Mamiyaroid 17

Photographing Chinatown

I invented an enigmatic older female Chinese American photographer for my novel. In earlier drafts she was known, but in my latest draft she is only known through a private press photo book my protagonist finds, and is part of the puzzle of the book. I don’t know any female Chinese American photographers over the age of 60 but they must exist.

Years ago, when I started writing my book I was inspired by a photograph I saw by Bud Glick. It was taken in a Chinatown garment factory and it recalled for me the times my sister and I went to work with our mother on the rare day we didn’t have school and we didn’t have a babysitter. The factory was large and dusty, with these giant canvas bins, and we liked to take the large plastic garment bags and turn them into balloons. The men usually worked the steam press and the women hunched over their sewing machines, competing radios blaring. Some listened to Chinese opera, others listened to Canto pop, and my mom listened to American Country music. We would walk down the rows greeting the women saying, “Ni hao, Ayi!” (even though most of the ladies spoke Cantonese, but my mother is Taiwanese and speaks Mandarin and Taiwanese). They would give us penny candies. This was how I was introduced to Haw Flakes.

I was also inspired by Thomas Holton’s work. He spent fifteen years documenting one family in Manhattan Chinatown, producing the book, The Lams of Ludlow Street.

In an interview about his project he said, “My overall interest in Chinatown is because of my Chinese heritage. Even though I am half-Chinese and half-American and had Chinese relatives living in the area, I never felt a true connection or bond with the neighborhood...I always felt like a visitor. I certainly was familiar with the food and customs but the Lams' everyday life was foreign. I certainly did not grow up in a tenement on the Lower East Side or immigrate from Hong Kong.”

This closely mirrors my own relationship with Chinatown and something I wanted to capture in my book without my book being about Chinatown. I also wanted to express the fear of exploiting people you feel kinship with but who might not recognize that kinship.

Corky Lee, An Rong Xu and Annie Ling all documented Manhattan Chinatown. I know that once the pandemic is over, like all places in NYC, Manhattan Chinatown won’t be the same, so all these photographs are even more precious.

There’s a new exhibit in coordination with Center for Jewish History and the Museum of Chinese in America of photographer Emile Bocian’s work, particularly in Chinatown.

“He spent his time in Chinatown as a resident of the iconic Confucius Plaza apartment complex, where he was rumored to have turned his bathroom into a dark room.”

The bathroom darkroom! The dream!

One part of the exhibit is a then/now comparison. Of course Hop Shing is now closed, a victim of the pandemic.

I love this photograph.

And this detail is so poignant:

“During his time in Chinatown, Bocian befriended Chinese-American actress Mae Wong. She would rescue over 120,000 photographs, negatives, and contact sheets from his apartment after his death in 1990, donating them to the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) in the mid-1990s.”

(This is a new exhibit I just learned about yesterday but the parallels to my book are funny. I will put on the record now that I put a similar rescue of an artist’s work in my novel before I learned of this. I got the idea from talking to an artist about the artist residence, Wesbeth, and how when the artists died, if someone didn’t rescue their work it often went into the trash.)

Of course I’ve walked around Chinatown taking photographs, trying to get into the spirit of my character, but I’m always reminded of the time I was in Chinatown with my mother and she saw me take a photograph. She laughed and then told me how annoying non-Chinese photographers can be. She said one time she wanted to buy produce but two photographers were blocking her path. “They took pictures but they didn’t buy anything!” To her, Chinatown is quotidian, beneath notice. But of course she misses it. When I took my first subway trips of the pandemic, and was still visiting her outdoors in Washington Heights, she asked me to buy her a roast duck from Chinatown. She told me not to worry, she’d be able to finish the whole duck, she missed it so much.

A few of my photographs:

canon ae-1, kodak ektar

canon ae-1, kodak ektar

canon ae-1, kodak ektar

canon elan 7, kodak portra or ektar, can’t recall!

Until next time…

Adalena

I love to receive comments and questions about photography and cameras!

My email: adalenakavanagh@gmail.com

Instagram: @mamiyaroid (instant/film) @5redpandas (personal)

Twitter: @adalenakavanagh

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Original photography prints: adalenakavanagh.bigcartel.com (I change out the shop every month of so. If you see something you like, let me know, I’m happy to make you a print.)

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-Adalena Kavanagh