Tracy's Boston Trip Blog
Expectations
Lobsters…Lobster Rolls…Freshly caught Lobsters… Prior to this experiential learning trip, that was all I knew about Boston. It didn’t help that what my mom wanted as a souvenir was a whole fresh lobster that she somehow expected me to bring onto the plane (although I think she was joking…or was she?). And so, that’s how I went into this trip with super high expectations for the lobster but unsure of everything else. |
Itinerary
As part of the activities committee, I can proudly say that our whole group of four (five when Sam joined us later on) “yoof” as Rose likes to call us did almost every activity we planned. I say almost because not all of us went to the Boston Public Garden and we ended up going to some places spontaneously like Newbury Street where I had the ABSOLUTE BEST cookies from Levain but that’s besides the point. It helped that Boston was so small that we spent every single day in Downtown Boston. By now I basically know the downtown Boston area, Quincy Hall, Faneuil Hall, Boston Chinatown, and the Boston Commons like the back of my hand. Some activities we did were going to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, The New England Aquarium, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (MFA), walking along Long Wharf, the Freedom Trail Tour, and of course the Muji store (which deserved its own spot on the agenda). Of all the activities my favorite was the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, especially the Hokusai exhibit. It is a must-visit if you are in Boston as it’s not only huge but has art from all around the world. This choice may or may not be influenced by the fact that our group of 5 only paid $35 total to go into the museum thanks to the nice front desk lady who pulled some strings. You are now actually reading a blog by a proud student of Boston’s Berkelee College of Music. Of course, I can’t tell you my favorite activity and not tell you my least favorite so here we go. My least favorite activity was the Freedom Trail but that might have been a user error because we were in a group of middle age/old participants so the jokes our tour guide left me confused. We also spent three-fourths of the tour in a cemetery so that was a little awkward. The only thing I can recall from the tour while I’m writing this is “Strike a Pose” and the fact that Paul Revere, a silversmith, patriot, and bellmaker (the list goes on) is the answer to everything. |
Reflections + Chinatown
Before we go into any deep reflection, I have to first reflect on the food we ate here. I finally tried the long-anticipated lobster roll and my final verdict is I don’t understand the hype. Maybe my tastebuds are just cheap but I couldn’t tell the difference between Boston lobsters and the ones we have in San Francisco. We collectively agreed the rest of the food in Boston was good but not super memorable. I think it may be because SF has stellar food so our bar for good food is through the roof. The Korean soondubu was super good though!
Now onto the deep reflection, first with Chinatown. Boston Chinatown is TINY! So so so small. It maybe consists of two streets that you can walk through in less than 5 minutes. It is also super gentrified because at the end of every block, you can tell where Chinatown ends and the Tufts begin. Unlike our Chinatown with grocery stores lining the street, they have a total of two grocery stores and every other store is a boba shop. The only thing they share with our Chinatown is the lack of affordable housing due to high rent and building new condos which we got to understand deeper through our talks with the CEOs of ACDC and BCNC (nonprofits/organizations) and the small business manager of City Hall.
Before we go into any deep reflection, I have to first reflect on the food we ate here. I finally tried the long-anticipated lobster roll and my final verdict is I don’t understand the hype. Maybe my tastebuds are just cheap but I couldn’t tell the difference between Boston lobsters and the ones we have in San Francisco. We collectively agreed the rest of the food in Boston was good but not super memorable. I think it may be because SF has stellar food so our bar for good food is through the roof. The Korean soondubu was super good though!
Now onto the deep reflection, first with Chinatown. Boston Chinatown is TINY! So so so small. It maybe consists of two streets that you can walk through in less than 5 minutes. It is also super gentrified because at the end of every block, you can tell where Chinatown ends and the Tufts begin. Unlike our Chinatown with grocery stores lining the street, they have a total of two grocery stores and every other store is a boba shop. The only thing they share with our Chinatown is the lack of affordable housing due to high rent and building new condos which we got to understand deeper through our talks with the CEOs of ACDC and BCNC (nonprofits/organizations) and the small business manager of City Hall.
