Cortlandt Alley’s Chinese name

Cortlandt Alley, a short and very narrow passage running south of Canal Street, is one of New York’s most widely seen streets, having been the scene of innumerable film shoots. It may not be well known that the alley has a Chinese name: Tán Mǐnshēng dào 譚閩生道 “Hon. Thomas Tam Way”. The name was added in late 2009.

Thomas Tam (1946–2008, whose Chinese name means “born in Fújiàn”) was a CUNY trustee and community activist. He held a degree in film-making as well as public health and was the director of many short films. So it is fitting that Cortlandt Alley, a film veteran in its own right, should have had his name added.

Chinatown shorthand

Phonetic simplifications in use in New York’s Chinatown — all are in use this month, though I’ve seen them for years:

• 反 ‘to overturn’ for 飯 ‘cooked rice’
• 介 ‘to interpose’ for 雞 ‘chicken’ (these have the same segmentals in Cantonese, [kai])
• 交 ‘to have contact’ for 餃 ‘dumpling’
• 九 ‘nine’ for 韭 ‘Chinese chive’
• 才 ‘talent’ for 菜 ‘cooked food; vegetable’

I can’t remember having seen these in actual printed forms — all appear only in handwriting, though sometimes on signs intended to be read by customers.

The ceremonial gateways of Montréal’s Chinatown

Montréal has four páilou 牌樓 ‘ceremonial gateways’ — two small ones on Rue de la Gauchetière and two big ones on Boulévard Saint-Laurent. The small ones are older; their writing (Mǎndìkě Huábù 滿地可華埠 ‘Montréal Chinatown’) runs right to left and they were already erected when we last visited this city, in 1998. The new ones date from 1999 and bear heavy metal plaques listing many dignitaries involved in their erection, including the Mayor of Shanghai at the time, Xú Kuāngdí 徐匡迪. Now 75 years old, Xú has had a long career as a professor of engineering but remains active in Chinese political life.

Both of the large gateways read Tángrénjiē 唐人街 ‘Chinatown’ on the outside. Inside the northwestern one it says zhǒngshì zēnghuá 踵事增華 ‘to inherit a [great] task and increase the level of talent [applied to it]‘ and inside the southeastern one it says zhōnglíng yùxiù 鍾靈毓秀 ‘for concentrated spiritual power to cultivate excellence’.

Resounding phrases are cheap; I would have preferred to find better cooking in this Chinatown. Only Mai Xiang Yuan was actually good enough to recommend (as I have done in a separate post). Mai Xiang Yuan’s sister establishment Délicieux Xiang (满城飘湘) was memorably dreadful and we wondered if the normal cook was off duty, or perhaps the menu was directed at tourists who don’t actually like Chinese cooking.

May the values of sound engineering be applied to all branches of human endeavor!

Calligraphy in Chinatown

New York’s Chinatown is not generally thought of as a center of high culture — it is where many of us go to get regular doses of better Chinese food than we can make ourselves, and for some kind of validation of our Chinese identities. But here and there you can find the real zìjī 字跡 of famous calligraphers. Here are four, which I’ve supplemented with links to Robert K. Chin’s superb website:

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Yú Yòurèn 于右任, scholar and politician, on the Chinese American Veterans Memorial Arch at Kim Lau Square (off Chatham Square). “華裔軍人忠烈坊” [square for soldiers of Chinese descent who died for their country].

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Cheng Man-ch’ing [Zhèng Mànqīng] 鄭曼青, artist and tàijíquán teacher. on the second-floor sign of the New York T’ai Chi Association, 209 Canal St. “太極拳學社” [Tàijíquán Study Society].

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Hu Shih [Hú Shì] 胡適, intellectual historian, on the doorway of the First Chinese Baptist Church 中華第一浸信教會, 21 Pell Street (south side of the street). “紀念堂” [memorial hall].

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Chairman Mao [Máo Zhǔxí] 毛主席, on the sign of the Xīnhuá Bookstore 新华书店, 9 Elizabeth St. (west side of street). “新华书店” [Xīnhuá Bookstore]. No image yet, and the same calligraphy is used on all the store’s signs around the world, so this is rather less distinctive.

