(upbeat music) - [Danielle Chang] With Chinatowns under attack and mom and pop shops on the verge of extinction, we devote this episode to heartwarming stories of grassroots food communities that have come together to advocate for change while preserving the culinary heritage of Manhattan Chinatown.

Grace Young takes us on a tour of the old school Cantonese coffee shops she is trying to save.

Just down the block, Mei Lum carries on her family's heritage business while alluring a new audience through art.

We meet chef's like Helen Nguyen and Winston Chiu who are feeding local residents in need.

Together, these culinary leaders are rethinking food systems and leading a new generation who are preserving, but also injecting life into the evolving Chinatown.

(uplifting music) At the crossroads of Chinatown in the Lower East Side sits Saigon Social, a buzzy restaurant with a rising star chef who knows how to win over the hearts and bellies of diners and critics alike.

Helen Nguyen is a classically trained cook who worked under the tutelage of the French megastar Daniel Boulud before venturing out on her own.

Her first restaurant pays homage to her Vietnamese heritage, but it's a modern take on the comfort food she remembers.

When the pandemic shut down New York just as Saigon Social finally opened, Helen didn't lose hope.

She quickly turned her kitchen into a one-woman shop that fed a community in need.

- I was actually born in California.

- Cool.

Whereabouts?

- Raised in Seattle.

Concord, a small City East of San Francisco.

- So, when did you come to New York?

- New York, six years ago.

It was actually supposed to be a semi-sabbatical for a year.

- Ah-huh (affirmative).

- To go to culinary school just to check it off my bucket list and then return home.

And then, I fell in love with the industry, they city, the people, the energy.

And so, I decided to stay.

There was a few modern Vietnamese restaurants that had opened.

And, you know, they became wildly successful and very popular.

And, it was very inspiring to see.

And, I felt like New York City was going through like a renaissance of Vietnamese cuisine.

And, I really wanted to stay and contribute to that growing aspect of it.

My goal was to create a restaurant that was approachable.

I think that, you know, beyond being restaurant, I wanted to be, you know, a part of the community like an anchor where, you know, like everyone feels invited.

- A social club.

- Yeah, a social club.

- What was it like to start a restaurant during the pandemic?

- It was actually a pretty, I guess you could say, a pretty fun journey to start.

- A fun journey.

- Yes, because about month after I signed the lease, I learned that we didn't have adequate gas supply.

So, for about a year, we didn't have gas.

And, it was a constant 34 degrees in here, and then finally we got the approval.

Gas services turned on.

We had heat.

We, you know, like all the appliances were working.

And, I was pushing for an opening and then 10 days later, the city shut down.

I had to let go of the team that we created.

I wasn't really sure what was going on.

I thought it was like, well, maybe in a couple of days things will be better.

And then, a couple days passed.

And then, it was, okay maybe in a week or two, in a month.

It didn't seem like there was an end in sight.

(upbeat music) I started pivoting into just like cooking and making meals for the community, because we had so much inventory.

For me, cooking has always been, you know, like a comfort activity.

It really gave me an opportunity to get to know my neighbors.

And, at the time, I mean, nothing on the menu was more than $10.

And, it's again, if you're able to pay, great, but if not, then the meal was on us.

Through friends and families, you know, a lot of sous chef's that I worked with are like, "Hey, our restaurant is closing.

We have, you know, a crate of carrots, onions, eggplants, chicken, whatever it was.

We see that you're cooking meals.

Can you utilize this?"

And, so then, from those donations, I was able to continue those community meals, and then slowly starting working with a few different non-profits We went from making, I'd say like 30, 50 meals a day to like 300 to 500 meals a day.

There's like this whole, you know, community that's being underserved, and it's our elders who don't speak the language, you know like the language, don't understand the resources, or when they do receive help, it's just not culturally appropriate, you know, food.

Where if you think about, you know, if your grandma was at home needing assistance and she gets this care package and she opens it up, and it's a grilled cheese sandwich.

