Chinatown NYC

For many years I have been getting acupuncture from a genius named Dr. Wu, right in the center of Chinatown. One evening I had to go into a Chinese grocery to get some herbs that Dr. Wu had recommended and oddly, after al these years, I realized that parts of Chinatown were like another country and completely foreign to me right in my own city. I decided to start photographing the area after that - I think because of my new consciousness as the "other", which gave me a new perspective - one that I wanted to explore further visually. Chinatown is paradoxical in that there are signs everywhere screaming at you to buy here!, eat here!, get a massage here!, come in here!- but when you try to shoot the businesses, especially with a camera that is not a cellphone or a tourist camera, you are regarded with suspicion and often told to leave. But the rewards are great and that otherness lent a distance that enabled me to see this insular world in a different, more creative way.