Chinatown Red / 2022-2024

An old lady in a red hat, bent over, pushes her cart. Two men loudly argue at the bus stop. Florists load funeral wreaths into a truck. During my walks through Chinatown, I remember the contents of each storefront and the schedule of every store, learned which intersection to find the best afternoon light, and where to buy the best mandarins. But all this time I am never noticed.

This time again, people pass through the streets without seeing me, and I become invisible in Chinatown once more. This city-in-the-city lives brightly and entirely independently from San Francisco. Its inhabitants speak a different language, buy live fish, play strange instruments, hang red lanterns over the streets, and completely ignore outsiders. I’m left to observe and record what’s happening. Laundry hangs in windows, people smoke in dark corridors. Some of this life should be inaccessible to me. I open a random door and take a step in; the men inside put on their masks and wave their hands at me: “go away.” Outside, among faded t-shirts and red paper dragons, I see a black self-driving taxi, and then I remember that I’m still in San Francisco.