You know, not only does she not identify with it, but with dietary restrictions, she's not able to, you know, like it's just not healthy for her, right.

And, just being a part of like, you know, the prep to the packaging, to the actually delivery, it just, you can't really put a monetary value to that experience.

The silver lining of the whole pandemic has been that, you know, I have been able to deepen my relationships with, you know, fellow restaurateurs and chefs in the industry who were goin through very similar challenges.

And, they're like, "Hey," you know, "we're kind of in this together" - Helen connected with the people in the community who thought the way she did, including Winston Chiu at Feed Forward.

Helen and Winston work in lockstep to prepare the day's community meal, a comforting lunch of chicken lemongrass curry with potatoes and carrots on rice served with a side of stir-fry water spinach.

Feet Forward is an organization that Winston created during the pandemic to address problems in the system that gets food to needy people.

It's about creating what he calls food resiliency.

So, how did you go from being a chef to what would you call yourself now?

- I think I'm an activist.

I'm still a chef by trade.

I still think like a chef.

I still love to cook, but it's really taking those skillsets.

You know, prior to even being a chef, I was working in corporate America as an actuary.

So, it's like this is my third coming.

And, I think, my interest is still, I still have a great love for the kitchen.

But, it's like how can I use my skillsets to marry the both so that, you know, I think right now as a chef, it's a hard business.

And, in order for us to actually find longevity in this business, it's like how do we fix the systems?

How dow we be more aware of not only buying local but feeding local.

And, serving this community not only sustain your local business, but at the same time, you build a connection with your community.

And, I think through those conversations, I've even seen like Helen's food change, like to what she was making to adapt to the palates of, you know, our local, you know, community residents that she's just through that conversation and through that, I think, connection that allows a chef to really create something that's valuable.

For us, we're problem solvers as chefs.

We're constantly dealing with figuring out things.

And, just realized that, you know, there was a demand.

There's something that we're good at and that we can actually cook in the confines in the safety of our own kitchens, but actually help the community at the same time and keep our businesses alive, keeping our employees engaged.

So, I think that was just a common thing in which we're able to say, "Okay, this makes sense to us."

And, I think those stories, particularly in the Asian American community are so important.

We've seen people be so engaged of like telling their stories.

And then, I think, you know, this is a great time for us to be able to celebrate our culture, show the world, you know, what it means to be Asian American.

- Absolutely.

- At the same time, you know, find a way so that we can reconcile our differences, because they're not necessarily differences.

There's still similarities, but there's, you know, dialogues and conversation that need to be had.

What I truly believe is like if you can respect our food, then you can probably respect the person behind making that food.

And, you know, through our food we can, you know, show the world that, you know, we're not so different.

We're here.

- Just doing the things that we love and supporting each other and just finding where the needs are, because I feel like, you know, the root of every hospitality is just to be able to, you know, to serve people, to be able to create a meal, you know, using food as like a universal language.

(piano music) - [Danielle Chang] Just a short stroll from Saigon Social is Wing On Wo, the oldest continuously operated store in Manhattan's Chinatown.

Founded in the 1890s, Wing On Wo was a general store selling food products that gave the growing community of recent immigrants a taste of home.

But, its role went far beyond groceries.

The shop also acted as a community center offering many vital services to the newcomers.

Today, fifth generation owner Mei Lum, along with her extended family are shepherding Wing on Wo into the future.

- Gary, tell us a little bit about the store and the origins.

- Well, welcome to our family living room.

Mei was raised in this space along with extended family.

The business is going on 98 years this year.

It was first a social gathering space for all the immigrant men of Chinatown.

It was a gathering place offering translation services, social services, credit union services, banking, mail drop off, mailbox, et cete.

And, also that space at one point was a Buddhist temple.

- Oh wow.

- Herbal remedy offerings, Chinese American grocery offerings, mostly Japanese foods, because China was subjected to, I guess, no trade, because of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

In 1925, the business decided not to rent in that location.

