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   Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 08-Mar-2026 16:20:30 JST Adrianna Tan

   Sometimes I have FOMO about not living in LA (which has, I think better food in nearly every cuisine), but I follow the guy who’s in the news as ‘guy who’s eaten at more than 10 000 Chinese restaurants in America’ and he thinks at least Bay Area has way better dimsum. I think I agree

   However, Monterey Park / San Gabriel Valley is maybe the most exciting place for any East Asian food on this coast in this country (and Queens in NYC).

   Monterey Park and Queens account for pretty much all of recent Chinese immigration to this country

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 08-Mar-2026 16:39:02 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     I once read a very interesting book about the lives of Chinese restaurant owners in the U.S., and what stood out was an anecdote about how many people save all their lives to try to own their own restaurant or move somewhere cheaper outside of New York and California, but pretty end up being extremely depressed due to the severing of community

     I also really do think I would not have lasted in this country as long as I did if not for the fact that I moved to a place (the Bay Area) with a deeply entrenched and huge community of many people I have deep cultural ties to (the old school Cantonese people, the Vietnamese Chinese folks who came later, the Indonesian community, even my fellow annoying Singaporeans and Malaysians)

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 08-Mar-2026 16:41:56 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     Today I was at a huge dimsum restaurant in Oakland (maybe hundreds of people for lunch service) and I really enjoyed seeing the families who had known each other for decades greeting each other

     The dimsum spot even does a regular craft and crochet night organized by the younger generation

     And for me, going to places like that gives me an opportunity to just not speak English if I don’t want to

     It’s really important to me

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 08-Mar-2026 16:46:15 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     Sometimes I think the conversation about loneliness is interesting because

     While I personally derive a deep sense of community from these spaces and people

     It’s never really that.. deep? Like I dont have the expectation I want or need to be fully understood by anyone in that situation, just showing up is enough

     But then there’s also the aspect of ‘implicit acceptance due to performance of culture due to my linguistic ability’ that I think does most of the heavy lifting for me in this regard.

     If I think back to other places I’ve lived, I also don’t feel like I really sought any deeper connection, but I was probably part of more in-groups anyway in the way that much more communal societies can ‘automatically’ accept people who share some traits (while also excluding others)

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 08-Mar-2026 16:48:33 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     I wrote a thing a few years ago about queerness and Chinese-ness and being an immigrant to California and finding new manifestations of it in Oakland (at this exact dimsum restaurant I went to)

     https://popagandhi.com/posts/wives-and-lives/

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 08-Mar-2026 16:52:20 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     I’ve lived in big cities my whole life, and there’s something I really enjoy about just… being around a lot, often, around the same bunch of people you see very often. There’s a pastor / social worker who works with the homeless folks (one of the actually good ones), I know she runs a secular gathering every Thursday at a specific spot for anyone who just wants food and warmth. I say hi to every single immigrant restaurant owner in my neighborhood even if I don’t eat there or don’t like their food. I feel like people know me.

     And in many regards I feel perfectly happy with a small circle of very good friends, many of whom I’ve known for decades, who don’t necessarily live near me, plus a large network of diffuse relationships connected by geography and language

     At least that’s how I’ve made sense of my life here as an immigrant. It’s hard to make deep adult friendships in a place you didn’t grow up in

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 08-Mar-2026 16:59:43 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     It’s not even a strictly Chinese or race thing! I feel more connected to most immigrants of any background than to people who are not.

     The Yemeni shop uncle gives me snacks. The Thai cafe has the same flavors of desserts I like. My neighborhood is the only place where there are old women who yell my Chinese (not mandarin) name. No one anywhere else in the world knows it outside my family, but the specific spot I live in also has the highest proliferation of Vietnamese people who speak the same language I speak, the one my native name is in.

     I can’t stand the guy who owns the South Asian shop as I suspect he’s a fascist, but I go when his son is there and also when they have imported mangoes. Just knowing things and the relationship of people to things and place in any big city I have a relationship with, really brings me joy.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 08-Mar-2026 17:11:23 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Cavyherd

     @cavyherd 80% of the people I grew up with now, like me, live very far from where we grew up. I do think I was among an exceptionally globally mobile cohort, but when I went to live with a friend who was surrounded by people she had grown up with and lived by for decades, it felt like a different universe.

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     Cavyherd (cavyherd@wandering.shop)'s status on Sunday, 08-Mar-2026 17:11:24 JST Cavyherd

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte

     FWIW, it's hard to make deep adult friendships in a place you •did• grow up in. I live literally about two & a half miles from where I was born; have lived in this town all but six years of my life, & in my current neighborhood for 40 years—& I have maybe a half a dozen solid friends, two whom I'd call close, only one of whom is local, & they live in the next town over.

     So, yeah. strong adult friendships are hard.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 08-Mar-2026 17:26:14 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Cavyherd

     @cavyherd the oldest continuously running Chinese restaurant in the U.S. is in Butte, Montana

     They have an underground tunnel with casinos and all. Pretty cool. I don’t think I’ll like the food (looks very dated) but very cool

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     Cavyherd (cavyherd@wandering.shop)'s status on Sunday, 08-Mar-2026 17:26:15 JST Cavyherd

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte

     Tangiential topic to Chinese restaurants in the US: there are apparently (or were; don't know how much of a thing this still is) a string of family-owned Chinese restaurants sprinkled through the Rockies, which seems weirdly random until you realize they are a legacy of the immigrant labor used to construct the early railroads. I'd always thought that would be a wild road-trip, track those down & try out the ones that still exist.

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     Jon (freshstart@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 08-Mar-2026 23:26:01 JST Jon

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte curious to know about which group of people from Vietnam speak the same dialect as your family from Singapore. When I was in Hanoi there was a museum of all the ethic groups in Vietnam and there was an overwhelming number of small groups.

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 09-Mar-2026 02:24:01 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Jon

     @freshstart Teochew / chiu chow

     Most people from Ho Chi Minh speak it

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     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 09-Mar-2026 07:50:34 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • ChasMusic (he/him)

     @ChasMusic yep!

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     ChasMusic (he/him) (chasmusic@ohai.social)'s status on Monday, 09-Mar-2026 07:50:36 JST ChasMusic (he/him)

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte Touching article. Glad to know APIQWTC is still banqueting. ¿Are they still giving out the commemorative Chinese New Year coffee mugs with the cute animal illos?