Cool things about Boston that I remember are:
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Highlights
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Overall
I really enjoyed this Boston trip, especially the warm/hot weather. I not only learned a ton about how different cities operate but got so much closer to my CATS team. With this being only my 3rd flight and my first time going to the East Coast, I couldn't have asked for a better soft launch on how long trips like these go and I can’t wait for the next one! Special thanks to the Planning Team Rosa, Amy, and Irene! We couldn’t have done this trip without you guys so thank you for sharing so much with us! P.S. Rosa, I’m still looking for that wedding invite! ~Tracy Law 2023 |
Wenyi's Boston Trip Blog
During our trip to Boston, we learned a lot about different aspects of life. The vibrant city of Boston is the land of historical landscape, prestigious landscape, extensive selections of fine arts, and evidence of community members fighting for the neighborhood. In our one week in Boston, we visited multiple museums, tours, and institutions.
However, what I mainly learned today was not anything from the museum, but instead, when we were walking to the bus station to meet with the Planning team for dinner and saw the park. The park had a lot of teenagers and young adults, unlike parks in San Francisco, which are mostly children. I suspect that it’s because there are a lot of universities in the area, so a big percentage of the city’s population are students, and this is a trend we see in Chinatown too. Boston Chinatown is barely like our San Francisco Chinatown at first glance. Boston Chinatown is small, and the dimensions are around two by two blocks. You can visually see that it is getting consumed by the nearby downtown and Tuft’s University and Tuft’s New England Hospital. A lot of the stores are partly underground, a lot like the living space of the Kim family in the movie Parasite. Later in the discussion, we found out this is because the sea level is rising, and the east coast are more vulnerable to flood, so the city decided to raise their roads by building up. However, the city is only responsible for the construction of the road, and all the houses and buildings is up to the tenant and owner. However, many low-income families can’t afford it, so they just build a fake door and leave the real door in the ground, which is the reason why a lot of the stores are underground. However, other stores are above ground, and the majority of these stores seem like chained boba stores and restaurants. This is another thing I have observed in Boston's Chinatown, which is mostly gentrified and has a lot of tall buildings, unlike San Francisco Chinatown, which prevents this with zoning laws and community activism. Many of these tall buildings are condos and luxury complexes. A lot of the residents are people who work Downtown and have a wage, some people are low-income, but that is because they are residents who have lived there for a long time. It is really difficult to find housing in Chinatown because it’s expensive, so people choose to live in a neighborhood like Quincy. However, people and immigrants still come back to Boston Chinatown because it provides service and helps, unlike other neighborhoods. Compared to San Francisco Chinatown, where there are a lot of seniors and lively and cramped, Boston Chinatown is a lot more empty, and the population seems to be mostly students and just a few seniors. But this Boston trip overall was eye-opening and taught me a lot of knowledge that I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t come.
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This is near the gate of Boston Chinatown that was gifted by Taiwan when Taiwan and China were fighting for global and international recognition. Next to the gate are Auntie Kay and Uncle Frank Chin Park, which is where most of the senior population hangs out because of the limited public spaces in Boston Chinatown. This park is similar to San Francisco Chinatown Portsmouth Park, which is the living room of Chinatown. Speaking of public space, Boston Chinatown is the only neighborhood that doesn’t have a public library, they have a temporary library, but it’s extremely small.
The first non-profit we met with was the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center. This is when we first get the historical context of Boston Chinatown from Ben Hires, who is the chief Executive of BCNC. An interesting fact that I learned is that BCNC serves not only the Chinese Population but also other Asian demographics like Vietnamese and Pacific Islanders. We learn the background and struggles that Boston Chinatown went through. But we refined this knowledge and had an insider view when we met with the Executive Director of the Asian Community Development Corporation. We also had the chance to meet with the mayor’s team that was responsible for small businesses. Although he was vague with his answer, he also opened our eyes to the fact that the road is split and owned by three different institutions, which consist of the city, state, and federal, which makes the design of the street confusing. Another eye-opening fact was the fact that the transportation was owned by the states, which explained a lot of why the transit system isn’t consumer-friendly.
