Alex Cheung walked out onto Chung King Road and stared at the lanterns and a tan-colored loudspeaker screwed to the wall across from his shop.
"We used to have Chinese music play on the street," he said. "It's very sad. They stopped it when the art galleries came. Their heart isn't in it like us."
*
If there's one place where a visitor can simultaneously witness Chinatown's demise and promise, it is Central Plaza.
The square offers ample postcard fodder with its neon-tinted gate off Broadway, stone wishing well, pagoda and curved tile roofs.
Storekeepers, many of them the owners of the buildings they work in, spend hours behind their counters, often selling not much more than soda and noisemakers.
Across the way, the street scene bursts with life.
There is Via Cafe, an always busy Vietnamese diner that's popular with artists; Ziyi Art in Fashion, a gift shop owned by a recent Miss Chinatown contestant; and Munky King, a devilishly decorated art-toy store that sells rare pieces by underground artists from Asia to America.
Roger Hong, who until last year owned the buildings those businesses are in, has spent much of his time pushing for new blood in Chinatown.
"We felt that the children who left Chinatown would come back if things were more trendy," Hong, 63, said over dim sum at Empress Pavilion. "Chinatown doesn't have to perpetuate an identity of being a self-protective enclave. They have to change."
Hong's family has deep roots in Chinatown. His father was famed immigration attorney You Chung Hong, the first Chinese American to pass the California bar exam. He became a pillar of the community when Central Plaza was opened in 1938.
"There's no need for Chinatowns anymore," Hong said. "It's not a place just for the underprivileged anymore."
Perhaps the most stylish store in Central Plaza is Realm, a home accessories business nothing like the neighboring trinket shops. The wares are trendy and often expensive. Some offer a modern twist on Asian culture, such as the cocktail glasses bearing Andy Warhol-like impressions of Japanese Emperor Hirohito.
Realm is the vision of Richard Liu, a Chinese American architect who sees the store as a metaphor for what Chinatown should become. He's part of the new generation of younger Chinese Americans who say they want to change Chinatown's image as a sleepy place where one can get cheap food and bargains on kitschy items such as back scratchers and silk robes.
