A Trip to Chinatown…Havana
I know what you’re thinking - we’re allowed to go to Cuba? Alas, anything is possible with the right attitude and a cultural tour. After spending one very mellow night in a Miami airport hotel, I embarked (with my mother) on an Art and Architectural Preservation and Documentation cultural immersion of Havana, with the rather quirky bunch of other passengers who would become like family over ten days of exploration. We landed on the tarmac in Havana, at what can only be described as the tiniest jetport I’d ever seen, and were immediately greeted by warm Caribbean breezes and sweat inducing humidity. If you told me I’d jumped directly from the plane into a body of water, I would have believed you.
It was at the baggage claim where I first met my fellow travellers. With the exception of one couple from Austin, Texas, and my mother and I from Maine, the rest of the group hailed from Hawaii, which is where the tour company who organized us was based. I was a last minute addition as my mom was originally meant to travel with her friend from Hawaii who had a family emergency and had to stay behind. I’ll forever be grateful to my mom for her need for a travel companion. This last minute change made for an interesting dynamic in the group - I was the youngest by about thirty years in our group of twelve. They were all baffled by how well I was coping with being disconnected from mainland cell service and functioning wifi.
We left the airport once my colorful floral bag made its way, dead last, off the plane. The trip to downtown Havana was filled with curious looks out the window at subtle countryside for about thirty minutes before we reached the city limits. Taking the scenic route, we passed down the Malecón on the water through Vedado, a thin winding road that is begging to be washed out by high surf - and has been in the past. Entering Parque Central, one of my compatriots was immediately fascinated by the architecture of not the building with vast history, or the colorful murals and mosaics, but the bus stops - each one with its own unique design. She would remain enthralled with them throughout our trip, stopping the tour van on more than one occasion to holler “bus stop!” and capture the colorful 50’s roof designs, floating platform roofs, and intricately decorated tile awnings.
We stayed in one of the central hotels that was like stepping into a mesmerizing time warp, as was most of the city in fact. Havana had a feeling like time stood still, the buildings were old, many decaying yet somehow beautiful. The cars were either restored vehicles from the pre-Castro era that would make any diehard collector green with envy, or curiously, Russian vehicles I had never heard of. The culture was deeply rooted, and reminders of its historic origins and the events that took place there were on every street corner, cornerstone brick, and welcome cocktail at all of our tour stops.
Our tour was led by two individuals: Rosa, our Cuban-American guide who moved from Cuba to Miami as a child and became an art conservator and historian, and Carlos, a loyal employee of the Cuban tour company. Rosa was fascinating, I swear she knew everything there was to know about every place we visited, and she was a firecracker of a woman who enjoyed rum as much as I did. Carlos was only a few years older than me, and we bonded over youth culture. At one point I had tired of our architectural walking tour headset in my ear and decided to just wander along looking while everyone listened. Carlos had his own headphones in, and when I inquired what he was listening to he handed them to me - the latest Kendrick Lamar album. We laughed together and then bonded over our shared love of hip hop music. We discussed everything from music to sports, to tattoos - he noted that in Cuba they were seen as more “carnival” than art. Later on our trip he taught me salsa dancing, and while I’m no expert, it’s become one of my favorite fun facts about myself. Who else learned to salsa dance in Cuba?
We had mojitos at the iconic Floridita, Ernest Hemingway eat your heart out. We enjoyed the ever classic show at the Tropicana, took cooking class with Cuban chefs, visited the cultural sights, the University art school, historic homes, and more art galleries than I could count. Curiously several of them were in private homes, even one home that was the art - Fusterlandia, the house and neighborhood turned surreal mosaic masterpiece by artist José Fuster. What quickly became one of my favorite places in the world, and favorite to discuss, was La Fábrica de Arte Cubano (The Cuban Art Factory), both gallery and club on the edge of Havana. It had previously been a cooking oil factory years before it was purchased by a group of artists and musicians on the hunt for a unique gallery and performance space. Entering the factory is a show in itself - you’re greeted by bottles of rum circling the ceiling above the bar on a tram, various gallery spaces with inventive art of all kinds for purchase, several dance floors, stages, performance space, and dedicated wall space for murals and other displays. While it was probably a walking fire hazard, it was by far one of the most interesting places I had ever visited, and the memories of it live rent free in my mind.
