which will feature a map-based narrative about Chinatown.
As a volunteer contributor, you will be trained on how to use our platform. You will build relationships with local businesses and help them build an online presence. Volunteers with Cantonese or Mandarin language skills are especially needed.
Volunteers will:
- Engage with 3-5 businesses (at your own pace)
- Attend one training workshop for the HowToChinatown.NYC platform
- Produce stories about 3-5 businesses for HowToChinatown.NYC (we'll provide support at the story workshops)
Learn about the ULURP for 124-125 White Street
Let's empower ourselves. Respond more effectively to the City's plan for additional jails in Chinatown @125 White St.
Think!Chinatown has invited the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) to teach a workshop on ULURP, the long and complicated process which major land use changes get reviewed and approved in NYC. Let's learn more about the process!
March 7th, 2019
7:30-9:30pm
Florentine School 219 Park Row
WORKSHOP AGENDA
An introduction to the ULURP process
A role playing activity to use the ULURP process in an abstract scenario
Briefing on the timeline of events to date regarding the detention center plans in Chinatown given by reps from Neighbors United Below Canal followed by Q&A with the CUP workshop facilitator.
The goal is to empower our community with the information we need to best use the ULURP process to ensure our concerns are addressed. This is not a politically-biased event. The workshop is for 30 participants. Priority will go to Chinatown residents, and organization leaders who will pass on the knowledge to their groups. Thank you to Resist.org for supporting this workshop.
ACTION GUIDE
Following the workshop, T!C will create a bi-lingual (Chinese/English) ULURP process guide specific to the Chinatown site. This document will be distributed freely to all Chinatown organizations and local media. Thank you to Chung Pak LDC for sponsoring the production of the action guide.
Lantern Viewing PartyThursday, Feb 21, 6-8pm @ 5 Essex
Update!
Due to the cold outdoor weather on Tuesday, February 19th, we are moving the date of the lantern viewing party to Thursday, February 21st.
We apologize for any inconvenience and hope to see you join us on Thursday!
The Lantern Festival marks the first full moon of the (Lunar) New Year and last day of the Lunar New Year festivities. Join the T!C team in celebration as we view artist LuLu Meng's "Totality" Lantern along with the many lanterns decorated at the Museum on Eldridge Street (see Feb 17th workshop details). It'll be cold in the bamboo grove, so dress warm, and we'll have a few things to warm you up...
Thanks to DLJ for sponsoring the art!
Totality 全福 - Artist statement by LuLu Meng
photo credit: Mark Breckenbach @hushwashere
The lantern art installation draws its inspiration from an object appropriate for the Year of the Boar: a piggy bank. Instead of directly referencing the image of a piggy bank, the circular lantern art piece with a square collection box at the center focuses on its symbolic meanings and reflects the idea of completion and reunion. (圓滿、團圓) . It also refers to an ancient Chinese coin.
Totality is an extended public project from Lulu’s ongoing work series, Look into the Mirror. The front surface of the lantern is mirrored. Yet, under different lighting conditions, one can see what is inside the lantern, or see one’s own reflection juxtaposed with what is inside.
Scattered inside the circular lantern are numerous red envelopes, some with handwritten notes on them. These red envelopes are from Lulu’s parents and other family members, given to her throughout the past twenty years. Each envelope represents a special occasion in her life: birthdays; entering high school; college; and celebration of the Lunar New Year.
In a way, this lantern is Lulu herself. What's inside is personal. It is covered, but is always there. It reveals itself when the light is right.
LuLu Meng is a New York-based artist born in Taipei, Taiwan. Her multidisciplinary practice, including installation, sculpture, photography, drawing and video, explores the difference and similarity among cultures and people.
[Feb 17, 2-4pm] Decorating for the New Year at Museum on Eldridge Street
Celebrate the new year with our neighbor, Museum at Eldridge Street. In the sanctuary of this historic synagogue there will be warmth, tea, and friendly T!C artists and volunteers to create Lunar New Year decorations with you. We’ll have some calligraphy demonstration & instruction, along with stencils to help participants young and hold create a red square door decoration and lanterns.
