Love Letters to Chinatown Winners

Thank you to everyone who submitted their Love Letters to Chinatown and to Wing on Wo & Co. and the W.O.W. Project for collaborating with us for this book giveaway. We were moved by the letters, illustrations and collages.

We selected our three submissions below to receive a free copy of our book and included a few more of heartfelt messages to Chinatowns in New York and San Francisco in a slideshow below.

Feeling inspired? Share your love for Chinatowns by submitting to the ongoing Love Letters to Chinatown project.

Book Giveaway Winners

Sophia Chong — Union City, NJ

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Susan Liu — New York, NY

Dear Mott Gaai,

Thank you for welcoming this third-generation Chinese American to your street. My dad grew up here, and though I was raised outside New York, you are the foundation of my Chinatown memories. My best memories from visiting during the holidays are the Chinese New Year celebrations. When gunpowder firecrackers were still allowed, I loved hearing the popping, the sizzling, and the crackling, and I loved catching sight of tumbling sparks between crowds of people and above high flying lion dance teams. But the bit that cuts through it all is the waft of gunpowder through the air. That smell of gunpowder signals to me New Year celebrations, but more specifically, New York Chinese New Years, in Chinatown, on Mott Gaai.

Today’s celebrations make do without the live firecrackers, but the paper poppers packed in sawdust are still prolific, the new streamer crackers are a sight to behold, and the thumping drums and clanging cymbals provide an all-consuming soundtrack to the celebrations. Though I miss the full on accosting of gunpowder, I’m building new memories with my young children as their eyes light in wonder to the pop of streamers, and as I can see their listening ears turn corners searching for the next lion dance. We return every year as New Year’s dinners grow with married cousins and new grandchildren.

And we return between New Years for our everyday. We live closer now. And before, when passing under the blue and white latticing of the Manhattan Bridge on East Broadway signalled to my daughter a threshold into Chinatown, she is now building memories with new landmarks signalling that Chinatown is a part of her story, and not just a destination. “That’s where I had summer camp”. “Gong Gong buys me cha sui bao from there”. “Does that bakery sell the tiny cakes Pau Pau buys?” Chinatown is permeating her everyday, and Mott Gaai is the center of it all.

Thank you Mott Gaai for not turning me away. For welcoming me despite my broken language. For allowing me to introduce you to friends and family even though I am no expert of all you have to offer. And thank you for being the setting of my New Year’s memories - past, present, and future. You underpin my families’ stories told around banquet tables as we relive the past and welcome the future.

With Love,

Susan

Jennifer Louie — New York, NY