👋 Hi! The T!C team here to recap on our favorite moments from this year's Chinatown Arts Festival! - - - - - - 🌱 T!C’s Chinatown Arts Fest kicked off with a concert at the Elizabeth Street Garden (@elizabethstreetgarden) on a perfect, warm early autumn evening. In this green oasis nestled among centuries-old tenements, old and new friends enjoyed a fantastic string performance from Interwoven (@interwovenmusic), an intercultural ensemble integrating traditional Asian and western classical music, and Cantonese Opera arias presented by MeeMee Chin and her friends, which included a saxophonist, & dulcimer and erhu players. I love how T!C’s Chinatown Arts Week brought our neighbors closer. I met Howard who brought his octogenarian mom down from her apartment on Mott St so she wouldn’t be cooped up indoors all the time and could enjoy the garden and live music – especially Chinese opera songs that are so familiar to her. In talking to ‘mom’, I found that we shared a family history in Chinese laundries in the Bronx. As we talked, a young woman nearby started to chime in with the Hoisanese dialect we spoke. We admitted that we were sometimes embarrassed by our ‘native’ dialect that was spoken by virtually all the early residents of Chinatown, but that night, in the garden together we reveled in our newfound connectedness. Another example of the power of the arts to bring people together. 🎻 — Amy Chin, T!C's Board President 🫡 📸 1: Yin Kong 📸 2: Alan Chan 📸 3 & 4: @elizabethstreetgarden #thinkchinatown #chinatownnyc #chinatownartsfestival #culturalevents #cantoneseopera