What makes SF Chinatown so unique? | Chinatown San Francisco

Hey there everyone, my name is Eduardo Arroyo, but you can call me Ed, and today I am here in China. Okay, it's not China, it's Chinatown, and nope, this is not it. If I turn a little bit, that's the Dragon's Gate, that's the main entrance to Chinatown here in San Francisco. Right now I'm just trying to get away from all the cars, from all the noise. I don't think I'm going to be able to, but we can try. I thought today would be a great day to come to Chinatown, to tell you guys a little bit, a tiny bit about the story so you guys can learn more about it, and also just explore and see what they have. There's a lot of things to see and to do, so if you're interested, come with me. We're going to start this video with a few cool facts and a bit of history about this place. For example, did you guys know that this is the oldest Chinatown in North America? I didn't know this, but when I did research about this video, I was like, what? That is crazy cool. Not only that, but San Francisco's Chinatown is one of the places with the largest concentration of Chinese people outside of China. It is a place where people continue to share their customs, languages, places of worship, and their identity. The history of this place can be traced back to almost the beginnings of the city of San Francisco, so you can say that both of their histories go hand in hand. From the 1850s to the 1900s, there was a lot of immigration coming from the lower parts of China. These were people who were looking for a better life for themselves and for their families, and San Francisco's Chinatown was their main point of entry. Chinese immigrants worked at large companies that were seeking cheap labor. First, they worked at the railroad, and later on, hoped to become rich during the gold rush. I was telling my friends about it, and I told one of them he's Chinese. I asked him about it, like if he knew anything, and he told me that the word in Chinese for San Francisco means gold mountain. I don't know how truthful this is. I don't know if he was trying to play a joke on me or something, but you can let me know in the comments below. By the way, if you keep hearing loud sounds that sound like freaking gunshots, those are not gunshots. It's just kids with firecrackers. They sell some tiny firecrackers that you throw them on the floor and they kind of make a loud noise. It's kind of annoying, but you'll be hearing that throughout the video. Slowly but surely, the community has been growing, and right now, I think it's considered among the top three Chinatowns in the U.S. as in population, and it's only behind Los Angeles and New York. Coming to Chinatown is definitely a great experience. I would recommend it because this place has a whole different vibe from many other places that you could go in the city. As soon as you walk in through those gates, you feel like you're in a different country, and the best part of it, there's no passport needed. Throughout Chinatown, you can find produce stores just like this one. You can find them just a few blocks away from each other, and they all sell fresh fruits and vegetables. You can find things way cheaper than you would in normal grocery stores. Here in San Francisco, it would be Trader Joe's, Target, or Safeway. I'm going to go ahead and take a look right now to see what I can find. In this store, they don't just sell produce. They sell also chicken, and they also have frozen fish. I don't know what these things are, but they look like dried vegetables to me. There's like pecans right here. I don't know what these are. As you can see, there's a variety of different fruits. Some of them, I know what they are. These are oranges. These are apples. But some, when you come here, I think I've heard about this fruit right here. I don't know what it's called, but I think it smells terrible, and that it's really hard to open. If anyone knows what these are called, put it in the comments. There's shrimp right there. I guess these are noodles. I don't know what these things are right here. Is this seaweed? I think this is seaweed. And there's a lot of different dried vegetables, I would say. Even when checking out the signs, you wouldn't know because it's in Chinese, too. There's also a lot of different sauces. There's different soy sauces. They really like their soy sauces. It's definitely really interesting to see all these different foods that you don't usually see. I wish I knew what some of these things were so that I could explain to you guys, but I've never seen them in my life. All right, I'm just going to head out. It's going to be hard because there's a lot of people blocking the way, but let's see what I can do to escape. Have to go the other way. And we're outside now. It was really hard to get out, but we made it. One of the things that I forgot to mention is that whenever you come to these places, you have to be aware that you need cash because they don't accept credit cards. So make sure whenever you come to San Francisco and Chinatown to bring a few bucks so that you can buy whatever that you might think is interesting or weird or tasty. It's definitely worth it. A funny anecdote that happened to me last year. I came to one of these shops, a produce shop, and I gave the guy three bucks and the guy checked my money. He literally went one by one and checked that they were real. I was like, I can't understand that. It's their business and they have to make sure that it's not fake so that they don't lose money. But honestly, when that happened, I kind of felt insulted. I was like, no, I would never do that. All right, let's go to the next shop. Another type of shop that you can find in Chinatown are these sort of like snack stores where you can find regular snacks, but you can also find more traditional items. I've seen a dry squid, dry shrimp, and many other things that you wouldn't be used to seeing regularly. So as you can see, we can find a lot of like very traditional snacks. We can find normal things that you would