Skip to main content

Uh... that's not San Francisco Chinatown...

 There are plenty of merch out there about Chinatown, and artists can simply upload a picture, and setup a "print-on-demand" (POD) place for t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, and whatever you can print a picture on, setup a listing, and sell those items without spending money up front. 

But are you buying the RIGHT item? Let's just say some artists (and I use the term loosely) clearly didn't verify the pictures fit the description. Which implies they didn't create the pictures they uploaded. 

Just for fun, I did a search for "San Francisco Chinatown Merchandise" on Google, and while most of the items are correctly depicting San Francisco Chinatown, there are a few that clearly are NOT San Francisco Chinatown, even though they are labelled as San Francisco Chinatown. 

Here is one such example on Amazon. Do you see the problem? 

A sweatshirt for sale on Amazon labeled as San Francisco China Town

That's right, they are driving on the "wrong side". This picture is clearly NOT an American Chinatown, much less the one in San Francisco! 

A Google search revealed that this is actually the Chinatown East Gate in Yokohama, Japan. 

Chinatown East Gate, Yokohama Japan, courtesy Wikipedia

Here's one that's also wrong... An "art print" labeled as San Francisco Chinatown.  


Yet this is also NOT San Francisco. It's way too tall. Turns out, this is the West Gate of Los Angeles Chinatown. 

Los Angeles Chinatown West Gate, courtesy of Wikipedia

If you get Chinatown merch, please make sure you get the right one. 

P.S.: I talked to RedBubble, but they're hiding behind "artists control everything" slogan and refused ANY responsibility for accuracy of the listing. "You must contact the artist" is what they said. Sheesh. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

About the author

Kasey is a professional tour guide and amateur historian who specialized in Chinatown History and Tours. You will often find him guiding groups sampling delicious food and learning interesting historical tidbits about Chinatown most weekends.

Popular posts from this blog

Dragon Gate and its Surprising History

You can't come to SF Chinatown and leave out Dragon Gate, aka the Chinatown Gate, at the corner of Bush and Grant. But do you know its history?  Chinatown Gate, aka Dragon Gate, San Francisco Dragon Gate (aka Chinatown Gate, aka Dragon's Gate) was designed by Clayton Lee and others in 1967 in response to a mayoral competition, and his was the winning entry. Originally two gates were proposed, but the other gate leading to Barbary Coast was dropped due to lack of funds, and cost overrun.  The gate itself was designed after a Chinese "pailou 牌樓" or "paifang 牌坊", which were the "gates" that marked separate fang 坊, or "ward" within a city. However, later it evolved into a purely decorative element. As with tradition, the gate faces South, and is composed of a large gate with two smaller side gates.  The gate has a lot of its materials donated by Taiwan (Republic of China) including artisanal tiles, roofing, and the two guardian lions. Despite...
Post a Comment
Read more

Waverly Place: more than just a Chinatown Alley with a Sordid History

Waverly Pl was far more than just an alley in San Francisco. During the earliest days of San Francisco, it was apparently known as "Pike Street", at least until the 1906 Earthquake. I cannot find any historical references on when the name was changed. Many references imply state "Waverly Pl, (formerly Pike St.) while other references imply stated Pike St. Even from the earliest days in Chinatown, it was known as a place of brothels, and allegedly both Bella Cora and Ah Toy, the two most famous madams of Chinatown, have brothels at or very close to Pike St. (later Waverly Pl). For a while, the brothels co-existed with barbers on the same street, where sailors and miners can get a haircut and a shave for 5 cents, and later, 10 cents. So the area was also known as Five Cent Street or Ten Cent Street for a while. But the street remained mired with vices.  A "crime map" prepared for SF City Supervisors in 1885, note the blue and red vices mapped.  courtesy Cornell U...
Post a Comment
Read more

What Is the Origin of "Chop Suey" or "Wonton" Font, Often Associated with Chinese Food?

I am sure you have seen this font before, on Chinese takeout boxes, in Chinatowns, on Chinese restaurant signs or menus, or something that was supposed to be "Asian". It goes by a variety of names, such as Wonton, Chop Suey, Kung-fu, and so on.   But did you ever wonder HOW this font came to be? And how did it become the face of Chinatown?  The first appearance of this font family was registered in 1883 by Henry H Thorp of the Cleveland Type Foundry as "Chinese", though later it was changed to " Mandarin ". However, it is unknown if he personally designed it, as there are many design patents filed in his name even when he was unlikely to be directly involved.  This type of font was known in typography as an "ethnic font", trying to evoke a particular culture or ethnic group, and there are hundreds of them. Some are actually based somewhat on the language's original writing, like those pseudo-Greek or pseudo-Cyrillic fonts, then there are thes...
Post a Comment
Read more