The entrance to San Francisco's Chinatown, located at the southern end of Tuban Street on Bush Street.

The gate is covered with green tiles, several vivid dragons are very traditional, whether it is an archway or a sculpture, there is almost some old history behind it.

As the largest Chinese community in the United States, there are about 100,000 Chinese living here, and almost all of what they write and listen to is Chinese, which is very traditional Chinese and has not changed over time.

Some old people, born here since childhood, died here, even if they don't know English at all, it doesn't matter much.

Chen Linzhi is like a tourist, but he is still familiar with everything around him, and he has integrated his previous memories, just like he looks at old acquaintances, and he also has some tangled thoughts about this Chinatown neighborhood, and his reason tells him that he came here for the first time, but he has walked countless times in his memory, and even knows what shops are in the next block.

Seeing some English words that I shouldn't know, the specific meaning naturally comes to mind, and it is estimated that it will take a while to digest before I can dispel the sense of estrangement that accompanies rebirth.

San Francisco, also known as San Francisco, or San Francisco, is one of the largest and most bustling metropolises on the West Coast of the United States.

To the west is the Pacific Ocean, to the east is San Francisco Bay, and along Coastline Highway 1 to the south, you can reach Silicon Valley and Los Angeles.

Speaking of this large Chinese settlement, the history can be traced back to the late 19th century.

After the Qing Dynasty was bombarded with foreign guns and artillery, many coastal residents, like black Africans, were loaded into ships to cross the Pacific Ocean in the way of "selling piglets" and transported to California to build the Pacific Railway and pan for gold.

Chinese immigrants, blacks, poor whites, sailors, etc., were considered "second-class citizens" and were required to live in certain areas so that they could not travel elsewhere, and even a Chinese Exclusion Act was enacted to deny them access to public facilities such as schools and hospitals.

Denied equal work opportunities, land, business, and education, Chinese Americans are confined to the Chinese community, and make a living by running laundries, restaurants, grocery stores, and other low-level hard service industries.

These early Chinese had to operate in a small area centered on Duban Street, and later moved in new immigrants one after another, and now it has become the San Francisco Chinatown in front of Chen Linzhi's eyes.

By the eighties, things were slightly better.

Some people who are financially well-off and who are able to integrate into American society in terms of mindset and language have left Chinatown in large numbers.

There are also new immigrants from all over the world who really think of it as a good place to continue to add new blood to Chinatown, so the population has increased instead of decreasing, resulting in a very high population density compared to the rest of San Francisco.

How to say it.

There is a difference between this place and Chen Linzhi's imagination, accustomed to seeing the big cities of the 21st century, and now he feels that everywhere is messy, and the infrastructure is still old.

However, considering the background of the times, at least the same amount of effort and more money than many other places, a new wave of immigration is still going on vigorously.

Many people want to move, but they are restricted by the threshold, or rely on smuggling, or hide and work in the dark after the visa expires, and the immigration bureau can catch a group of people from time to time, one after another.

However, Chen Linzhi obviously didn't want to move, but became a Chinese-American by mistake, and returned to 1984, and his fate was so wonderful.

......

The girl named Zhao Bailu took the initiative to leave after Ah Liang went home and sent the taxi.

He said he was going to a training course to take next year's ACT, also known as the American college entrance exam.

Chen Linzhi didn't know what to say.

When people go all the way to the prison gate to pick them up, they should always say yes.

politely invited her to have lunch together, and after being dismissed, Chen Linzhi accompanied Zhao Bailu and sent the other party to take the bus.

There is an extra piece of clothing on his body, and the sweater that Ah Liang specially went home to get has not been washed, and there is a smell of smoke, and the size is small, so he can wear it improvised.

After walking for dozens of meters without speaking, Zhao Bailu noticed something strange and took the lead in asking him: "You seem to have changed as a person, not the same as a few months ago." ”

"Go in and squat for a few months, grow up and be sensible, what was I like before?" Chen Linzhi asked her rhetorically.

"I talk a lot, I love to be lively, and I seem to be more lively. ”

After Zhao Bailu finished speaking, she hurriedly added: "I think it's better for you to be like this now, don't be so impulsive in the future, my dad is a police detective, and he arrests many people every day, do you want to ...... Looking for a job?"

Chen Linzhi heard that this little girl was politely persuading herself to rein in the precipice, and she wanted to laugh a little about it.

After all, a person in his twenties was actually persuaded by a high school student girl to "be good", and this life can indeed be regarded as a failure.

It was the former him who failed, and he didn't feel ashamed at this time, Chen Linzhi said calmly: "With a criminal record, it's not easy to find a job, and it's impossible for me to go to school to get a diploma at my age, I haven't thought about what to do in the future for the time being, but don't worry, I won't give your father a chance to catch me." ”

It's impossible to work part-time, and it's too boring to send it to others for nothing.

If possible, Chen Linzhi would like to try to do some small business, but he knows the great changes in society and industry changes in the next 30 years, not to mention the rich and expensive, in his opinion, it should not be difficult to eat with a mouth, and he will not be reduced to the same high or low as before.