find in normal stores, such as oil. Like that one, I think I've seen it in Target. But you can find a lot of really cool things if you have time to come and explore. These are more snacks. These are more traditional. I've never seen anything like this, but I'm sure some of them would be good. It's just a matter of trying them. More things that you would find in like Target or any other normal grocery store. There's this, there's jam, there's ketchup, there's tea. And over here is me. Who is this person? So what I've seen here is that they have like a lot of the same thing. So a lot of the same thing, but different varieties, if that makes sense. So they have noodles, they have tea, they have oil, they have different dried meats and different dried seafood. At least that's what I've seen so far. I was planning on buying these, but it's so expensive. Oh my God. I don't think I'm going to buy anything. Thank you. Bye bye. I actually bought some of this. Just a dollar's worth. So that's it for this store right here. There's another store that we have to go to, but we're done with this one. The shrimps are really good. Let's go. One last type of store that I wanted to cover are the stores that they sell like cheap clothes such as hoodies, jackets, shirts, and just general souvenirs. As you can see, there's one in back of me. I don't think they'll let me record. They're pretty strict about that. So I'm just going to stay here for this one. Anyways, whenever you come here, you won't have to worry about finding one of these because you can literally find one on every corner of this place. Another thing to note is that they're like copies of each other. You can find the exact same thing on each of these stores. I don't know if, again, they share the same supplier, but I think that's the case. And of course, all the souvenirs that you buy, they got to have either California, San Francisco, or Alcatraz on them. It's like a mini flea market. You have cheap socks, cheap whatever this is. This is like a loafer. And like I told you, they have hoodies, jackets. They have scarves right there. I've seen this in three other stores. Baseballs. You also have chopsticks. So these are for professionals like me, and these are for people like this guy. They're for kids. Last year, last summer that I came here, I bought this for my brother, and it was like 20-something. Here's 16. Dang, they got me. They got me last time. Hey, Manuel, are you going to buy one of these for when you go back to Italy? Imagine they see you, like you come out of the airport, and you're in this one right here. Yeah, and they would look at me like that. Like, Manuel, why? And we're out. I said that I wasn't going to go in, but my friend kind of told me to just do it, so I did it. Like Nike. Not a sponsor. So I was recording a little bit about the shops right now, and two girls approached me, and they asked me if I was a YouTuber, and I was like, uh, I guess so. And they asked me to take a picture with them. They were really sweet. If you're seeing this video, please comment, and I'll give you a like. So we're not on our way to the restaurant as I wanted. My friend decided to stop and get a snack at this bakery right here. He says that they sell really cheap bread, and that it's really good, so I want to try it. We'll see how it goes. He got me some Chinese bread. Let's see how it tastes. I don't even remember the name of this, but hopefully it's good. I'm afraid that I'm eating so much that I'm not going to eat anything for dinner. But I mean, if I don't, it's still worth it. This is amazing. My friend is still there. He hasn't decided. I told him to just grab whatever, because honestly, we don't even know what any of this is. Shout out to this place. Really cheap bread, and really good too. What is this, Emanuele? It should be a BBQ pork bun. BBQ pork bun. Come on, Emanuele. Take a big old bite. Big old bite. How is it? Good? 2 out of 10, or 2 out of 2? I'd say 8 out of 10. 8 out of 10. That's still a good score. So cool. Radical. The next thing that I want to do is find a place to eat. I haven't eaten anything since 12, and it's about to be 6, so I'm really hungry. I hope that we find a good restaurant. I know there's a lot of different ones here. Some of them serve very authentic food, while others serve more Americanized versions of it, but it's still good. I wouldn't mind finding something that will be there. The quest to find a good restaurant begins. Let's see what we can find. We're going to get some food. Alright, you guys. Honestly, I was looking for a cool slash interesting slash famous place to eat, but honestly, I'm about to eat my camera, so we decided to just come to the next restaurant that we saw, and this was it. So we're eating at this place, and it looks good. I'm having the seafood fried rice. We're still waiting. There's nothing here. Why? All done. I'm eating my cookie. I really like my fortune. Alright, you guys. We're done eating. It was really good. Right now, I'm just going to go look for dessert and go chill out for a bit. The quest to find a restaurant is done. The quest to find Boba begins. I thought the quest to find Boba was going to be long, but we literally turned on the street, and we found a place. That's the place. Which one should I have? They all look good. I just got my tea, guys. I'm really happy. Look at that beauty. And of course, mmm, so good. And what a better way to end our day exploring Chinatown than here at Portsmouth Square. I can't say that word. This is a place where people come to chill out. Some people just lay on the benches. There's old men playing chess. And there's a lot of things to see here. There's a park for the kids to use. It's a really relaxing place in general. Right now, there's some event going on. I don't know what this is. They're telling people to come by and to join them. I don't know what the heck is going on. It looks like a cult to me, so I'm not going to get close. Anyways, guys, that's all from me today. Remember to be kind, have an open mind. We'll see you next time.