If you read the headline and are considering skipping this, reconsider. Think you’ll never visit San Francisco’s Chinatown? You’re wrong. You will. According to my statistics 75 percent of the people I have met casually or better have been here to visit in the past 22 months. The other 25 percent have firm plans to get here before Christmas. We’ve had so many visitors from all aspects of our lives, from kindergarten through recent coworkers, I feel like I’m the guest of honor at the most drawn out calling hours in history. Occasionally there’s an overlap, which can be interesting. Last month our super longtime friends George and Arlene were visiting at the same time as Jonathan, our favorite Brit and former coworker of my husband. George and Arlene knew us when we were in our early 20s. Jonathan knew us when we were the parents of middle school and high school kids. Getting those three in the same room as us was fun, in an I’m-naked-in-a-school-assembly kind of way.
So you will come to Chinatown eventually. The travel guides will tell you to go to the fortune cookie factory, take in a tea tasting, pose by the lions at the arch, have dim sum for lunch and – most importantly – shop.
You should definitely do all that. But there are some things you should know about the shopping before you go.
Chinatown is one big happy family
The shop owners really all are related. You don’t have to feel like you’re being racist. If you want the pink kimono but in a size that one shop doesn’t have, the clerk will happily run down Grant Avenue and get it from her sister/cousin/mom’s shop. Think of it as online shopping where “back order” is 6-8 minutes.
Chinatown is a tight ship
There are no shenanigans in Chinatown. There are also no street beggars, except for one guy with a New Jersey accent who asks for money for a down payment on a house. He might be grandfathered in. You hardly ever see a cop in Chinatown, but there doesn’t seem to be a need for one. A bad guy might see that as an invitation to break a law, but the shopkeepers are masters of stern. I wouldn’t risk it. The only law that I ever see violated is Ordinance Dumb Ass, which prohibits tourists from standing in the middle of the street taking a selfie in front of the paper lanterns. Punishment is getting flattened by a cable car.
This is not New York City
San Francisco’s Chinatown is very different from its counterpart in the Big Apple. You won’t find counterfeit purses here in the West. Also the stores are real structures with floors and a roof, and not just a 6-foot-wide gap between two buildings that’s been divided in three and equipped with pegboards and hooks. Our stores are normally not raided and shut down, the doorway plastered with a warning from the police and a Kate Spade bag slashed and skewered on a post. That is so New York and so not California. Here, we live in peace and harmony with the purse designers.
Chinatown shops have their own brand of salesmanship
SF Chinatown store people want you to buy something from their stores. Anything. Buy anything. They may not care if you pay half price for it, or throw some Monopoly money down on the counter. They just want their stuff in your possession. Right now. Browsing and window shopping are frowned upon. When you leave empty handed, they’ll shoot you some sad puppy eyes. It takes a while to get used to it.
My strategy is this: When I’m down browsing, I ask if they carry something that is completely incongruous to everything else they sell. This will get me off the hook and allow me to leave without purchasing anything guilt-free. “You don’t carry spark plugs, do you?” “Wondering if you have any German phrase books?” “Whole wheat hot dog buns?” “Bingo chips?” Be careful, though. There’s one shop that has the most eclectic assortment of things for sale. You are likely to walk out with all of those things. Good news is it’ll only cost you five bucks. Because:
The stuff in Chinatown is very inexpensive but looks way better when you get it home
No explanation needed. Trust me. Especially the Pashminas.
