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Far East meets Wild West in Asian San Francisco
By Andrew Lam |
April 23, 2012, Monday
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Print Edition
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ON a cable car over Nob Hill the other day, I overheard a blond, middle-age tourist whisper this confidence to her companion: "It sure ain't Texas, I can tell you that much."
No kidding," mumbled the burly man in a Hawaiian shirt as he continued filming the city with his camcorder.
The Texan couple's sense of displacement stems, at least in part, from San Francisco's unmistakable Oriental twang. For the tourist's camcorder is sure to capture, amid the city's Victorians and scenic hills, images that confirm San Francisco's central place in the Pacific Century: Young Asian students spilling out of grammar schools, video stores displaying the latest Hong Kong thrillers, karaoke bars and sidewalk stalls filled with string beans, bok choy, ginger, and bitter melons.
No majority
San Francisco is now part of a statewide trend that has resulted in majority becoming minority, with minority continuing to surge and multiply.
The latest census showed that whites have slowly shrunk to 48 percent of the population in San Francisco, becoming another minority in a city that has no majority. The city's Asian population, on the other hand, has risen above the 33 percent mark. That is, one in three San Francisco residents has an Asian face.
The East is acquiring greater weight in the life of the region because the Asian American population is surging. Politically and culturally, the result is something of a rumbling mid-Richter scale earthquake.
And within a couple of decades, according to demographers, Asians will become San Francisco's largest ethnic group, surpassing whites and joining Honolulu as the only major US cities with an Asian majority.
But what does it mean when the city's compass is pointing increasingly toward the Pacific? For one thing, the new mayor, Ed Lee, is Chinese American and speaks fluent Mandarin and Cantonese. His parents came to the US in the 30s from Toishan, Guangdong Province, in the 1930s.
Of course, the Bay Area has always had a touch of Asia. When the Gold Rush made San Francisco famous around the world in the mid-1800s, it enters East Asians' imagination as Old Gold Mountain, a gateway to fabulous riches and fortunes.
Along with Ed Lee's rising political fortunes, there is an enormous shift in the cultural landscape. What were once considered private and esoteric passions and practices have, like the bok choy and string beans, spilled irrevocably into the public domain.
Take feng shui. An architect friend went to Hong Kong recently to take feng shui lessons. Why? Since many of his clients believe in this art of geomancy, he has to seriously study the qi, the flow of energy as perceived by Taoist priests, in order to build suburban houses that suit many of his buyers.
Or take yoga. Yoga studios are enjoying the highest attendance ever, and, in the spirit of full disclosure, I will gladly admit that I am an enthusiast.
Every few days or so, I go to sweat and stretch with a diverse group of young practitioners. While the instructor tells us to "find your inner peace" and "breathe, breathe, breathe," a picture of a smiling yogi from India smiles benevolently at us from above.
And I breathe in, breathe out. But I am also thinking: How things have changed. Arriving as a Vietnamese refugee to San Francisco a quarter of a century ago, I grew up thinking that incense smoke, gongs and Confucian dramas were the private preoccupations of an Asian immigrant.
For a while, I resigned myself to the idea that public and private cultures in America would never meet.
But that old assumption has eroded, giving way to the forces of globalization, which, as far as the San Francisco Bay Area is concerned, involves, in large part, the rising influence of the Far East.
Sushi, ginger, wasabi
After all, three decades ago, who would have thought that sushi, raw tuna, salmon, ginger and wasabi would become an indelible part of American taste?
Or that Vietnamese fish sauce would be found down aisle three at Safeway?
Or that HMOs (health maintenance organizations) would accept acupuncture as legitimate therapy?
Or that feng shui would become a household word?
But perhaps the biggest result in the changes in San Francisco is this: Asian children growing up in the Bay Area these days do not see themselves as a minority. If anything, they see themselves playing a central role. After all, it is quite normal to see Asian homecoming queens and football stars.
They are growing up at a time when being ethnic is chic and movement and communication back and forth across the Pacific Ocean are the norm. Asian students know, in fact, that the West is increasingly relying on the Far East for its sources of inspiration and entertainment, be it Thai food, Tibetan Buddhism or Hong Kong movies.
Writer Richard Rodriguez once observed that each new wave of immigrants brings changes as radical as that which Christopher Columbus did to the Indians.
This seems quite true if you take into account what I saw one Sunday in Golden Gate Park: a group of middle-aged, white and black Americans doing tai chi on the grass, led by an old Chinese woman.
Watching them, it occurred to me that the Far East has come very near to the Wild West, and is beginning to subvert the age old black-white dialogue about identity and race, infusing it with even more complex model - one informed by a trans-Pacific sensibility.