Hearing that it was not easy to find a job, Zhao Bailu subconsciously thought that he really wanted to find it, and instantly started the idea of helping as much as he could.

I didn't go far, and I waited for the train on the platform.

After sending her to the car, Chen Linzhi walked back along the same road.

With his hands in his pockets, his head thinking about chores.

For example, how to help the old man Wang, a fellow inmate, find the person he is looking for, or what to do if he eats and drinks in the future, his wallet is cleaner than his face, and he can probably only rely on rubbing food.

The smell of the roadside bun shop is coming, there are martial arts halls and Chinese medicine shops nearby, there are more traditional Chinese characters, Christmas decorations are everywhere, and red lanterns are hung at the door of the store.

All kinds of cultures converge here, and there are no white or black people to be seen on the road, and almost all of them are Asian, including Japanese, Korean, and Southeast Asian, mainly Chinese.

New culture, new life.

Friends and relatives, Chen Linzhi couldn't be happy when he thought of saying goodbye to him completely, he dozed off lazily, met with Yin Yu and A Liang, went to a small restaurant with an average home environment, and ordered four dishes and one soup, plus a bottle of liquor.

Fenjiu, the degree is quite high, and the entrance is spicy from the throat to the stomach.

Ah Liang was eating fried pork liver at the moment, leaned forward, pointed at a couple sitting at the door with chopsticks, and whispered:

"That's my new neighbor, who just came from the mainland, originally only hung up more than 40,000 US dollars, and the real estate agent was dark enough to help the landlord pit nearly 20,000 yuan from them.

If the old house can be sold, my mother wants to buy a small house with grass at the door, preferably with two floors, for marriage when the time comes. ”

Chen Linzhi has an understanding of the price level and housing prices in this era.

For example, in this Chinatown, office workers with stable jobs can earn five or six thousand dollars a year.

Like Yin Yu's mother, who used to work as a waitress in a hotel, has no skills at work, and can earn more than $4,000 a year by getting up early and working late at night, and it is normal for her income to double her income as a nanny in a villa in Pacific Heights, which is the richest neighborhood in San Francisco, where the rich are gathered.

San Francisco, with an average annual salary of more than $10,000, is one of the wealthiest cities on the West Coast, where whites generally earn more than blacks and Asians, and the worst of all are smugglers who work in black labor, whose income may be only one-third or one-quarter of that of locals.

Some black bosses let them work for a year or two, during which they will not be paid, and after they earn enough to report it, they will all be caught and repatriated, and they do not even have to pay their salaries, which is a relatively common phenomenon.

Even so, there is still a steady stream of people coming and going, because the money earned in this developed country is indeed valuable as long as it can be saved and saved and taken to other developing countries.

If you fight hard, you can fight for twenty or thirty years, at least from the current point of view, and it is no wonder that a large number of legal and illegal immigrants have emerged.

Wait for Ah Liang to finish.

Yin sneered:

"There have been so many immigrants in recent years, and my family's utility room is rented out to the outside world, and the rent is 80 US dollars per month. Only new immigrants who don't know the market will be slaughtered, even if they are diligent and find a few more intermediaries, they will not be cheated for so much money. ”

"Maybe I sold the courtyard house under the root of Yanjing Imperial City and came here with money. ”

Chen Linzhi said with a smile.

This is a big joke, but neither Yin Yu nor Ah Liang can understand where the joke is, and they will be able to understand it after 20 years.

Don't think that compatriots will be taken care of, in fact, in this Chinatown, the most common group of people are new immigrants, rents will be raised, house prices will be raised, and even when you go to the stalls to buy things, the stall owners are used to quoting according to their accents.

Of course, at present, the wealthy people in Hong Kong City and other places, who have more money and immigrate to San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and other places, will not choose to buy a house in the Chinatown area, but will directly choose a high-end community inhabited by whites, which is safer and more comfortable.

This is the status quo.

Chinatown is like a besieged city, people from the outside want to come in, and people from the inside want to get out.

Chen Linzhi couldn't feel the words of race before, but now he has deeply realized that as early as when he was in prison and was in prison, he found that people would naturally gather according to their skin color and region.

In San Francisco's Chinatown, Chen Linzhi feels both familiar and unfamiliar, seemingly with very different cultural customs, but in fact, East and West are blended, and various places are mixed, and they are in a completely different living atmosphere from the past.

The three of them were eating, drinking, and chatting.

At this time, a tall man wearing a hat and a mask walked in.

He stood at the door for a while, looked around, put his hand in the pocket of his cotton coat, and walked straight towards Chen Linzhi and the others.

After pausing at the table for a moment, he asked in a deep voice, "You just got out of prison today?"

"Huh?"

Chen Linzhi was slightly drunk and was looking up.

I saw this tall man who showed half of his face, and without saying a word, he took out a small axe with an ordinary style from his pocket!

Wave it up and chop it on the table!

Chen Linzhi's arm, there......