A walk through Chinatown recently became part of my commute and I've noticed a real buzz about the place that seemed to have been lost only a few years back, when the late night haunts of my younger days were no longer doing business.
It inspired a visit to eat out last Sunday lunchtime and people were literally queuing out of the door at four or five places.
We ate in what was probably a pretty bog standard dum sum place, but the atmosphere was electric. It felt like we were stepping into an entirely different culture for a couple of hours and we should be proud that can happen in Manchester city centre.
Chinatown's still rough at the edges but I sense a place that's attracting renewed interest - and may even be in the ascendancy again - rather than facing further decline.
Great piece Jack but I suspect happenings in Circle Square are going to have little impact in Chinatown.
I guess Gerry Yeung knows more than most about the ups & downs of the restaurant trade. The great Jonathan Meades, in his days as restaurant critic of the Times (the best there has ever been, in my view) declared his & brother Harry’s restaurant to be not only the best Chinese in Britain, but one of the best restaurants in Britain, of all cuisines.
I confess I haven’t visited Hello yet, but I’ve had lunch in Happy Seasons twice this week, & queued both times. It is my Desert Island luxury, so to speak. Jack is right to rally interest in Chinatown, in the interests of survival.
To retain the special atmosphere of this place, it seems important to allow its random self determination. I’m hoping the mere existence of Hello in god-awful Circle Square (it is the only reason to go there that I can see) is enough to keep Faulkner Street & George Street on the slippery, scusy, shouty side of the just about acceptable inhospitable, rude, over-lit, paper table-clothed, plastic soup-spoon side of utter delight.
Chinatown feels a lot younger now than it did in the eighties. The kids are better dressed & the smartphones are getting back to the size of bricks. I used to think the central car park should be greened & that the good luck bridge was a bit of a mess. Now, I think that the whole chaos is Chinatown’s main asset. And the roast duck in Happy Seasons is the best you will ever eat.
Chinatown in Manchester was occupied by immigrants before then, it was from 1912 when they wanted an alternative to Liverpool and a pre-war textile boom in Manchester prompted strengthening links with China. Then in the 1940s larger numbers arrived. 1948: the first Chinese restaurant, the Ping Hong on Mosley Street, opened. Textile warehouses began to shut down and the restaurants took them over
Oriental Express is just the latest in what Doreen Massey termed 'multiple becomings', which actually started with CFCCA in the 80s and whilst I can't track down in the archives proof of this it feels to me like this move was just MCC using immigrants as property/neighbourhood guardians as at the time of their move to the NQ no one wanted to be in that area - it was partially derelict thanks to the arndale, just like chinatown itself had been until we located chinese immigrants there to save it. When no one wanted to live along Princess or Whitworth Street the council began spreading the immigrants there to the site where you can see the metalwork koi and cranes, Princess Court which opened in 93, this was and is retirement homes for the Chinese. The same era we were building for immigrants we were building social housing, with the only city centre residents at this time being the Chinese and the poor (and one private development by castlefield). We accommodated them when it suited us, and now (in the case of the social housing) we privatise them as luxury short term lets. The temple, the women's centre, all social infrastructure displacement that has led to issues in Chinatown began in earnest few decades ago, Oriental Express is by no means the first displaced business.
A big player in how Chinatown is stagnating can be attributed to having no studios, creative industries, workspace or opportunities that are attractive to the young Chinese students who come here in making them stay. Remember once the uni course was done the Chinese student who was in such a hurry to leave he left his brand new 4x4 in the car parks of VITA. Manchester is a city of Chinese investment, but why stay here when there's no opportunities outside of studies and becoming landlords remotely? And Chinatown was great for the city when no one else wanted to live here - but as the oldest unchanged part of the city the community were only allowed (a select few) dual language street signs as late as 2019 as it had previously been argued that this would somehow degrade the architectural history of the area - this, in my opinion, is entirely racist and I'm surprised Chinatown residents have stayed as long as they have.
Chinatown can adapt in a few ways besides just providing workspaces, it can make the 'chinese garden' into a garden not a car park and local businesses can provide car park spaces if they agree upon it via the BID equivalent in the area (the car park was to help the supermarkets here succeed but with these multiple becomings the large supermarkets that people are driving to are no longer here but on Upper Brook Street and in East Manchester). The seating there is constantly vilianised as a place where deliveroo drivers sit and smoke weed - another instance of making sitting down seem somehow anti social, attitudes need to change to this within the council. But to strengthen the area as a village they should look to forming a cultural improvement district with the other village being decimated by developers across portland street - in birmingham a CID for chinatown and their gay village was very successful. This would also be welcomed by the LGBT members of Chinatown who, when I spoke to them, hugely welcomed this as they feel very unseen. We are reliant on our Chinese community to care for the city, this shouldn't be the case, but we still can't even provide for them - in the 40s there was a centre in the area for white people to come and learn from them - why don't we have this now? When events are put on to try to speak to the community we put on food and drink that white people want, these details matter - we're not getting even the smallest detail right in integrating and it's been 110 years.
In lockdown Chinese restaurants weren't allowed to adapt like other restaurants were because of a clause that prevents sponsored chefs from working in kitchens that provide takeaways. I assume this has been lifted now but the change, if its happened at all, was slower than changes we made for white-operated restaurants.
Racism is at play here, not in the ways that are obvious but it runs throughout the whole history of Manchester's chinatown.
A walk through Chinatown recently became part of my commute and I've noticed a real buzz about the place that seemed to have been lost only a few years back, when the late night haunts of my younger days were no longer doing business.