The Chinatown New Years parade passes right by the museum (12 Eldridge Street) so stop in for a chance for free admission to explore this beautiful space and to make new friends with the T!C and Eldridge St crew!
This free event is supported in part by Fay & Tung Associates, LLC and DLJ Real Estate Capital Partners.
全福 "Totality" by artist, LuLu Meng
[Feb 5] Look out for LuLu Meng's lantern installation among the lion dances, confetti, and all the hot & noisy celebrations of New Years day. The T!C team will carry the art piece up and down Mott St, before it's installation at the bamboo garden at 5 Essex St. We'll be starting from the south end of Mott St approximately at 12pm, 1pm, 2pm and 3pm.
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Totality 全福
The lantern art installation draws its inspiration from an object appropriate for the Year of the Boar, a piggy bank. Instead of directly referencing the image of a piggy bank, the circular lantern art piece focuses on its symbolic meanings and reflects the idea of complete and reunion. (圓滿、團圓) .
LuLu Meng is a New York-based artist born in Taipei, Taiwan. Her multidisciplinary practice, including installation, sculpture, photography, drawing and video, explores the difference and similarity among cultures and people. http://www.lulumeng.space
Thank you to DLJ for sponsoring the artwork.
Chinatown Arts Week 2018: The Highlights
We are so excited to organize our first Chinatown Arts Week! There are many arts happenings in the neighborhood we are working on highlighting on our new platform, HowToChinatown.NYC which will be online in a few days, but for now we’d like to share with you the events Think!Chinatown is presenting for Chinatown Arts Week:
CHINATOWN ARTS WEEK OPENING NIGHT CELEBRATION
Wednesday Oct 24th 2018, 5:30-7:00pm info session, 7-9:30 celebration @ 5 Essex St
Celebrate the first Chinatown Arts Week with musical performances by Mencius Music Society, projections from Asian American art archives, tastings from Ming River Baijiu, Chinatown eats, and drinks with new and old friends. Come by at 5:30pm to hear Think!Chinatown and partners present their new map-based platform, HowToChinatown.NYC. We hope that Chinatown organizations will find this platform as a useful tool to cross promote, find synergies, and work together to strengthen the neighborhood.
Thank you to our hosts, DLJ for supporting this event.
THE ART OF TEA WITH LC TEA TRADING
Saturday Oct 27 2018, 12:00 noon – 3:00 pm @ 123 Elizabeth St
Sit down for a few rounds of tea with Mr.Chen. Learn about his wide collection of tea, specializing in leaves from Fujian. If you ask, he’ll share pictures of where the tea comes from and how the tea is produced. $10 a sitting (20-30 mins, and please tip if you stay if you linger). Seating is limited, so circle back around if he’s full up.
OPEN AIR TAICHI WORKSHOP
Sunday Oct 28th 2018, 11:00 am-12:00 noon @ Forsyth Plaza
Practice Tai Chi and make new friends with an amazing view of the Manhattan Bridge. Shifu Sherry will take us through empty hand formations. Wear loose clothing and comfortable shoes. Suggested donation: $5-$20 cash for instruction.
Sherry Zhang Xiao Qin is a faculty member at the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, teaching tai chi and qi gong. A native of Hubei China, she holds a bachelor’s degree in physical education from Chengdu Physical Education Institute in Sichuan and was an associate researcher at the Chinese Wushu Research Institute in Beijing. Zhang also worked for the China Wushu Association for 15 years and was certified by the Association to teach tai chi and qi gong.
HISTORIC ARCHITECTURE SCAVENGER HUNT
Sunday Oct 21st 2018, 1:30-4:00pm (meet up at 5 Essex St)
Urban Archive is organizing a digital scavenger hunt for Chinatown Arts Week! The Hunt will be all across Chinatown, but we’ll meet up first at 5 Essex for hot cocoa and instructions. Enter in teams, or pick up a team with new friends! Explore Chinatown’s architectural history… maybe visit a local museum, and perhaps you’ll win some prizes from sponsors Pearl River Mart and the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. Prominent Chinatown photographer, Corky Lee, will share stories from his series, “Bygone Chinatown” which is mapped on our HowToChinatown.NYC platform.
Thank you for DLJ for hosting the event.
