Zhu Simin (right), who was born in China and moved to the US, tending to her Chinese tea booth at the Mid-Autumn Festival night market at Washington, DC's Chinatown Park in September.
ST PHOTO: MICHELLE NG

Young Chinese Americans are rallying around a fading Chinatown. Why?

by · The Straits Times
  • Like other Chinatowns in the US, Washington’s Chinatown has hollowed out as Chinese immigrant families move to the suburbs.
  • Young Chinese Americans who are bolder than their parents in embracing their roots are returning to Chinatown to reclaim their culture.
  • Community events like Mid-Autumn Festival are successfully drawing Chinese Americans, who are bringing a spark of life back to Chinatown.

WASHINGTON – The beat of drums and cymbals rang through Chinatown Park as a pair of lion dancers leapt, dipped and unfurled auspicious Chinese sayings to cheers from a crowd that had gathered for a Mid-Autumn Festival night market on a breezy September autumn evening.

While Chinatown in Washington, DC, has become a shadow of its former self, such community events are drawing young Chinese Americans back and sparking new life in the neighbourhood.