Gold Mountain

Yesterday we kicked off the day bright and early and made a swift entrance into San Francisco also known as Gold Mountain. We met up with our tour guide Rick Evans who also was the same guide from our trip last year so I knew we were in good hands. We moved from different locations in San Francisco's little China town getting a real deep and in depth understanding of the history of its becomings. Little china started off as just 12 blocks they felt restricted and had no rights, there were a fair share of entrepreneurs but on the other hand there were the ones who wanted to make a quick buck and resulted in selling opium and making money off of prostitutes, and gambling. All the Chinese wanted to do was to come over In search for gold but there late arrival led them into a life of infamy. As we walked through little china the history grew more vivid with each step we took. We learned about a man named Sun Yat-Sen who was the first president of his people and spread a democracy he took over china but fail to beat his communist rival commander Mao. This let to a split in the two groups, china being let by Mao and the democratic group being moved to Taiwan. Our tour guide Mr. Evan made this story very interesting and easy to understand, he spoke with a certain tone of voice that made you eager to hear what he had to say and that was very exciting. We walked passed an alley where Sun Yat-Sen office resided In and another tour group walked right passed it without talking about him Mr. Evans as well as myself found that really funny. That just made me feel more confident in him and made It for sure that he knew what he was talking about.

(photo cred. Google img.)

Later on in the tour he told us how a huge earthquake led to an even more vigorous fire to break out and destroyed all of little china town except the st Mary's cathedral which was only destroyed from the inside. Most say the church didn't fall because of the Bostonian bricks and others say god held it up. After the fire little china town was rebuilt as a tourist attraction with little original authenticity. When we first walked into little china town Mr. Evans pointed out that the first few stores weren't even owned by Chinese descent. San Francisco's little china town has a very straight forward and discrete History and there modern day structure needs work, but I believe over time they will cease the problem at hand and fix it for the better of the historical landmark that it should be.

(photo cred. google img.)

-Malik Lee