And, those involved moved here and purchased this property.

- So, in many ways, this place was kind of like a community center for the men who came primarily from Guangzhou Province to work in New York.

- [Gary Lum] Yeah.

- What was the work?

What was the occupation for these men back then?

- I'm born and raised in Chinatown.

And, my experience with Chinatown was a slew of adopted uncles.

It was population mostly by immigrant men who worked in blue collar jobs.

So, I have a sweet spot for all the chefs, sous chefs, all the waiters that, you know, at three o'clock in the afternoon, nine o'clock at night just spill out into the street to get some fresh air from the confines of the kitchen or the, you know, the dining rooms of the restaurants, or coffee shops.

To this day I feel such ownership of Chinatown when I see them, you know, just spilling out, having a coffee break or a smoke break.

And, speaking amongst themselves and chattering and just observing the street that they don't get a chance to.

- I was really lucky to meet a PhD student at the time.

Her name is Diane Wong.

And, she started conducting her oral history interviews for her dissertation and walked into the shop and asked both me and my dad if we would be willing to chat with her about the changes that we were witnessing in Chinatown and also understand why we decided to stay here.

So, talking with Diane and having a chance to process what the erasure, or possible erasure of this place would mean and how that would impact our block, Mott Street and our larger neighborhood, it made me start to think about, you know, ways in which within my own capacity, Wing On Wo included, how I could help push back on some of those gentrification induced changes.

- Mei was a Mack Truck and I was a VW Bug following her down the highway that I didn't know what the destination was.

So, being pulled in the draft and over the past five years, it's been a ground rumbling with the program, the W.O.W.

project and the programs that we're offering here.

- What is the W.O.W.

project?

- How the W.O.W.

project started was out of a desire to want to hold community conversations in a more public, but also private space.

And, the, obviously, the space that we have access to or was closest was Wing On Wo.

And, that's when we started to bring in some of the conversations that we were having with residents and artists, activists, small business owners, property owners, into the Wing on Wo storefront space and talk about things like what does it mean to witness the influx of art galleries happen in Chinatown, and what does that mean for our cultural fabric here in the neighborhood?

To talk about what it's like to be a woman in Chinatown.

So, we started the summer series initially, and then, moved into thinking more about how to grow from that and how we could really use art as a tool for activism and as a way to resist the gentrification and displacement that's happening here.

And, focus specifically on young people, because I think what I really love about the W.O.W.

project is that it's future focused and it's always thinking about how to honor legacy and build intergenerational bridges of understanding.

- [Danielle Chang] In addition to selling Chinese porcelain ware and cultural goods, the shop has created the W.O.W.

project, a women, queer and trans-lead community initiative using art and activism to grow and protect Chinatown's creative culture in a time of rapid change.

(upbeat music) - So, in many ways, it was kind of your way of using calligraphy and kind of playing with your gender representation?

- The calligraphy became a platform from which I could experiment with performance gender presentation, sexuality, and then the expression of my own sexuality and gender presentation through the lens of like, you know, my trans American identity as well.

- What has the reaction been to your work and who you are as an artist here?

- So, the response from queer community has always been really good.

The response from older folks has always been really reassuring too, because I think older folks have in their visual vocabulary this idea about calligraphy and a sort of reverence for it to.

So, even though I'm doing like calligraphy in like platforms and in sort of, you know, stripper outfits, it seems like, I don't know, these old folks who I would imagine would be put off by that sort of don't notice that much and they're more interested in the calligraphy.

So, it's been a really great way to connect in that way and sort of make this intergenerational bridge.

- How would you describe your performances?

- In my performances, I think I was influenced by two kinds of performances, the first being the drag performances that I was seeing in Bushwick at the time, and then my calligraphy teacher.

I had seen him do a live, large-scale calligraphy performance, and so, I knew I wanted to do that same calligraphy performance, but to make it slutty and to sort of approach it through the lens of camp and drag and like go-go boy aesthetics.

