Are There Tunnels Under Chinatown Like in the Movie "Big Trouble in Little China"?

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 soundstages. 

But they are based on a LITTLE sliver of truth... and a whole lot of fiction. And for that, you have to thank some 19th-century tour guides with very active imaginations, that convinced a lot of gwailo (Cantonese for "non-Chinese", lit: ghost men) such tunnels existed for dastardly purposes. 

Let's just say the news in the 1860s and onward did not portray Chinatown in a positive light. Chinatown then was basically the armpit of San Francisco, where many businesses cater to sins, such as bars, brothels, gambling halls, and opium dens. 

W. H Gleadell wrote in an 1895 piece for "Gentleman's Magazine": 

Many places there are in this miniature China of San Francisco … to which no European has ever been admitted, or, if admitted, he has never survived to return to the world...

Trips by non-Chinese into Chinatown at night were often "escorted by police", or by "trusted" guides, who catered to their need to see the supposed "depravities" of Chinatown, and literature sprung up warning of supposed "dangers" of the interlopers exploring Chinatown alone. The truth is these tourists often just end up seeing people going about their own normal daily business, whether it's going to joss houses (i.e. small temples) to light some joss sticks, or just eating their daily meals. 

Some guides are just white folks with business in Chinatown during the day, and knew a few people at night, while others are Chinese who seize upon opportunities to earn some money soliciting the curious yet afraid curiosity-seekers hanging at the border with often deliberately broken English, "You want see? I take you!" But at least this is better than "police guides", who often will kick doors, and wake up sleeping men, sometimes with violence. 

Under this sort of "dirty and mysterious" Chinatown atmosphere, it is of little wonder that tales of elaborate underground passages, where all sorts of dirt and vice are hidden away, are invented about Chinatown for its shock value and salaciousness. 

SF Chinatown, children at basement entrance
from Genthe Collection via Picryl

There are many basements in Chinatown, there is no doubt. Most are used for storage nowadays, with freight elevators and drop chutes. In fact, there are still a few underground stores and restaurants, and there used to be more. There was little doubt that many of these were once connected so one does not need to go above ground to travel from building to building. So if properly staged, one can easily create the impression of being led through a labyrinth of corridors by adding some props, minimal lighting, and the steepness of the streets in Chinatown, when in fact, you've never gone more than a few meters below ground, as explained by a former San Francisco police chief.  

But what the customer wants, the customer gets. Soon, guides are asking the locals to stage scenes for a cut of the action, such as faking hostility toward the tourists so the guide can "protect" them, or stage knife fights in the alley. The truth is, the Tongs fight with hatchets, not knives. 

That is not to say there are no depravities in Chinatown, as human trafficking was a big business back then. As are the other vices being catered to. 

But there were no elaborate tunnels, just misleading tours for tourists who wanted to believe. 

Short attention span? Watch the Youtube short version! (Much less detailed).