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Samantha Lei's Boston Blog Trip, Is Chinatown the Same Across the Country?
Over the course of my three day trip to Boston with my fellow Chinatown Alleyway Tour guides, we spoke with the CEO and executive director of Boston Chinatown Organizations, a Neighborhood Business Manager from City Hall, and toured the streets of Chinatown. The highlights of this trip were surrounded by the conversations we had around urban development and learning about the complex struggles there are behind housing. Many of these struggles that Boston Chinatown faced were also reflected in San Francisco’s Chinatown, specifically the lack of jobs Chinese immigrants could initially take when they first arrived in America, the constant attempts to drive the Chinatown community outside of downtown, and the lack of affordable housing for our tenants. Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center (BCNC) and the Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC) share similar focuses to our Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC) as they both strive to create an intergenerational space for our community to thrive and provide affordable housing and opportunities for our youth to become involved in Chinatown’s success. Chinatown in both San Francisco and Boston have become respected communities as both are as much of a tourist attraction as they are home to hundreds of tenants who depend on affordable housing.
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The most interesting difference I found between the two Chinatowns was the layout. SF’s Chinatown has one central park, Portsmouth Square, with Grant as the main tourist street, and Stockton is where the locals tend to do their grocery shopping. When walking through Boston’s Chinatown, I felt the parks to be very small but spread throughout Chinatown and there were a lot of larger infrastructures embedded into Chinatown like Tufts University and a freeway. A lot of heavy traffic encapsulates both Chinatowns and the minimal greenery and spaces in both areas limit opportunities for seniors to gather and socialize in a safe setting. I recognize the environmental injustices both communities face with lack of trees and air quality regulations that raise the temperature of the neighborhood and concentrate the amount of air pollutants in the area as well. Chinatown, in a way, takes the runt of urban planning efforts as companies with more money take over areas and minimal to no effort is being taken to remedy the health issues community members must face as their ability to survive is taken into higher accounts than their ability to thrive.
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These issues were also emphasized after meeting with Ben Hires (CEO of BCNC), Angie Liou (Executive Director of ACDC), and Luis Ottonelli (Neighborhood Business Manager of Chinatown). After meeting with all three, I learned the complex relationship behind providing affordable housing and a space for tenants to grow and make a living for themselves. Angie specifically mentioned the illegal, but real issues tenants face with housing contracts and how ACDC bought buildings so residents wouldn’t be displaced, but then had to assist many of them with building a contract because some had not been living under one or paying rent under the previous owner. There are many layers of struggles behind housing that tend to get shoved under the carpet, but must be properly addressed to assist the people. Both Ben and Angie touched on how their organizations were not just focused on providing affordable housing, but also educational workshops and opportunities for all generations. Empowering youth with Chinatown's rich history and teaching adults parenting skills are important opportunities for these community members these non-profits believe in supporting. After speaking with Luis, I learned about the importance of small businesses in urban planning and many issues we see with public roads and transportation are not just in the hands of the local government, but the state’s which creates more complexity and prevents change from occurring.
From this experience, I want to research the interconnectedness behind urban planning and the relationships within Chinatown and incorporate them into our tours. I learned from the tour we had that family associations did not play a partnership role in Chinatown's history as much as I hoped and this made me question our relationship with our family associations in Chinatown. I also want to incorporate parallel struggles people of Chinatown in Boston faced and continue to face during our tour to emphasize that San Francisco’s Chinatown is not alone. Even across the country, there are hundreds to thousands of people who experienced the same discrimination and drive to teach residents of their city and tourists visiting Chinatown that they are much more than just a tourist attraction. They are a community with a long history of advocacy, resilience, and hope to build a future where their future generations can build a family for themselves out of the hardships their ancestors underwent.