HAND IN HAND 手牽手 A SHADOW PUPPET PERFORMANCE BY SPICA WOBBE
Sunday Oct 28, 2018 5:00-6:30pm @ 21 Pell
What are hands made for? Are they for scratching, rubbing, or counting beats? In this work a mother holds her daughter’s hand, which conveys how the previous generation took care of the next generation. It also tells how a self-taught artist, Lisa Shia, used her paintings to document her life stories growing up in Meng Xia through a scroll that she painted. The show’s elements include shadow and light, object manipulation, Kamishibai style storytelling, and music.
The show is 20 minutes and will be performed twice: 5pm in English (英语) 6pm in Mandarin (普通话) Doors Open at 4:30pm. There will be a post performance Q&A with the artist.
VOTESart COMMUNITY CONCERT W/ E. FUZHOU OPERA ASSOC.
Monday Oct 29, 6:00-8:00pm @ 5 Essex
VOTESart is non-partisan organization that works with musicians to engage their local communities through pop-up concerts in community spaces. The program will include a special selection of classical music for a Chinatown audience and feature excerpts of Chinese Opera performed Eastern Fuzhou Opera Association. Audience members will be engaged in bi-lingual get out the vote activities interspersed through the performance.
CHINATOWN ARTS WEEK POETRY NIGHT
Tuesday Oct 30, 7:00 – 8:30pm @ HT Chen Dance 70 Mulberry
Chinatown Arts Week will close with a night of readings by Asian American writers curated by Julie Chen. Stay tuned for more info.
Chinatown Arts Week Opening Party
Celebrate the launch of HowToChinatown.NYC and our first Chinatown Arts Week. October 24th, 5;30-9pm. More info coming soon!
Cooking With Granny Storytelling Event: Grandma Mamie's Medicinal Chicken Soup
Cooking With Granny comes to Chinatown! Just as you start feeling the sniffles from seasonal changes, have a taste of Grandma Mamie Chinese Medicinal Chicken Soup, a recipe that has been in her family for generations. Grandma Mamie will talk about 补品 (traditional Chinese herbs) used in soups along with the cultural stories that bring this dish to life and puts the immigrant grandmother in her much-deserved spotlight. Grandma Mamie will show a few other herbal remedies relevant to the change in weather in autumn. Learn about Chinese concepts of food as medicine and connecting to our natural environment.
ABOUT COOKING WITH GRANNY
Cooking with Granny is a video and event series where diverse immigrant grandmothers cook and tell stories. Events include their signature Cooking & Storytelling Sessions and Grandma Dinner Parties. They have been featured on the New York Times, NBC, and Food and Wine, among others. Italian Grandma Gerarda is taking the stage with an interactive gnocchi session in October!
Follow Cooking with Granny on Twitter and Instagram @cookingwgranny.
ABOUT THE CACTUS STORE
The Cactus Store is a shop and education center that specializes in rare and bizarre varieties of cactus and desert plants from around the world. The NYC location features a greenhouse and our new cold-hardy bamboo garden which is open to the public. Over the past few years, they have collaborated with different scientists, writers and artists to host a wide range of gatherings including poetry readings, listening parties, and small-scale performances. This year, they’ve collaborated with DLJ to open up 5 Essex Street to different minds and mediums through films, workshops and presentations in effort to provide a free, all-inclusive, alternative source for cultural and practical information connected to the natural world. Follow them @hotcactus_la
Think!Chinatown Summer Moon Benefit Party 2018
Thank you for joining us! Thank you for supporting us!
Here is a video recap of that wonderful evening spent together in June this year!
For a night celebrating culture and community, we gathered artists and friends to enjoy music, drinks and delicious Chinatown eats.
Chinese dancer Ling Tang graced us with her beautiful dance performance, accompanied with music by the talented Zhou Yi and Yimin Miao from the musical group Ba Ban. We were also enchanted by the award-winning vocalist Vivi Hu as well as by Chien Chien Lu and Santiago Sebastian Chiriboga from the band little BUH.