It inspired a visit to eat out last Sunday lunchtime and people were literally queuing out of the door at four or five places.
We ate in what was probably a pretty bog standard dum sum place, but the atmosphere was electric. It felt like we were stepping into an entirely different culture for a couple of hours and we should be proud that can happen in Manchester city centre.
Chinatown's still rough at the edges but I sense a place that's attracting renewed interest - and may even be in the ascendancy again - rather than facing further decline.
Great piece Jack but I suspect happenings in Circle Square are going to have little impact in Chinatown.
Interesting, and great to hear
I guess Gerry Yeung knows more than most about the ups & downs of the restaurant trade. The great Jonathan Meades, in his days as restaurant critic of the Times (the best there has ever been, in my view) declared his & brother Harry’s restaurant to be not only the best Chinese in Britain, but one of the best restaurants in Britain, of all cuisines.
I confess I haven’t visited Hello yet, but I’ve had lunch in Happy Seasons twice this week, & queued both times. It is my Desert Island luxury, so to speak. Jack is right to rally interest in Chinatown, in the interests of survival.
To retain the special atmosphere of this place, it seems important to allow its random self determination. I’m hoping the mere existence of Hello in god-awful Circle Square (it is the only reason to go there that I can see) is enough to keep Faulkner Street & George Street on the slippery, scusy, shouty side of the just about acceptable inhospitable, rude, over-lit, paper table-clothed, plastic soup-spoon side of utter delight.
Chinatown feels a lot younger now than it did in the eighties. The kids are better dressed & the smartphones are getting back to the size of bricks. I used to think the central car park should be greened & that the good luck bridge was a bit of a mess. Now, I think that the whole chaos is Chinatown’s main asset. And the roast duck in Happy Seasons is the best you will ever eat.
Haha, hadn't thought of that. Mobile phones regressing to 90s sizes.
Enjoyed reading this Jack. I remember Chinatown from my student days. It always made me think of the Chinese quarter of my hometown Amsterdam.
Chinatown in Manchester was occupied by immigrants before then, it was from 1912 when they wanted an alternative to Liverpool and a pre-war textile boom in Manchester prompted strengthening links with China. Then in the 1940s larger numbers arrived. 1948: the first Chinese restaurant, the Ping Hong on Mosley Street, opened. Textile warehouses began to shut down and the restaurants took them over
Oriental Express is just the latest in what Doreen Massey termed 'multiple becomings', which actually started with CFCCA in the 80s and whilst I can't track down in the archives proof of this it feels to me like this move was just MCC using immigrants as property/neighbourhood guardians as at the time of their move to the NQ no one wanted to be in that area - it was partially derelict thanks to the arndale, just like chinatown itself had been until we located chinese immigrants there to save it. When no one wanted to live along Princess or Whitworth Street the council began spreading the immigrants there to the site where you can see the metalwork koi and cranes, Princess Court which opened in 93, this was and is retirement homes for the Chinese. The same era we were building for immigrants we were building social housing, with the only city centre residents at this time being the Chinese and the poor (and one private development by castlefield). We accommodated them when it suited us, and now (in the case of the social housing) we privatise them as luxury short term lets. The temple, the women's centre, all social infrastructure displacement that has led to issues in Chinatown began in earnest few decades ago, Oriental Express is by no means the first displaced business.
A big player in how Chinatown is stagnating can be attributed to having no studios, creative industries, workspace or opportunities that are attractive to the young Chinese students who come here in making them stay. Remember once the uni course was done the Chinese student who was in such a hurry to leave he left his brand new 4x4 in the car parks of VITA. Manchester is a city of Chinese investment, but why stay here when there's no opportunities outside of studies and becoming landlords remotely? And Chinatown was great for the city when no one else wanted to live here - but as the oldest unchanged part of the city the community were only allowed (a select few) dual language street signs as late as 2019 as it had previously been argued that this would somehow degrade the architectural history of the area - this, in my opinion, is entirely racist and I'm surprised Chinatown residents have stayed as long as they have.
Chinatown can adapt in a few ways besides just providing workspaces, it can make the 'chinese garden' into a garden not a car park and local businesses can provide car park spaces if they agree upon it via the BID equivalent in the area (the car park was to help the supermarkets here succeed but with these multiple becomings the large supermarkets that people are driving to are no longer here but on Upper Brook Street and in East Manchester). The seating there is constantly vilianised as a place where deliveroo drivers sit and smoke weed - another instance of making sitting down seem somehow anti social, attitudes need to change to this within the council. But to strengthen the area as a village they should look to forming a cultural improvement district with the other village being decimated by developers across portland street - in birmingham a CID for chinatown and their gay village was very successful. This would also be welcomed by the LGBT members of Chinatown who, when I spoke to them, hugely welcomed this as they feel very unseen. We are reliant on our Chinese community to care for the city, this shouldn't be the case, but we still can't even provide for them - in the 40s there was a centre in the area for white people to come and learn from them - why don't we have this now? When events are put on to try to speak to the community we put on food and drink that white people want, these details matter - we're not getting even the smallest detail right in integrating and it's been 110 years.
In lockdown Chinese restaurants weren't allowed to adapt like other restaurants were because of a clause that prevents sponsored chefs from working in kitchens that provide takeaways. I assume this has been lifted now but the change, if its happened at all, was slower than changes we made for white-operated restaurants.
Racism is at play here, not in the ways that are obvious but it runs throughout the whole history of Manchester's chinatown.