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Phoebe Fong's Boston Blog Trip
When Rose first announced that the planning team of CCDC offered for us to go to Boston for an experiential learning trip, I could barely contain my excitement. There was an opportunity for me to go with Campaign Academy back in 2020, but unfortunately COVID-19 had stopped the chances of that happening. Four years later, the trip was finally possible again. CATs then started to work even harder to help fundraise for this trip.
Going to Boston had to have been one of the top eye opening moments in my life, especially going to their Chinatown doing the visual analysis with the planning team one day and another visiting their organizations. I went in without any expectations, and then walked away actually learning the many similarities along with differences between our two communities. On Tuesday 6/13, we arrived in Chinatown around 4-5pm. We planned to walk around and do a visual analysis with the planning team. Upon arriving, we were greeted by a large gate about three times the size of the one that we have on Bush St. It also seemed to be a plaza or open space much like our Portsmouth Square. On the right of the gate, there were about 3 tables with chairs set up with seniors playing cards or Chinese chess. By the tables, there was a mini play structure area where students seemed to be hanging out at. On the left side of the gate, it was difficult to see the first time I walked by, but the second time I walked by, I noticed that there were tables and chairs set up beside some trees and in front of store fronts with mostly teenagers or young adults eating food that they would buy in the area. When picking topics to analyze, I decided to join the small business group in walking around and examining the small businesses because that was a topic of interest to me. We first wanted to explore and notice how many grocery stores there were, as it is a staple when you think about all of the grannies visiting SF’s Chinatown. Unlike SF, Boston had significantly fewer grocery stands outside their stores. Walking down the streets, it seemed like most of the stores were either restaurants or catered towards young adults. We were only able to notice one grocery store when walking around. It looked like your typical Asian grocery such as Sunset supermarket holding all of the items you may need to find. One thing that Tracy, a fellow CATs tour guide pointed out was that the dried items you would usually find in bins with a scoop, were instead in bags counted by pound already. As we walked out the store, I also noticed that the cashiers were speaking to each other in Cantonese after just speaking with a customer in Mandarin. When walking out, Irene, who is part of the planning team, wanted to discover more about grocery stores and decided to ask a local where they usually go to for their groceries. The older woman gave us directions to what seemed to be an alleyway with the grocery store. It’s hard to tell from the outside, especially since it is hidden, but inside is actually a bigger grocery store similar in size to the first one we visited. We noticed that the aisles were walkable and that the store contained everything from fresh groceries, poultry, to even household items and a pharmacy. The grocery store also had two entrances, which we do not usually see at our Chinatown. Over an hour has passed since we began walking around the blocks and we had practically visited the whole Chinatown already. Walking down one block in particular, Tracy had to stop because something had caught her attention. She saw that there was a granny sitting inside a small corridor with sandals, hats, umbrellas and other small items displayed outside a stand with umbrellas blocking the sunlight. Usually, these are seen at store fronts in front of Jackson Street instead of a small stand. Tracy grew curious and began bombarding the granny with questions that didn’t seem uncomfortable for her to answer of course. The first question was “How long have you been here running this stand.” The grandma replied with about 10 or so years. Our next question for her was “Where are the seniors usually hanging out? We don’t see too many of them.” The answer she gave us was no surprise. She said that they all usually go home around 4pm to begin cooking dinner. This then made us think more about the observations we made earlier about how there is no one really walking the streets or hanging out. She answered with how unlike in SF, the seniors at Boston wouldn’t particularly go out of their way to come to Chinatown. Many of them actually do not live in the area. They typically only go to their local grocery stores where they live in neighboring cities such as Quincy and Malden. After visiting, I learned that their Chinatown went through gentrification similar to ours, but to them it is still occurring. It wasn’t until the tour that ACDC took us on that I was able to notice what was going around that I missed on the first day. It’s hard to tell, but actually walking on the streets you can see that it is a lot smaller than you would think. If you look up Boston Chinatown on maps, it shows this really large area, but in reality more than half of that is actually Tufts University’s Medical Center. This is very hard to believe, because much of that land could have been put to better use such as affordable housing for the seniors and Chinatown community. Boston unfortunately doesn’t have as much affordable housing as we do in SF, thus why much of the Asian population comes from either Quincy or Malden. |