Thank you to Sheng Lin for creating this video, and a big thanks (and music credits) to Little BUH for the amazing performance. Much love to the other performers of the night: ViVi, Meemee Chin, Ling Tang & the Ba Ban Music Society. It couldn't have been done without the generosity of all our sponsors: Ming River Baijiu, Tsingtao Brewery, Hiro Sake, Alimama, Oriental Garden & Luv Tea. To the Think!Chinatown team of volunteers & supporters...love love love!
Volunteer Workshop! Sunday, September 9 @ 1PM, Florentine School
Do you want to support small businesses in Chinatown?
Join us this Sunday at 1pm for a training workshop about how to work with local businesses to establish an online presence for their products and services!
Bilingual volunteers are especially needed.
Do you want to support small businesses in Chinatown?
Join us this Sunday at 1pm for a training workshop about how to work with local businesses to establish an online presence for their products and services!
Bilingual volunteers are especially needed.
Volunteer Workshop: How To Support Small Businesses in Chinatown
Sunday, September 9, 1PM – 3:30PM
Florentine School @ 219 Park Row, NYC 10038
Let us know if you are coming by emailing hello@thinkchinatown.org
Or you can RSVP on the Facebook Event page.
What can I do?
As a volunteer, you will be trained on how to use the platform to author the web pages with Chinatown businesses. Volunteers will build a relationship with local businesses and be trained to assist businesses in claiming their Yelp or Google Business accounts using the information gathered from creating the How To Chinatown web page
The beautiful stories of Chinatown you help to create will be hosted on HowToChinatown.NYC website, which will feature a map-based narrative about Chinatown.
Volunteers will be expected to:
Support and engage with three to five local businesses*
Attend one (in-person) training workshop** on narrative content collection with the HowToChinatown.NYC web tool.
Attend one (in-person or remote) training workshop** on how to claim Yelp and Google business accounts with content upload.
*Engagement with the business owners can be done at your own pace.
*Workshops will run through October 31st, with 1-on-1 coaching sessions available.
We hope to see you this weekend!
Poetry Night! Wed June 20th, 6:30-8PM @384
Join us next Wednesday night for a very special poetry reading, hosted by our very own Julie Chen! Readers will include Cindy Tran, Sarah Wang, and Kiran Bath.
Cindy Tran is a 2018 Poets House Emerging Poets Fellow. A recipient of fellowships from The Loft Literary Center and Brooklyn Poets, her work appears in AAWW's The Margins, Nice Cage Magazine, and Copper Nickel, which gave her an Editors' Prize. In her free time, Cindy writes Yelp reviews, hoping that someone will search for a pork sandwich and find a poem about sandwiches and racism. Visit her at www.cindymtran.com.
Sarah Wang has written for n+1, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Conjunctions, Stonecutter Journal, Joyland, 6x6, the Asian American Writer’s Workshop, Story Magazine, The Third Rail, and The Last Newspaper at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, among other publications. She is the coeditor of semiotext(e)’s Animal Shelter. See more of her work at wangsarah.com.
Kiran Bath is a multi disciplinary artist from Brooklyn by way of Sydney. Her poems have been published in Tidal, Antiserious, Typishly and other journals. Kiran stays true to her Gemini ascendant and moves between dreaming up poetry to writing critical essays, to storytelling via photography to human rights activism via her attorney hat. Kiran is obsessed with the art of storytelling and is still trying to get over how bad coffee is in America.
Wine reception starts at 6:30pm and readings begin at 7pm.
Community Day, June 17th 12-6pm
Come join us for an activity-packed Sunday, starting with an hour of Taichi from 12-1PM, followed by tours of his exhibit by James Chan himself in English and Chinese from 3-5PM. Amy Chin will be leading a Chinese-American geneology workshop at 5:00PM. Bring your friends and family!
"Where Are You Really From?" follows artist James Chan’s journey through his own genealogy research, as he learns more about his paternal family history. Beyond his grandparents, Chan never knew how he was related to family members he had met throughout his life. Family reunions were a foreign concept to him and the nearest relatives were thousands of miles way.
Using secondhand accounts, historical research, photos and unreliable personal memories, Chan takes the winding path to document his family’s history before it is lost forever. Along the way, he confronts key moments of reflection on personal identity and relationships. The discoveries, family stories, musings, and challenges encountered during the project are presented in a series of illustrations and paintings.