ABSTRACT
London’s Chinatown is the ‘public’ face of London’s Chinese population but also a private, or ‘community’ space in which Chinese people can build and maintain connections with other Chinese in London and elsewhere. At the heart of the city, it has become an important emblem in the branding of London as a multicultural city (Donald et al. 2009). The restaurants, shops, bi-lingual signs, and Chinese-style gates and pagoda are its most visible face, but many aspects remain hidden to the casual visitor. The ‘Chinese face’ which it presents hides a multitude of different interests, roles, and functions. It is a meeting place, a place to eat and shop, a source of employment, the home of community organizations, and often the first port of call for new migrants to the city. In Chinatown Chinese people may also seek a familiar ‘Chinese’ environment, a refuge from “permanent racial visibility” (Ang 1998: 3). Chinatown means different things to different groups of Chinese people: for the newly arrived it may be crucial to their survival while for those who are already settled it may just be a place to socialize occasionally. Many individuals and organizations—both Chinese and non-Chinese—have a stake in Chinatown and their interests may be both conflicting and complementary in different circumstances. Community organizations, for example, both compete for space with businesses and are dependent on them for financial support (Sales et al. 2009).
