Asian San Diego

Among San Diego’s many museums, the one devoted to San Diego Chinese history is easy to overlook. That’s a shame, I discovered, when I finally got around to a visit there. Opened in 1996, the museum sits at the heart of the city’s Asian Pacific Historic District (so designated in 1987). By San Francisco or even LA standards, this is not much of a Chinatown. But there’s a reason why. Although the Chinese who immigrated to San Diego in the second half of the 1800s were forced to live on and around lower Third Street downtown, their numbers never exceeded 1000 or so.  When the laws and prejudices that had prevented them from living outside the Gaslamp Area were dismantled after World War II, they assimilated into neighborhoods throughout the city. Kearny Mesa in particular has become a stronghold for Asian restaurants and other commercial enterprises in recent decades. But while that has taken place,  the old downtown quarters have slowly gained recognition for their historic roots. There’s more to come, according to the guide who led the Saturday morning walking tour that I joined.  According to him, the City of San Diego has already committed to adding more Asian street lamps on Third Street, as well as 8-foot-tall stone lions and a gate, to be installed at Third and Market.

On the tour, some of the information sounded suspiciously inaccurate to me. But I enjoyed the museum. In the Chinese Mission Building on the southeast corner of Third and J, beautifully constructed diaramas of the old historical fishing village and the Wild Western Chinatown charmed me, as did the detailed display about the Chinese laundries that once proliferated here. There’s also a sweet little garden out in back, complete with a limestone Buddha head which a plaque proclaims to have been carved in a cave in the Shanxi Province some 1500 years ago. It was a little weird to hear the Mexican radio station playing in the kitchen of Candelas, the excellent Mexican restaurant that adjoins the Chinese Museum.  In fact, it’s a little weird (or sad) that the Asian District includes not a single Chinese restaurant. It does have a museum annex (across from the Mission Building) that houses rotating exhibitions.

The museum is open from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and noon to 4 on Sundays.  Admission is just $2. This weekend promises to offer even more diversions.  It’s the 28th annual San Diego Chinese New Year fair (this year celebrating the Year of the Tiger). For details on the two days of Chinese acrobats, lion and dragon dancers, Chinese folk dance and music, and more, see http://2010.sdcny.org.