Reporter Lao Zhen: Travel Essays (3) - The community is no longer a "Tang Dynasty World"

Reporter Lao Zhen: Travel Essays (3) - The community is no longer a "Tang Dynasty World". We often come and go in Los Angeles, but the reporter has no intention of appreciating the "City of Angels"&#8...

Reporter Lao Zhen: Travel Essay (3) - The community is no longer a "Tang-speaking world". I often travel to Los Angeles, and the reporter has no intention of appreciating the scenery of the "City of Angels", only focusing on the Chinese cultural life there. I remember a piece of news in a Chinese newspaper in the 1950s: "A Chinese restaurant in Chinatown had a billboard in front of the street door that read: [We are looking for workers to cook Tang cuisine, and we need to fry the end of the oven, grab a code, and a bus cup. They can speak Tang dialect. Anyone who wants to come will pay for the water by the pound."] When a Chinese saw this, he went to Yingwei and asked: "Are you hiring?" What to do? The boss put up his glasses, took a look, pointed at the billboard and said, "Don't you know how to read it?" "The applicant replied: "I am from Tang Dynasty and can speak Mandarin and Mandarin. If you don’t know how to speak Chinese, fry the bottom of the furnace, catch codes, and win bus cups, what are you doing? The boss said: "This is Chinatown, a world of Tang dialect. If you don't speak Tang dialect, you don't count as a Tang person, and I don't know how to cook Tang cuisine." "The boss was a bit paranoid, but he told the truth about Chinatown at that time. In fact, the Tang Dynasty was a powerful dynasty in Chinese history. Overseas Chinese often call themselves "Tang people" In the early days of immigration, the earliest and largest number of Chinese workers came from Siyi (the four counties of Taishan, Kaiping, Enping, and Xinhui) in Guangdong. Most of the Chinese workers who arrived in the western United States settled in San Francisco and even Los Angeles, where they could not speak the language. , which brought a lot of inconvenience to work and life. The Taishan dialect commonly used by the people in the four towns became a cohesive force at that time, causing them to gradually gather together to help each other and make a living together. The settlement was called "Chinatown", and Taishan dialect was "Tang dialect". The emergence of "Tang Dialect World" was actually the prototype of the Chinese community in the United States. Later, in order to fight for their rights and interests in society, the public organized various Chinese associations, which were passed down and collectively referred to as "traditional overseas Chinese associations." Chinatown in Los Angeles first appeared in the 1890s. Block 24, located in the northeastern part of downtown Los Angeles, was very "cohesive" to the Chinese. It was most prosperous in the 1940s, and various shops and restaurants with Cantonese characteristics attracted countless tourists. For many years, reporters always visited Chinatown when they visited Los Angeles. When walking on the street, they passed by many relatives and friends from the hometown, and they listened to the familiar "Tang dialect" from time to time. When I arrived in Los Angeles, I didn’t go to Chinatown. Friends and relatives said that since about the 1990s, the “Old Chinatown” of Los Angeles has become “outdated” in people’s minds, and it has become even more indifferent in recent years. Currently, the Chinese community center has been replaced by the Monterey Park City in the eastern suburbs of Los Angeles, which is called “New Chinatown” (about 8 kilometers east of downtown Los Angeles). Park), Alhambra, San Gabriel, Rosemead, Temple City, Arcadia, San Marino, South Pasadena, Hacienda Heights, Rowland Heights, Diamond Bar), Walnut, etc. Chinese people living in the greater Los Angeles area rarely go to "Old Chinatown", and everyone likes to go to the "New Chinatown" of the San Gabriel Valley for shopping, eating, consumption and entertainment. For half a month, the reporter has been living and dining in San Gabriel City. Most of the shops on the street have neat and beautiful Chinese characters on their signs. They display beautiful clothing, calligraphy and painting, handicrafts, electrical appliances and furniture, and sell all kinds of high-quality food and dishes, etc. in the city. Wandering around the colorful streets reminds me of the scenery of many big cities in China. I heard that many new immigrants from Taiwan live here. It is called "Little Taipei". Here, people drink tea, eat, shop, and do business. Mandarin, Mandarin, and Taishan dialect are all spoken. It is no longer a "Tang dialect world." It is "never leave one's profession". Journalists see that with the increasing number of immigrants from both sides of the Taiwan Strait, the culture of the Chinese community in Los Angeles has become more colorful. Currently, there are several Chinese TV stations and Chinese radio stations broadcasting in Mandarin or Cantonese 24 hours a day. In addition to six or seven daily newspapers, there are no less than 20 community newspapers and monthly newspapers. When I went to Los Angeles and reviewed the changes in the "Tang dialect world", I felt a lot of emotions. As for an independently run Chinese newspaper, I asked myself that it was nurtured from the hotbed of the "Tang dialect world" and could not get rid of the "Siyi" local "framework". In the face of the era of rapid development, how can it adapt to the needs of the diversified Chinese community? I am really afraid that it will be too outdated. A3-The head of the press team of the Consulate General in Los Angeles, Consul Le Liwen (2nd from left), took a photo with the author of this newspaper