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I’d be glad to hear of any others, and I’ll list them here. Or if you have more detailed photographs, those would be nice, too.

Columbia to Chinatown walk, 20120122

For the first time since the spring I walked to Chinatown from home. In the past this has been my favorite form of exercise, and I think I have felt healthiest when doing it regularly. Although the number of calories I burn per hour isn’t comparable to what I can do on an elliptical machine, it is a longer course of exercise than I ever do on a machine and there is a strong meditative component to it. Above all, the “music of the city street” succors me like nothing else.

I got up at 7:45, enough time to leave at 8:00 and be on East Broadway by 10:30, after a leisurely walk along the river. East Broadway is far enough east that a little extra time has to be left beyond simply reaching Canal St. on the West Side. But I looked out the window at the frozen slush and couldn’t motivate myself to go out the door. A proper morning walk is easiest if you start immediately on rising, without thinking. I let the moment pass and decided to take the train at 9:30.

But at 8:20 I was already feeling regrets. On the principle that whatever I don’t feel like doing is precisely what I should do, I got my shoes on and was on the road at 8:31. Rather than follow the river, I took a different route, also slower than necessary, heading to the East Side through Central Park first. Normally I would follow Broadway, the most time-efficient path because Broadway cuts gently eastward at a diagonal through the grid, imposing its humanity on the bureaucratic structure. I was sure I’d be late. But to my great surprise I arrived at 10:32, essentially in perfect time. I admit I pushed myself to take longer and faster strides than usual because I didn’t want to leave my food-partner waiting, and so I ran for about three of the blocks. I also lost my willpower at one moment near the end and hailed a passing #15 bus. But the bus driver ignored me, and I found my own drive fully refreshed by the slight.

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Discomforts of the walk to Chinatown from Columbia:

• On the Broadway route it is stressful facing the “uncity” hordes in Times Square. This has gotten worse since the area was closed to traffic. I can deal with cars much better than with tourists — in the old days, my method was to walk in the street at the edge of the traffic, basically a safe and happy between-space for me. But now there are no cars and the best idea is to head east around the pedestrian-only area. I’m technically a pedestrian, but then again not exactly.
• The river route brings you into conflict with bicyclists, while all the far West Side routes (10th Avenue and west) put you at the mercy of uncity drivers who think they are on a highway rather than in New York.
• On the East Side, on weekends one encounters dog walkers who, though not uncity in the formal sense, seem to dwell in a subjective suburb all the same, unaware that their long leashes are a dangerous obstacle to people like me because their whole attention is on the sound in their headphones. On weekdays there are many commuters on the street — angrier with the world, it seems to me, on the East Side than on the West.

Pípá yā 琵琶鴨 (frisbee duck)

One of the more striking Cantonese roast meats in Chinatown is the pípá yā 琵琶鴨 ‘lute-shaped duck’. The duck is cut open and roasted while splayed flat with a horseshoe-shaped metal frame. The splaying allows more moisture to evaporate and fat to drip out during roasting, so the meat is drier and the flavor more concentrated. Ordinary shāoyā 燒鴨 ‘roast duck’ has a quantity of dark liquid inside that is discarded when the duck is cut into pieces (zhǎn 斬), but the pípá yā does not, and that accounts for part of the difference. The roasting process itself is the same as for ordinary shāoyā; there are no other seasonings used, for instance. The metal frame remains in place until the duck is cut up. All the Cantonese roast fowl have skin that is basically soft, unlike the more familiar Peking duck, which is specially treated to burn off the fat and leave the skin crisp (or leathery, depending on your chef’s skill).

The name pípá yā has to do with the fact that the splayed-open duck is imagined to look like a Chinese lute — pípá 琵琶 (Japanese biwa, Korean bipa) — which has a round body. The duck’s neck is usually curved to one side, unlike the straight neck of an ordinary roast duck. As with many Chinese culinary metaphors, ‘lute’ is not so apt as it is appetizing — I mean, in its suggestion of palace life or scholarly seclusion. When I was a boy, my friends and I called these things “frisbee ducks”, which has no charm at all.

I bought one this morning from Sun Sai Gai 新世界 at 220 Canal, corner Baxter, one of Chinatown’s long-term institutions (though the management has changed a number of times in the 35 years I’ve been going there).