Chinatown: My Favorite Part Of Manhattan

English: Chinatown, Manhattan, New York City 2009 on Pell Street, looking west towards Bayard and Mott. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was just there yesterday. I was in a no English zone for half an hour. Part of it was a woman patting on my chest while I lay in a reclined chair letting her look into my ear. Calm down, be brave, you will get through it.

I like NYC, period. I will walk any block in the city. Because I like it so. And I don't differentiate among the boroughs, except for Staten Island, that I think is a legitimate part of New Jersey, or even Delaware.

But Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan. These three are a cluster. The Bronx is a little off. It is not in my route. One day years ago I realized the borough I have walked the least is The Bronx. So I camped out at a college friend's place for a month and walked that borough out thoroughly, left to right, north to south, east to west. Walking is the only way to see a city. There is no other way. You have to see at a certain slowish pace. I realized The Bronx of the popular imagination is only the southern Bronx, right north of Manhattan. I got called upon around there for taking a picture. What do you think you are doing! Someone yelled. I don't know if I got scared, but I did get uncomfortable. Okay, maybe a little scared.

Manhattan, Brooklyn: I have walked everywhere. Queens is just so big. I have walked many parts of Queens. But walking everywhere in Queens is quite a task. I am on it. I have walked from Jackson Heights to Jamaica to Flushing and back to Jackson Heights many times. I call it a walking kind of marathon. It takes a good part of the day. At the end of it you are guaranteed a great night of sleep. You are so dog tired. Walking to Astoria, to Long Island City: no big deal. I once walked from Jackson Heights east all the way until I was in Nassau County. And then I walked back.

Chinatown in Manhattan is awesome. The British colonized us, and then they left. Otherwise India and China were the richest countries on the planet for thousands of years. Europe was barbaric people land. India and China might again get their act together this century. And I mean that in a win win way. America does not have to lose, Europe does not have to lose, for India and China to win. If it were not for the strong Chinese economy the 2008 recession would have become a global depression. So there's that. And it is democracy like in America that will help India realize its true potential. For all those centuries India was feudal. There were kings, monarchs, emperors, some good, most not so good.

Chinatown in Manhattan is so different from every other part of Manhattan. And to think I grew right next to China in Nepal. But the British left and left a whole lot of them behind. I had a British education growing up, at a British school too. And so I grew up in the worldview where the only place China was next door was on the map. Otherwise China was nowhere to be seen. Britain and America felt closer than China. It was in the education.

Dumplings in Kathmandu are the staple snack. And so in Chinatown I am in dumplings town. It is a treat. I got 100 frozen dumplings last night, to go. It was a feast.

Chinatown is big and unique. Not even Harlem has it. And Harlem is considered the black capital of America, rapidly becoming more Hispanic and white. But Harlem is still English. Chinatown has Chinese characters on all sorts of signs and boards.

I am a bargain shopper. I don't believe in buying expensive. The exact thing can cost you three times, five times more in the wrong location. I am not up for that. And Chinatown beats even Queens on prices. I don't know how they do it. Let it be their secret sauce. A 10 dollar haircut in Jackson Heights can be had for five bucks in Chinatown. It should have been the other way round. I hear you can get vegetables in Flushing for really cheap. Flushing is in Queens, and it is actually bigger than the Chinatown in Manhattan.

China is so flush with cash, it wants to build bullet trains in India, not as foreign aid, but for profit. I am all for it. China is better positioned than anyone else to engage in massive infrastructure projects in Africa. And Africa is the ultimate sleeping giant. I think most people don't realize the African economy is coming along really nice. By the end of the decade Africa will be fully on the global map.

Beijing has grandiose plans to become the capital of the world. You should be able to take a train anywhere on the planet and end up in Beijing. I would love a Lhasa to Lumbini railway that also extends to Beijing and Delhi.

The Chinese are doing something right. They are not a one person dictatorship. It is a dictatorship of a political party. Which means a lot of patriotic people end up at the top. It is an alternate system. China can teach campaign finance reform to America, for sure. The Chinese have pulled hundreds of millions out of poverty. India needs to. And now India is poised to become the fastest growing economy on the planet. It has trillions in catching up to do.

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Sexting And New York City Politics

, member of the United States House of Representatives. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(published in Vishwa Sandesh)

Sexting And New York City Politics
By Paramendra Bhagat (www.paramendra.com)

Sexting is when you send someone a sexually explicit text message or, God forbid, a tweet.

