Many residents of new York feel at home in Chinatown and its famous streets: East Broadway, Mulberry, Canal, Orchard and others.
But the majority of Chinese immigrants live here, do not use these names. They come up with their own. The journalist of This American Life, Aaron Reiss, collects such names.
When Reiss moved to new York after two years spent in China, he decided to stay in touch with their favorite country and settled on Rutgers Street in Chinatown, where a lot of elderly Chinese immigrants, almost non-English speakers. One evening, when Reuss was talking to my neighbor, he had no idea where she was, because she didn’t say «Rutgers Street» and «La Zha Gai» which means «Dirty» or «Garbage street».
After a confusing conversation, Aaron learned that for each street the Chinese immigrants may be four or five different names, depending on the dialect of the Chinese language. And later, Reuss found a woman whose job is to know all of them.
Mona is a Manager in the taxi service, which is called Good Luck. «They can’t pronounce the name of Rutgers Street, but La Zha Gai them easy to remember,» said the woman.
In the office of the Chinese company Good Luck on duty a few dispatchers who direct cars and help residents who speak Chinese, to get to the right place.
«When I heard about the street of the Dead, I know I need to send the car on Mulberry Street (the street where is located the funeral home and floral stores),» says Mona. «If a customer says about the street Seller of Hats, so he should be on Division Street.
But some Chinese names remain a mystery. For example, the Kosciuszko bridge , many immigrants called the «Japanese Bridge» guy, although Tadeusz Kosciuszko was Polish.
