CHAPTER THREE

JAPANTOWN

Overpass || Geary Blvd

Japanese lantern || Soko Hardware

Paper crane || Japan Center

It’s the end of Geary Street but the start of Geary Blvd.

When I walk into japantown, the whole vision becomes different. The whiter building extend to the west. The stores’ names are writen in Japanese and Korean. Even the street sign in the next street has a Japanese edition. Not only the language but also the design and decoration. Japan has its strong style in custom, architecture. The wooden structure building, painting...

All of them have unique characteristics.

I asked permission form the Soko’s owner and took some pictures of the Japanese Lanterns. Different from Chinese Lantern, it has beautiful painting and the shape is more like a sphere. In China, we also recognize lantern as a sign of family reunion, happiness, but the Japanese seems give the lantern a new identity which help it closer to people’s life.

Street sign || Webster & Post

“KEEPING THE GREAT TRADITION AND ACCEPT THE NEWER THINGS.”

Restaurant row || Japan Center

Bridge model || Japan Center

In Chinese, we have a word to describe the Japanese style–”HE FENG”, the “HE“ style. I think the closest pronunciation is “her“ style. It becomes a little bit wired because it looks should be like a “man’s” style not a “woman’s” style in English.

The next stop is must be the Japan center at the Geary street. This is a shopping mall, and the best part is the restaurant row in here. Although I’m not a huge fan of Japanese food but some of them are really worth to try.

Japantown keeps great Japanese tradition, every spring, the Japanese residents will hold The Cherry Blossom Festival. They will put on their traditional clothes–Kimono and celebrate together. In addition, there’s another section is movie festival, people can go to watch some famous Japanese movies and animations.

FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF PACIFICA

The Richmond District is a neighborhood in the northwest corner of San Francisco, California, developed initially in the late 19th century. In the 1950s, and especially after the lifting of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1965, Chinese immigrants began to replace the ethnic Jewish and Irish-Americans who had dominated the district before World War II. Chinese of birth or descent now make up nearly the half of residents in the Richmond.

The Richmond has many influences from the Chinese-American culture. One of its three commercial strips, Clement Street in the inner Richmond segment is sometimes called the second Chinatown due to its highly-rated Chinese restaurants.