Junhao Li's Boston Trip Blog
Observing is the way for people to get to know the world, the community and themselves. But sometimes staying in the same place is not a good way to observe, because you will always pass the same place, meet the same people, and do the same things. I don’t mean it’s bad, not fun. It’s just sometimes people need to comprehend and compare and see something different in order to observe better. Especially for someone like me who is a bit of a homebody, sometimes I really don’t want to get up after lying down. And I have never traveled far since I was a child, except to visit the university that I am going to and went to a bigger city in China so we can take the airplane to SF. So this trip is really a great opportunity for me. I am very grateful to CATs and CCDC, not only because of this trip, but also because they have helped me a lot in the past year, taught me a lot, and had the opportunity to meet these nice staff working in CCDC, and nice youths in their programs. And of course everyone in CATs. I wanted to make a special nomination, but when I really think about it, there are too many words to write, one sentence per person will become super long, just like the list of sponsors I read out in the flower fair, or even longer hahaha.
Back to the topic, I am Junhao Li, a CATs intern tour guide. I went to Boston with other tour guides. I visited their Chinatown. Their Chinatown is very different from San Francisco’s Chinatown, but there are some similarities, for example, they also have a park like Portsmouth square, where the seniors and kids come out and gamble, I meant play cards, and hang out with friends. I always love places like this because it makes me feel alive.
Back to the topic, I am Junhao Li, a CATs intern tour guide. I went to Boston with other tour guides. I visited their Chinatown. Their Chinatown is very different from San Francisco’s Chinatown, but there are some similarities, for example, they also have a park like Portsmouth square, where the seniors and kids come out and gamble, I meant play cards, and hang out with friends. I always love places like this because it makes me feel alive.
Their park is at Chinatown's gate, and their gate is about twice big as ours. But I feel that this huge gate is a bit empty when compared with the amount of people walking and sitting next by. Through a tour of the local organization, Asian CDC, the local young people are often wondering whether it is necessary to spend so much money to build such a gate that has no special effect on the current residents. The local old people insist on having such a gate, because it is considered a Chinese tradition, there is always a gate like this sitting in front of the village, and the name of the village will be written on the gate. I remember my dad’s hometown is Li's family village. By the way, my mom's last name is also Li, not because changed after marrying my dad, also isn't because they have the same last name. It is because the Pinyin, spelling or pronouncing of their last name are both Li with different tone, my dad 黎(lí), and my mom 李(lǐ). Back to the gate, I am kind of on the senior’s side. It would be good to have the gate just be there. Maybe they could each step back and build a smaller gate, like San Francisco?
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Among other things, when we first arrived and saw such a gate, we were full of expectations for the trip to Boston's Chinatown. But the opposite is that their Chinatown is very gentrified. Even their Chinatown on the map is the same size as ours, but according to local non-profit organizations, ⅓ is destroyed to build the highway, ⅓ is Tufts University, there may be a little exaggeration, but there is not much room for exaggeration.
My tour guide friend Tracy found that black and white people also buy snacks in the Chinese grocery store, which is not common in SF, probably because our grocery store is far away from the downtown, and there are no English labels on the products, or maybe just less people come to this area? |
We also went to some museum in Boston, but my favorite was the Pao Arts Center, because it resonated with me, and Wen-ti Tsen's human-centered painting idea coincided with my own. I believe that people are the most important thing, Chinatown can be in other places, as long as our people are together, the community is still present.