10 ms·

I'm fairly certain LA has a larger mainland Chinese base. Chinatown is almost exclusively Cantonese.

walterbell 12y ago
Albert Brooks' novel 2030 is set in LA after a major earthquake, where China offers to rebuild LA in exchange for a half-ownership stake, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/books/albert-brookss-2030-his-first-novel-review.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/books/albert-brookss-2030-...
- femto 12y ago
  Interesting, because there is a group that actually proposed actually doing a smaller scale version of this in Sydney. http://www.smh.com.au/data-point/swap-you-chinese-skyscrapers-for-a-motorway-20130628-2p2qk.html http://www.smh.com.au/data-point/swap-you-chinese-skyscraper...
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Brooks' (2011) book also predicted pervasive smartwatches. Not exactly great literature, but many predictions.
kyllo 12y ago
You may be right on both points, but the two are not necessarily related. Wealthy Chinese people (who the article is about) generally do not live in Chinatown because Chinatown is a ghetto. The wealthy ones tend to live in the suburbs. The demographic of Chinatown just doesn't tell you very much about the demographic of Chinese people in the SF bay area as a whole.
- chrischen 12y ago
  Even my mainland Chinese friends state that observation. I can't say for the suburbs, but even the rest of SF is mostly Cantonese.
seanmcdirmid 12y ago
Most mainlanders don't speak Cantonese, however. I remember back in the late 90s when Vancouver's Chinese community were mostly Cantonese speakers; that changed very quickly to mandarin after the HK handover.
- maaku 12y ago
  Re-read the OP; that's exactly what he was saying. A cantonese-speaking community outside of China generally means it traces its roots to pre-Communist takeover of the mainland, a time when most immigration came through the British controlled territories around Hong Kong. The OP is claiming that SF's chinatown is more Cantonese than Los Angeles, the implication being that the more Mandarin speaking Los Angeles community has closer ties to modern mainland China. Based on personal experience, I think that may have been true 20 years ago, but not so much today. At least outside of Chinatown proper, which I don't spend much time in.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    He said Chinatown, not SF Chinatown, I assumed he was referring to LA's Chinatown, which definitely exists. SF Chinatown is just a tourist trap these days. Many more Chinese live in the Richmond neighborhood and throughout the bay area. Also, many of the Cantonese speakers in the Bay Area (usually south bay) are actually from Vietnam (ethnic Chinese refuges who left during the Chinese/Vietnam war in the late 70s/early 80s). I assume that is quite similar to the situation in LA, but have no direct knowledge. There is pre-existing immigration from british areas, but they have mostly diffused throughout the country and are probably on their 4th or 5th generations by now. If you meet someone in the states who speaks Cantonese, they are more likely to descend from Vietnam, or somewhere else in Southeast Asia, rather than Hong Kong. Though I once met a cantonese speaker who immigrated from...Belize. But I guess you are right...over a few hundred years and many intermediate destinations they did eventually come from Guangzhou/Hong Kong :)
anigbrowl 12y ago
There are a lot of other Chinese neighborhoods in SF besides Chinatown, though. There are a great many Chinese people in the Richmond district and also in the Sunset, which even has a small Uighir community). Chinese people make up a much larger share of the population in SF than in LA, IMHO. And there's a lot of other Asian enclaves around the Bay Area. OTOH there are a lot more Korean people in LA than in the Bay.
- chrischen 12y ago
  I'm fairly certain the rest of SF is also mainly Cantonese, with the exception of some Mainland foreign students.

Albert Brooks' novel 2030 is set in LA after a major earthquake, where China offers to rebuild LA in exchange for a half-ownership stake, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/books/albert-brookss-2030-his-first-novel-review.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/books/albert-brookss-2030-...

femto 12y ago
Interesting, because there is a group that actually proposed actually doing a smaller scale version of this in Sydney. http://www.smh.com.au/data-point/swap-you-chinese-skyscrapers-for-a-motorway-20130628-2p2qk.html http://www.smh.com.au/data-point/swap-you-chinese-skyscraper...
- walterbell 12y ago
  Brooks' (2011) book also predicted pervasive smartwatches. Not exactly great literature, but many predictions.

kyllo 12y ago

You may be right on both points, but the two are not necessarily related. Wealthy Chinese people (who the article is about) generally do not live in Chinatown because Chinatown is a ghetto. The wealthy ones tend to live in the suburbs. The demographic of Chinatown just doesn't tell you very much about the demographic of Chinese people in the SF bay area as a whole.

chrischen 12y ago
Even my mainland Chinese friends state that observation. I can't say for the suburbs, but even the rest of SF is mostly Cantonese.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago

Most mainlanders don't speak Cantonese, however. I remember back in the late 90s when Vancouver's Chinese community were mostly Cantonese speakers; that changed very quickly to mandarin after the HK handover.

maaku 12y ago
Re-read the OP; that's exactly what he was saying. A cantonese-speaking community outside of China generally means it traces its roots to pre-Communist takeover of the mainland, a time when most immigration came through the British controlled territories around Hong Kong. The OP is claiming that SF's chinatown is more Cantonese than Los Angeles, the implication being that the more Mandarin speaking Los Angeles community has closer ties to modern mainland China. Based on personal experience, I think that may have been true 20 years ago, but not so much today. At least outside of Chinatown proper, which I don't spend much time in.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  He said Chinatown, not SF Chinatown, I assumed he was referring to LA's Chinatown, which definitely exists. SF Chinatown is just a tourist trap these days. Many more Chinese live in the Richmond neighborhood and throughout the bay area. Also, many of the Cantonese speakers in the Bay Area (usually south bay) are actually from Vietnam (ethnic Chinese refuges who left during the Chinese/Vietnam war in the late 70s/early 80s). I assume that is quite similar to the situation in LA, but have no direct knowledge. There is pre-existing immigration from british areas, but they have mostly diffused throughout the country and are probably on their 4th or 5th generations by now. If you meet someone in the states who speaks Cantonese, they are more likely to descend from Vietnam, or somewhere else in Southeast Asia, rather than Hong Kong. Though I once met a cantonese speaker who immigrated from...Belize. But I guess you are right...over a few hundred years and many intermediate destinations they did eventually come from Guangzhou/Hong Kong :)

anigbrowl 12y ago

There are a lot of other Chinese neighborhoods in SF besides Chinatown, though. There are a great many Chinese people in the Richmond district and also in the Sunset, which even has a small Uighir community). Chinese people make up a much larger share of the population in SF than in LA, IMHO. And there's a lot of other Asian enclaves around the Bay Area. OTOH there are a lot more Korean people in LA than in the Bay.

chrischen 12y ago
I'm fairly certain the rest of SF is also mainly Cantonese, with the exception of some Mainland foreign students.