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Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 02-12-2002, 09:33 PM:
KUNG HAY FAT CHOY!!
Tonight, February 12th ushers in the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Horse. There will be Dragon Dancing in the streets, though no fireworks this year. I enjoyed a Chinese-Polynesian dinner & Karioke festivity at a restaurant, complete with dragon dancing to drums, gongs and cymbols.
Of the four ChinaTowns in New York City, the oldest and best known,
in lower Manhattan, has suffered greatly during September 11th and its aftermath, for its streets were barred to traffic for months,
so that many restaurants, gift shops and tourist attractions are
teetering on economic collapse. It's patriotic to want to help, and fun, too!
When in New York City, try to have at least one meal at a ChinaTown
restaurant or Dim-Dum (dumpling) tea-house. There are a great variety of Chinese restaurants; the food is affordable and delicious, and children are always welcome, even fussed over. The cinemas show
not only classic martial arts films but beautiful fine arts features
from Mainland China and Hong Kong. The supermarkets are worth a visit
and you can buy excellent Asian tablewear much cheaper there than in midtown department stores.
Happy New Year to All!!
Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 02-12-2002, 10:49 PM:
Wow! There are still real cinemas operating in NY's Chinatowns? That's great! In LA I think all of our Chinese/Japanese/Korean cinemas have succumbed to DVD/VCD/VHS. We still get the occasional asian film at one of the art houses, but AFAIK there are no full-time asian screens left in SoCal.Paul
Who got fat on Dim Sum while living in SoCal 
Posted by Rory Burke (Member # 512) on 02-13-2002, 08:23 PM:
GUNG HAI FAT CHOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!RORY
Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 02-13-2002, 10:25 PM:
Paul,
Saddened to hear of the demise of Asian cinemas in SoCal, I checked the Movie Timetable in the NY Daily News and was shocked at being
unable to find any such listings today. Either they have not reopened after September 11th, or the same switch to tape and disks is at work here. Or else the News doesn't list Asian cinemas? There were no cinemas listed below Houston (pronounced HOW'ston in NY) Street,while "Beijing Bicycle" plays at the Quad, an art house on 13th Street.
As for tapes and DVD's, the Public Libraries have semi-annual sales of discards, and the last time I went there a table was filled with Chinese, Korean & Japanese VHS tapes of feature films. On the last day
of the three-day sale, you could buy a shopping bag, fill it with as many videos and books as you could cram in, pay only $4 per bag, and
one family left with four bags of videos! I used to borrow 16mm films from the library, but they switched to VHS tapes, and now I suppose they might be switching to DVD's.During the WTC collapse, a great many fleeing people escaped the rain
of ashes and debris by being sheltered in Chinatown restaurants, whose
owners helped the choking victims clean up, brace themselves with hot tea, use the telephones, and receive first aid until they could be evacuated safely. Chinatown took a hit, and was sealed off for months, throwing thousands out of work and many out of their homes.
But the Asian ethics of modesty and self-sufficiency have left this
rescue story untold, and many business people not only did not come forward to apply for governmental or charitable financial recovery
aid, but refused it with embarrassment when it was offered.
Gerard
Posted by Mathew Molloy (Member # 666) on 02-14-2002, 12:02 AM:
Asian film and food are near the top of my list of favorite things in life. I wish I could be in NY at this time, I'd be in those restaurants every day and spend my off hours in the theatres. I've never been to or seen an asian cinema but I bet I'd thoroughly enjoy it even if the presentation was less than perfect.
Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 02-14-2002, 02:05 AM:
When I was a kid growing up in LA my 1st-generation grandparents took my brother and I to Japanese movies every other weekend. At that time there were still three full-time Japanese theaters in LA--the Kokusai (lit. International) on Crenshaw, the Toho LaBrea on La Brea, and another house on 2nd St. in Little Tokyo which I can no longer remember the name of. Thanks to seeing all those subtitled films I was a speed-reader while still in elementary school! Alas my Japanese skills didn't improve as much, even with Saturday's spent in J-school. After the movies, we often went to Chinatown for dinner--our favorite Hong Kong-style place was a couple doors up from a full-time Chinese movie house.A few years later, the Toho LaBrea became the place where I did my first 35mm change-over. Today I have quite a collection of Japanese films (on LD and R1/R2 DVD) and movie posters including some of the ones I first saw in those theaters. Still have lots of happy "Cinema Paradiso" style memories of all those places!
So yeah, Gung Hei Fat Choi! In Japanese we would say "Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu!"
Posted by Bob Maar (Member # 763) on 02-14-2002, 07:01 AM:
Gerard, I just got off two weeks jury duty at 100 Center Street. So naturally everyday at lunch time I wandered up to Chinatown for lunch. Needless to say, the food in Chinatown is fantastic. My favorite was the Steak Kew, crispy orange flavored Beef.
I wasn't looking for theatres but I believe the Chinese Theatre, off Lafayette Street is still in operation.
Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 02-15-2002, 08:58 PM:
My first encounter with Japanese cinema was in Sendai, Miyagi-ken in the winter of 1951-52, when the slushy streets were filled with pedicabs heated with charcoal burning in Maxwell House coffee cans,
pedaled by men in tattered mustard-brown Army coats.
I entered a small theatre, jam-packed with families, showing an old black-and white samurai film. The audience was noisy, talking , laughing and shouting at the onscreen action, and I was wedged between
old men and women holding infants. The woman on my right was having a tough time with her kids, and I wound up holding a baby on my lap until it cried and wet, when the mother relieved my of my burden.
There was no popcorn, but soft drinks were sold in glass bottles,
each with a glass marble in its neck acting as a valve releasing a mouthful when tilted. That produced a constant click-click-click
sound to add to the mayhem. The film had no subtitles but the action was swift and after a while I could tell the good guys from the bad.
Like the communal bath house, it was an experience...
Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 02-16-2002, 10:06 PM:
>There was no popcorn, but soft drinks were sold in glass bottles,
>each with a glass marble in its neck acting as a valve releasing a
>mouthful when tilted. That produced a constant click-click-click
>sound to add to the mayhem.Heh heh. That's "Ramune", Japan's answer to 7-Up. It's been sold in that bottle design for over a hundred years. You can get it in the states nowadays, at asian food stores.
As for capturing the flavor of theatergoing in Japan in those days, you might want to keep an eye out for an animated short film called "Goshe the Cellist" which may come out on Pioneer DVD here sometime. It is based on a 1927 Kenji Miyazawa short story and was directed in 1980 by anime god Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies). In it there is a hilarious scene of a pit band accompanying silent cartoons in a small theater in Iwate...