Both Wing On Wo and the W.O.W.

project and Bubble T gave me my first opportunities to you know, make that performance happen.

- Tell me about this gorgeous object in front of us.

- So, this is a candy tray that I designed with W.O.W.

's creative team for their artist line.

It's a candy tray that I made specifically for Lunar New Year.

And, together this tray, because it's, you know, like when you have this candy tray, it really represents togetherness of the family.

- Tell me about this gorgeous carving here on the lid.

I see some peaches and some clouds and some bats.

What does all of this mean?

- I was working with Wing on Wo's creative team, and talking to them about, you know, what motives are really prevalent in, you know, Chinese ceramics?

And, I chose bats, because you know, they're a big part, bats and peaches are a big part of, you know, the Chinese and Burmese ceramics that I grew up looking at.

And, I really wanted to incorporate that into my work.

- I think the togetherness tray is actually a perfect sort of representation of what this place is all about.

You know, with all that incredible history, the fact that it's now become this kind of community space for artists like you and bringing together, you know, artists of different disciplines to continue this conversation about what it means to be an Asian American creatively.

- I'm a filmmaker, a muralist and a poet.

And, I feel the stories we tell really determine the futures that our next generations are going to inherit I kind of put a public call out to find a wall or a mural to create a healing space for the Asian community to process grief and imagine a future where we can keep each other safe and imagine a future without anti-Asian violence.

And then, Mei, who has become one of my closest friends and who runs the W.O.W.

project answered that call and we worked together to turn this into our community based mural.

And, I really believed that solidarity is a synonym for love.

- And then, there's just been so many incidents of anti-Asian violence.

- Yeah.

- Sweeping the country.

It must have been very cathartic for everyone involved in this project to just kind of channel that pain into something that's so beautiful.

- Yeah.

It was incredibly cathartic.

And, I feel like some of my best friendships in New York were made in the process of the mural.

- There was a wave going on, and young people becoming interested and engaging with this Chinatown, my Chinatown that I've held in my Baby Boomer way.

And, all the changes that have happened since Mei has been involved has been invigorating, has been inspiring to me, has really woken me up tremendously.

- [Danielle Chang] Grace Young is a Chinese cookbook author and master of the wok who's now also known as the accidental voice of Chinatown.

When the pandemic, and the anti-Asian hate it inspired crippled the neighborhood's restaurant business, Grace went into warrior mode taking it upon herself to save Chinatown's eateries.

She recently won a James Beard Humanitarian Award for her work to preserve a part of America's ethnic history.

We visited a couple of Chinatown's oldest restaurants to get a sense of what it takes to keep them open.

- Oh wow.

- Ooh.

- Isn't that gorgeous?

Wow.

- That is.

- Two classics from Wo Hop.

This is the stir-fried flounder with hoisin and classic beef chow fun.

- [Danielle Chang] Right.

- [Grace Young] Can't go wrong.

- You can't go wrong.

Perfect.

- So, Wo Hop is very special, because it dates from 1938, and it's actually been just named a James Beard America's Classic winner for 2022.

- Oh.

Oh really?

- Which is very unusual.

There are very, very few Chinese restaurants on that list.

- [Danielle Chang] Yeah.

- But, at the start of the pandemic, I saw immediately that New York City's Chinatown was being shunned as were Chinatowns all across the United States because of misinformation and xenophobia, but the streets were eerily empty.

I glanced into restaurants and shops and waiters were just standing around.

And, when I started talking to locals, I heard that businesses were down 40 to 80%.

So, I started posting on Instagram, "New Yorkers, we've got to rally our support for Chinatown."

There is ongoing anti-Asian hate crimes, especially here in New York City.

- Yes.

- New York City, I believe has the highest rate of anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States.

I think a few months ago, it was reported it was up 373% from the year before.