New America Media editor Andrew Lam is the author of "Eat Eats West" (Heyday Books, 2011), his new collection of 21 essays. His previous book, "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora," won a Pen American award in 2006.
No kidding," mumbled the burly man in a Hawaiian shirt as he continued filming the city with his camcorder.
The Texan couple's sense of displacement stems, at least in part, from San Francisco's unmistakable Oriental twang. For the tourist's camcorder is sure to capture, amid the city's Victorians and scenic hills, images that confirm San Francisco's central place in the Pacific Century: Young Asian students spilling out of grammar schools, video stores displaying the latest Hong Kong thrillers, karaoke bars and sidewalk stalls filled with string beans, bok choy, ginger, and bitter melons.
No majority
San Francisco is now part of a statewide trend that has resulted in majority becoming minority, with minority continuing to surge and multiply.
The latest census showed that whites have slowly shrunk to 48 percent of the population in San Francisco, becoming another minority in a city that has no majority. The city's Asian population, on the other hand, has risen above the 33 percent mark. That is, one in three San Francisco residents has an Asian face.
The East is acquiring greater weight in the life of the region because the Asian American population is surging. Politically and culturally, the result is something of a rumbling mid-Richter scale earthquake.
And within a couple of decades, according to demographers, Asians will become San Francisco's largest ethnic group, surpassing whites and joining Honolulu as the only major US cities with an Asian majority.
But what does it mean when the city's compass is pointing increasingly toward the Pacific? For one thing, the new mayor, Ed Lee, is Chinese American and speaks fluent Mandarin and Cantonese. His parents came to the US in the 30s from Toishan, Guangdong Province, in the 1930s.
Of course, the Bay Area has always had a touch of Asia. When the Gold Rush made San Francisco famous around the world in the mid-1800s, it enters East Asians' imagination as Old Gold Mountain, a gateway to fabulous riches and fortunes.
Along with Ed Lee's rising political fortunes, there is an enormous shift in the cultural landscape. What were once considered private and esoteric passions and practices have, like the bok choy and string beans, spilled irrevocably into the public domain.
Take feng shui. An architect friend went to Hong Kong recently to take feng shui lessons. Why? Since many of his clients believe in this art of geomancy, he has to seriously study the qi, the flow of energy as perceived by Taoist priests, in order to build suburban houses that suit many of his buyers.
Or take yoga. Yoga studios are enjoying the highest attendance ever, and, in the spirit of full disclosure, I will gladly admit that I am an enthusiast.
Every few days or so, I go to sweat and stretch with a diverse group of young practitioners. While the instructor tells us to "find your inner peace" and "breathe, breathe, breathe," a picture of a smiling yogi from India smiles benevolently at us from above.
And I breathe in, breathe out. But I am also thinking: How things have changed. Arriving as a Vietnamese refugee to San Francisco a quarter of a century ago, I grew up thinking that incense smoke, gongs and Confucian dramas were the private preoccupations of an Asian immigrant.
For a while, I resigned myself to the idea that public and private cultures in America would never meet.
But that old assumption has eroded, giving way to the forces of globalization, which, as far as the San Francisco Bay Area is concerned, involves, in large part, the rising influence of the Far East.
Sushi, ginger, wasabi
After all, three decades ago, who would have thought that sushi, raw tuna, salmon, ginger and wasabi would become an indelible part of American taste?
Or that Vietnamese fish sauce would be found down aisle three at Safeway?
Or that HMOs (health maintenance organizations) would accept acupuncture as legitimate therapy?
Or that feng shui would become a household word?
But perhaps the biggest result in the changes in San Francisco is this: Asian children growing up in the Bay Area these days do not see themselves as a minority. If anything, they see themselves playing a central role. After all, it is quite normal to see Asian homecoming queens and football stars.
They are growing up at a time when being ethnic is chic and movement and communication back and forth across the Pacific Ocean are the norm. Asian students know, in fact, that the West is increasingly relying on the Far East for its sources of inspiration and entertainment, be it Thai food, Tibetan Buddhism or Hong Kong movies.
Writer Richard Rodriguez once observed that each new wave of immigrants brings changes as radical as that which Christopher Columbus did to the Indians.
This seems quite true if you take into account what I saw one Sunday in Golden Gate Park: a group of middle-aged, white and black Americans doing tai chi on the grass, led by an old Chinese woman.
Watching them, it occurred to me that the Far East has come very near to the Wild West, and is beginning to subvert the age old black-white dialogue about identity and race, infusing it with even more complex model - one informed by a trans-Pacific sensibility.
New America Media editor Andrew Lam is the author of "Eat Eats West" (Heyday Books, 2011), his new collection of 21 essays. His previous book, "Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora," won a Pen American award in 2006.
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