First of all, the title of this post is in reference to a YouTube video was posted from a UCLA student just after the tsunami/earthquake in Japan, highlighting this students lack of foreign appreciation. Look it up. (After all, her mocking is more stereotypical Chinese than Japanese anyway, making it relevant to this post.)
We started our last day in LA on the Metrolink train into LA Union Station to spend a couple hours in Chinatown, then take the Dodger Stadium Express bus to see the pinnacle of our trip: Dodgers vs Giants.
Again, I’ll start with my curiosity towards the street logos. Chinatown’s is (of course) a dragon symbol. Typical. It makes it pretty obvious to know where you are though, so I guess that’s the point.
Chinatown was a blend between the fashion district, and being in another country. I really felt like a foreigner there. The shops were typical street boutiques and street vendors with an occasional mall-ish area and a swap meet-style open air market. We made several purchases, had lunch, observed a few hallucinating homeless people shouting at the world, then headed back towards Union Station.
So how was it? It’s China (as far as I know it) in a few block radius. I was hesitant to use US Dollars, had a hard time communicating sometimes, but overall had a good experience.
Between here, the Fashion District, and a swap meet to contrast with my trip to Disneyland, I’ve seen a good variety of LA consumer culture. The downtown markets show consumerism in the raw – I have something you want, so you need to give me money for it. It’s a refreshing contrast to modern large-scale marketing techniques and gave me perspective for them, made me think about why they’re there, and how they fit into today’s markets.
Tags: china town, hipstamatic, Los Angeles, Travel