The price of the lunch was $5.95, and during COVID in 2020, New York City allowed restaurants to charge an extra 10% as a COVID surcharge, because of everything that the restaurants were going through, and they did not add 59 cents, because they were afraid to lose their customers.

So now, it's finally at 6.75, but let me tell you, how could they possibly be making money at six- - I was just going to ask you that.

- Yeah.

- So, how do these businesses stay in business?

- Because, Chinese restaurants operate on razor thin margins.

- [Danielle Chang] At Mee Sum, a beloved hole in the wall coffee shop on Pell Street, we ate Chinese soul food, comforting dishes that I grew up with like Tong Yuan or sticky rice balls in soup.

- So, this is the last of the old school coffee shops.

So, I think someone mentioned to me, not pointed out Mee Sum to me during the pandemic, and I started coming here, and it is just the coolest place.

You see the cash register there?

It's the original cash register, and that's part of the charm of Chinatown.

- [Danielle Chang] Right.

- Like, the world now is going cashless, right?

- [Danielle Chang] Right.

- And, I don't know what the percentage is, but in Chinatown, definitely I would guess at least 50% of the business are still cash only.

- [Danielle Chang] It's still cash yeah.

- Right?

- [Danielle Chang] Yeah, yeah.

- And, look at Chinatown.

67% of the businesses don't have websites and 57% don't do social media.

(foreign language) So, this one is the peanut.

- [Danielle Chang] Okay.

- In Cantonese we call it the Tong Yuan, so, it's white sticky glutinous rice balls and inside is ground roasted peanuts and sugar.

And, this one has black sesame.

- [Danielle Chang] Ooh.

- [Grace Young] Let me get like two small bowls for us.

- [Danielle Chang] Beautiful.

- [Grace Young] Yeah, yeah.

- [Danielle Chang] I love these.

- And, it's cooked with, oh, she's bringing us bowls.

- It's so good for you too.

- [Grace Young] Yeah, yeah.

- It's just glutinous rice and protein.

- Take two.

- Okay, and ill dish you some of the peanuts.

So, this is cooked with fresh ginger and osmanthus, the flower.

Actually, I'm gonna give you three.

I love this so much.

It's my favorite.

Yeah.

- So, this is essentially just a tong yuan.

Which is, how do you translate that?

- It's a glutinous rice ball.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, and when I was growing up, like my Auntie Margaret always made tong yuan with her daughters.

So, it's a family occasion to make them.

- [Danielle ] Delicious.

- [Grace Young] Right.

- Yes.

I could eat this every day.

- So, it's a very working class dish, right.

I think it's a very special place.

- Yeah.

- And, I'm very, very scared that we could lose Mee Sum.

(pensive music) Chinatown is the last ethnic neighborhood in Manhattan South of 96th street.

- [Danielle Chang] Wow.

- And, I don't know how it has withstood gentrification.

98% of the businesses are mom and pop which is mom and pop stores and restaurants are the backbone of this country.

But, Chinatown is so important, because it represents the story of America.

I think people forget sometimes that we are a land of immigrants and Chinatowns in San Francisco, New York, Oakland, Boston tell the story of this country.

- [Danielle Chang] Right.

- So many of the people that came to this country came as immigrants with nothing and worked really hard.

Chinatowns gave them a foothold, a gateway into this country.

And, they were able to realize their American dream.

There is so much grit.

There is so much determination, and there is so much dignity here.

This is the American story.

- [Danielle Chang] Call this episode of Lucky Chow our love letter to Chinatown.

These days Chinatowns across America are a precious and endangered resource.

They hold the living legacy of a rich, immigrant culture, but their future is uncertain as they're buffeted by economic and demographic changes and threatened by intolerance and violence.

However, take a walk down Mott Street or Pell Street in New York, and the vibrant shops, markets and restaurants still tell a hopeful story, a story of the continuing resilience and creativity of the multi-generational communities that have called Chinatown home.

(uplifting music)