Of all the places we saw and visited however, my favorite interaction came from a place I would never have guessed existed at all. One of our last days in town before heading to the countryside, we had tackled just about every walking tour, art gallery, and delicious five star restaurant we could possibly handle. Rosa suggested something different, just a bit of city exploring, shopping, wandering around to see where the day took us. A few decided to relax at the hotel, but for the rest of us, it was a welcome adventure. Several of our Hawaiian friends were of Chinese and Japanese descent, and as we explored, Rosa mentioned something we just had to see. They say that every major city has a Chinatown, but who could have predicted that of all places, there would be one in Havana, Cuba.
Chinatown, Havana, spans more or less one city block - if you blinked you’d miss it. But sure enough, as we approached, one of the landmark arches that marks every Chinatown I’ve ever been to arose from the concrete. Surrounded by Cuban flags and more colorful architecture, it could better be described as a hole in the wall. There were a few restaurants dotting the lane, one touting a Cuban-Chinese fusion that was absolutely to die for. Chinese lanterns hung from above on a wire, and red was the prominent wall color. It was like we had been transported to somewhere entirely different in the middle of the city.
We made our way up the block and idled outside the Chinese heritage center. Our Hawaiian friends read some of the plaques outside as mom and I admired the architecture of the temple-like building. About then, one of the patrons of the center noticed from inside that we had flocked, and invited us in. The building was like the block, quaint, but intricate, with wood details around the white room. The brown tile floors mirrored many other buildings we’d been in throughout the week - there must have been a deal back in the day. Handmade artwork, sign up sheets, calendar of events, and special announcements filled the walls.
While Rosa translated, we learned from the Center’s organizer all about the history of how Chinatown came to exist. Like the Russians and other prominent subgroups, some Chinese folks made their way to Cuba over the years, and though a small group, they melded into Cuban culture and became their own subset, maintaining their own customs while creating something new. I suppose it shouldn’t have been so surprising - when you leave the US you see all kinds of people from all walks of life, but something about this tiny, almost secretive secluded island made it all the more shocking. While the Hawaiians continued to ask their burning questions, I decided to skulk around the shadows and take a closer look. There wasn’t much chance I could get lost in the two-room building, unless of course they had decided to leave without me. Thankfully, they didn’t.
I followed the decorated walls and more colorful wall tiles to a doorway and passed through it into room number two. Surprisingly, the space opened up to be bigger than I’d expected. I realized it had actually connected to the building adjacent to it from outside. The room echoed, and could best be described as an elementary school gymnasium, complete with one of those wooden stages that ran the length of the room on one side. A few patrons wandered, locked in their usual routine as I looked around. I was reading a plaque on the wall when I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I turned to see a very small - maybe five-foot - elderly Cuban man leaning on his cane. He greeted me excitedly, and rolled immediately into conversation. I gathered that they didn’t usually have visitors from anywhere in the Center, let alone from America, therefore he was immediately intrigued.
Now, my Spanish, despite the best efforts of my high school Spanish teacher Mr. Z, was mediocre at best, but based on my appearance one might think I was fluent. As a mixed-race black and white woman, over the years I have been mistaken for being a Spanish speaker on several occasions. In New York City during Puerto Rican pride weekend I spent twenty minutes convincing a man I wasn’t Puerto Rican. In the Dominican Republic I was approached first of our group because it was assumed that I was Dominican by the locals - they told me I should always wear my hair curly. Cuba was no exception. But despite my lack of ability to form a proper sentence, I put myself to the test.
