Together we have entered New York Chinatown.  It is one of the largest enclaves of Chinese outside of Asia.  The population is approximately 150,000.There are records that the first Chinese arrived in New York in 1825.  Within 35 years in lower Manhattan there are already 150 Chinese working as cooks, sailors and salesmen. Several of them maintained cheap hotels or flop houses.  After the construction of the Pacific Ocean Railroad several thousand Asians settled here, having worked on the construction of the railroad.  They settled basically in the Five Corners neighborhood in these flophouses of which today nothing remains.  This was the poorest region of the city.  The cheap labor force came into competition with Americans already living there.In order to better imagine the character and life of this period, it is worth seeing the film by director Martin Scorsese, the Gangs of New York, about the Five Corners neighborhood in 1863. At the time of economic decline in the 1870's there occurred anti-Chinese demonstrations.  Because of these, a law preventing the immigration of Chinese was enacted, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.  The act was strengthened several times.  Therefore, the largest portion of the new immigrants began to move to the United States only after the Second World War and the repeal of the Exclusion Act in 1943. In the early 1890's this region was the site of real gang wars between Chinese gangs or tongs;  which ended only by the intervention of the police.Now this is an extraordinarily interesting neighborhood.  As it has happens, many of its inhabitants never learned English and never leave Chinatown.  More than 600 businesses and more than 300 restaurants provide work to the inhabitants of Chinatown.  Here there are halls for playing mahjong, pharmacies selling Chinese herbal medicines and special banks.Chinatown is fairly large and we are going with you only along one of its main streets.  If you want to stroll through it further, you should definitely visit Mott Street - it was on this street that the first Chinese settled.  The most interesting part of Chinatown is located at Grand Street and Canal Street.  Here you will be immersed in the atmosphere of Chinese and Vietnamese stores with golden decorations, and souvenirs including imitation Louis Vuitton fashion-ware.   On Baxter and Elizabeth Streets you will find stores filled with fish candies, dried squid, sea weeds, beaver paws, green tea and unusual sauces.  In the fish shops can be found an amazing variety of fish, and even barrels of live frogs and turtles.Photo Facade in Chinatown, New York by Martin Solli is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0