Social Security Administration / Mercer st. & Grand st. NYC / called SSA Chinatown
社會安全局 (SSA in Chinese)
Last Thursday, I visited the social security administration office on Soho (Mercer st. & Grand st.). I surprised that Chinese instructions were everywhere and all agents at the office were Chinese, except just one security guard. Some of them might be an US citizens, but I mean, looked link Chinese and used Chinese. There were almost 90% of Chinese waiting and it seemed like the official language in the place was Chinese. According to the initial research on the Chinatown, the building wasn't inside of the boundary of Chinatown. Furthermore, I got a waiting number on a piece of paper and it read, "social security Chinatown office". I was just impressed the (officially) expanding of Chinatown and Chinese.
I found that there is the Museum of Chinese in America and it has a Saturday Walking tour. I participated the tour with Greg and Hyeki, and here are some pictures. It took about an hour focused on the history of the Chinatown while seeing today's streets. However, it never covered full part of the Chinatown, less than 10% of the domain. And, IT is still expanding.
There is a large Chinatown in Flushing and we thought it is a satellite of Manhattan Chinatown. But, an ITP Taiwanese friend of mine said it is mostly a Taiwanese town not a mainland Chinese. About this, Greg wrote a thought on his blog.
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