He had to have been at least eighty years old, his face was wrinkled and naturally quite tan from years under the Cuban sun. He had a slight slump to his shoulders, so perhaps he was once taller than he now appeared. He had on a colorful plaid short sleeved shirt, slacks, and brown leather loafers that all paired just fine with his wooden cane. His first question for me was “hablas español?” - do you speak Spanish…to which I aptly responded with a tentative smile - un poquito. He smiled wide, apparently “a little” was good enough for him. For the entirety of our interaction he treated my kid level Spanish with grace and humor while I fought to find the right words to make any amount of sense.
His name was Fernando, and from what I could gather he had lived in Havana his whole life. He walked me around the room pointing at things, some of which were artwork from the art group at the center. He was quite proud of his own. He asked me my name and where I was from. He said that he’d been to Miami once, a very, very long time ago. As expected, he asked if I was Cuban, and naturally, he found it hard to believe that I wasn’t. Normally I wore my hair straight, but given the humidity I opted to save myself from suffering and let it live curly. Fernando noticed my hair, and pulled on one of the coils which for some reason made me instantly giggle. That’s when he said something quite fast in Spanish that I couldn’t fully understand. It was something about a job, and then he motioned to my hair again. He repeated the phrase a little bit slower and we tried hard to understand each other. After a few finger pointing motions, and some attempts at other ways to say what he was trying to say, I had him write it down. I was always remarkably better at reading than speaking. He wrote down “peluqeria” - hair salon in English. The word landed and everything he said came together. He pointed to my hair again and I did the “ooooh yes of course” with full tap on the head - sí sí sí Fernando. He told me he had been a barber before he retired, and he cut hair his whole life. He owned a shop in Havana until he decided to pass on the business to his son. His son also cut women’s hair. We had a hearty laugh having finally gotten my Americana brain to understand.
It was about that time that the rest of the group had seen what they wanted to see, I realized they’d been circling the room while I had my chat with Fernando. As Rosa corralled us all to the front of the room, I said goodbye to my new friend. He gave me the biggest hug and a kiss on both cheeks before his parting words - tenga una vida hermosa - may you have a beautiful life. He waved as we exited the door out into the sunlight, and I waved back.
We carried on with the remainder of our trip, more sights to see, more flan to be avoided and rum to be had, but my conversation with this adorable man has always stood out as a highlight. It was so simple, such a basic conversation, but across language barriers and generations I had made a real connection. It would have been easy for me to say I didn’t speak any Spanish at all, or to ignore the moment and carry on outside because I wasn’t Chinese or I wasn’t interested in learning anything else that week. That’s likely what was expected of the young girl who hadn’t been able to post on Instagram in nearly a week. But I embraced the moment instead, and I tried my best. It wasn’t perfect, of course, but I had a real, meaningful conversation with a stranger. It was five minutes of my life, and I’ve never forgotten it.
Perhaps it was because it was so random, but it felt like a real human moment between two people who were just excited to be alive and to meet each other. We both entered a conversation with full knowledge we probably couldn’t understand each other, and we still found common ground. Fernando met my mom, I learned about his son. He knew I was a student, I knew he was a barber. The truth is, language aside, part of the world aside, we are all living a similar life under different circumstances. More often than not we are feinding for connection, and sometimes even without looking for it, it finds us.
You may say, sure he was a barber, but that’s all you knew about him. What was the rest of his story? What if it’s actually not that great? It’s sort of like the difference between a short film and the feature film version. The short might be two minutes or twenty, but it’s just a moment of someone’s life that tells a compact story. The full version comes from a thousand moments that add up to give you a picture of someone’s life, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I’ll never know the full story of that cute little old man, but I am beyond grateful that the five minutes I knew him are a moment in mine. Taking a lesson from my trip to Chinatown South, if we embrace a challenge, escape our comfort zone, and spend more time getting to know people, even if just for a moment, we might have a better chance for a beautiful life. At the very least I’ll never forget the word for hair salon in Spanish. You never know when it might come in handy.
