The Hidden Chinatown of San Francisco

As a tour guide for Chinatown, I sometimes have to answer some unconventional questions about Chinatown, and everything adjacent to it. And for those into nostalgic movies, one of the topics that kept coming up was the Kurt Russell movie " Big Trouble in Little China (1986) ".  In case you don't remember the movie, Jack Burton, a big rig driver, goes with his Chinese buddy Wang Chi to pick up Wang's green-eyed fiancee Miao Yin arriving from China, only to have bad guys kidnap her! Jack and Wang chase the kidnappers, and learned that evil sorcerer Lo Pan needs to marry a green-eyed girl to return to land of the living, and he has a bunch of evil minions. So Jack, Wang, lawyer Gracie Law, plus bus driver and sorcerer apprentice Egg Shen unite to smite evil as they are transported into the literal underworld of Chinatown... So, do the tunnels exist?  Unfortunately, no. There are no such giant tunnels and elaborate labyrinths. Those are all filmed in the Hollywood soundst

As an amateur historian and tour guide, I gathered a lot of interesting bits of information about San Francisco Chinatown that most people are not generally aware of. I use them occasionally on my tour guide job. Here they are, in no particular order: San Francisco Chinatown is the oldest Chinatown in the US (but not the Largest) San Francisco Chinatown was dubbed Chinatown by the local press in 1853 . Before then, it was known as little Canton. However, its growth is limited due to its size: only 24 square blocks, less than 1/8th of a square mile. Officially, the population is 35000 as per 2000 census, but the actual number is believed to be 100000.  By population and area, the Chinatown in Manhattan, New York, is larger : 40 square blocks, with about 150000 residents.  The Chinatown You See Today is a Rebranding Effort in 1906  After 1906 Earthquake and fire, the city asked Chinatown to undergo what we today would consider a "rebranding", to a more family-friendly version t

When it comes to San Francisco history, William Richardson is not exactly a popular name. Today, it is time to shed some light on this individual mostly forgotten by history.  William Anthony Richardson via Wikicommons William Anthony Richardson, as I had previously covered in this blog , is an officer on a British whaling ship Orion . His exact position is either first officer or fourth mate, it doesn't really matter, only that he's not the captain. In 1822, his ship arrived in today's San Francisco Bay, just as Mexico had won its independence, and reversed the long-standing Spanish policy of isolation. Instead, the Mexican ports will be open to trade... as long as it gets its fair share in taxes and transactions are properly recorded.  Richardson met Maria Antonia, as imagined by Bluewillow Mr. Richardson was sent ashore as he has a knowledge of Spanish, and he was promptly escorted by soldiers to see their Comandante, Ignacio Martinez, who invited him to the fiesta he wa