Last night, Portland filmmaker Ivy Lin showed her documentary Pig Roast and a Tank of Fish at the Someday Lounge on NW 5th and Couch. The film looks at the rich history of Portland’s Chinatown. From rough and tumble beginnings, through an era of thriving business and a large ethnic residential district, to the present day of surface parking lots, empty storefronts and the shift of the Chinese and other Asian communities to more far flung neighborhoods like outer SE Portland and Beaverton, the film’s main focus is to look at where Chinatown has been and why this area remains important to the city.
“Pig Roast & Tank of Fish” trailer from Ivy Lin on Vimeo.
It is a timely film. Portland’s beleaguered Chinatown could be headed for a rapid revitalization in the next few years. Recently, Japanese supermarket giant Uwajimaya announced they are looking to potentially develop a large mixed use grocery, mixed income housing and food court complex on the block between 4th and 5th/Couch and Davis. This month, Andy Ricker of Pok-Pok eatery fame announced he was opening a new Asian restaurant in the former dive-bar space of Hung Far Low on NW 4th. But there is also the continuing flight of the Chinese community out of the area – with more restaurants closing than opening and many formerly Chinese owned buildings being sold to white dudes in suits. Also, let us not forget the beheaded dragon statue debacle as well as the conflicts of the homeless access center and the 4th Ave. Caesar Chavez rename proposal that caused many in the Chinese community to say, in essence, “no way.”
Anyone who has waited at night for a bus at the main drug deal area Tri-Met stop along NW 4th and Couch might think: a more spiffed up Chinatown might not be a bad thing. Yet risks and conflicts remain. This revitalization could mean a gentrified and Disneyfied theme park of Chinatown. Or, can Chinatown turn into a mixed income 24-hour working neighborhood the likes of New York, Vancouver B.C. or San Francisco? Should it be driven and populated solely for Chinese, despite the area’s diverse history and a burgeoning “new Chinatown” out on SE 82nd? The city has been trying to jump start this area for years – focusing on the Chinese Classical Garden, storefront and streetscape improvements, the MAX extension down 5th and 6th and new housing developments.
The Oregonian wrote an interesting article this past Friday with a “Chinatown belongs to all of Portland/We all have a stake in Chinatown,” slant. Yet the Oregonian missed some major points. Specifically, how does a city reinvent identity and history and create a thriving ethnic community when one is already being self-created by that community in another neighborhood across town? Besides, what does the term “Chinatown” mean anyway?
Ethnicity, history and identity are tricky and often loaded subjects, especially when city planning and development gets involved in the mix. What is exciting and positive for some can be insulting to others. Portland’s Chinatown is not the Chinatown of a Hollywood script and a healthy neighborhood does not mean “It’s a Small World After All” ride as simply a place to drive to on Sundays and eat Dim Sum. Before WWII, “Chinatown” was also home to a thriving Japanese community with waves of Jewish, Irish and other immigrants throughout the years. It never has been exclusively Chinese. Besides, Chinatown was once Portland’s Chinese ghetto: a place of treacherous kidnappings (Shanghai Tunnels) in the Chinese community and intense exclusionary laws that all but forced the Chinese community to live there in the first place. It is not necessarily a desirable place for the Chinese community itself.
Yet, members of the Chinese community, like Ivy Lin, believe otherwise and her film illustrates this. Chinatown is an area rich in culture, in history and is worth saving, even if that has yet to be defined.
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Great, thoughtful piece, Lizzy. Thanks for the link to Ivy Lin’s Vimeo site, that then led me to a documentary page on Vimeo – including a film about Vanport and another film shot entirely on the Flip Ultra in farming.
Can’t wait to see the full documentary. Thanks for posting this.
Cheers,
Motor
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