When I showed up in New York City in the summer of 2005 I placed myself in the smack center of the borough of Brooklyn, a borough that Barack Obama almost carried in the February 2008 primary. I was his first full time volunteer in the city. Right before the primary a deeply worried Anthony Weiner urged Hillary to make an appearance in Brooklyn, and she did. Minus that anything could have happened. 2007 was a time when I spent considerable time with the founders of organizations like Brooklyn For Barack and Manhattan For Obama. At an Upper East Side party thrown by a Law School classmate, later Law Firm colleague in Chicago and family friend of the Obamas, the founder of Manhattan For Obama complimented me by saying “The US Constitution should be amended so THIS guy can run for president some day!” That dude is currently running for Congress. The machine in the city was firmly behind Hillary and was to show me its ugly face by the time the primaries were over. Obama dashed the ambitions of many NYC locals who might have had federal ambitions.

Hillary the matchmaker perhaps was thinking world peace when she helped Huma and Anthony get together. Weiner is Jewish, Huma Abedin, former aide to Hillary and since wife to Weiner, is Muslim, and her father spent considerable time in India. Hillary might have been thinking Palestine and Kashmir at once.

But then the colorful New York City politics can get in the way. This is the media capital of the world. The media likes to play the game of building you up, and then breaking you down. And somewhere along the way it gets to collect a ton of ad dollars. Right before Weiner imploded as a Congressman he was a progressive hero belittling his Republican counterparts on national TV on the blessings of universal health coverage. He had been caught sexting on Twitter. I would know a thing or two about Twitter. I am one of the top 200 people/brands in New York City on Twitter. Mostly what I do on Twitter is I tweet articles that I read, mostly technology, politics and business articles.

There was that famous picture of his weeny making his tights bulge up. Okay, so the guy had an erection when tweeting. Who says Twitter is not a sexy platform? I have thought the world of it since I joined it in February 2009, after months of looking down upon it: those who can do long form blogging, how much can you possibly say in 140 characters? The top venture capitalist in New York City, Fred Wilson, who I happen to know (you can also get to know him if you read his blog at AVC.com and leave comments regularly), was the first investor in Twitter.

Sometimes men think they are not good enough for the woman they might have bagged, or maybe it is more than sometimes. One journalist wrote Huma Abedin is like the Taj Mahal, pretty in pictures, but you really have to meet in person to appreciate. Maybe that explains Weiner’s politically self-destructive behavior.

And all that was over and done with. Several magazine spreads of making amends later Weiner jumped into the mayoral race and immediately took the lead. New York City voters were not going to be bothered by a few tweets. They had far more important things to worry about, like sewage and garbage. Until it emerged that Weiner had done it all over again after resigning from Congress under a new name: Carlos Danger. Who would have thought? Now this was no longer a caught off guard once issue. Heck, I know people who never “got” Twitter or jumped on the platform and are still trying to figure it out. Hillary would fall in that later category.

I don’t know about you, but I intend to blame Fred Wilson for this whole thing. Fred, could you not have invested in something safer to use like, say, a Zynga? Or a FourSquare even? Wait, he did.

Weiner engaged in sexting on Twitter over months. He got caught. He denied, he claimed his account had been “hacked” – (don’t deny the guy his tech literary). Then he owned up to it and resigned. He engaged in Twitter sexting again under an assumed name. Then he went into long months of therapy and overcame all that. Then he ran for Mayor and took the lead. But that would be a sane story. The media is spinning it like he resigned from Congress for sexting, then he ran for Mayor and started sexting again. How dare he! Let this guy be taken to the butchers!

Hillary got on Twitter recently. I don’t know how much tweeting she is doing though. Maybe she should tweet some sense into Weiner. Hey, Anthony, can you stop that sexting already?

Wait, was that less than 140 characters? Would the message fit?

If Hillary and Weiner had figured out Twitter back in 2008, my side might have lost.

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Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson: Press Up To Go Down

Notes From Chad: Funding Etsy’s Future

Etsy was quite small by today’s measures — the community sold $7.93 million of goods in that September, my first month at Etsy. We had about 50 employees and we were in an office in downtown Brooklyn with a broken elevator that famously had a sign that read, “You gotta press up to go down.” ........... four years later .. We have different offices near the Brooklyn Bridge, a working elevator, almost 300 employees, and last month alone, the community sold about $65 million in goods ......... We believe, more than ever, that Etsy can help fundamentally change the way the world works by making it possible for individuals to make and sell things to other people around the globe — a people-powered economy ........ Decades of an unyielding focus on economic growth and a corporate mentality has left us ever more disconnected with nature, our communities, and the people and processes behind the objects in our lives. We think this is unethical, unsustainable, and unfun. However, with the rise of small businesses around the world we feel hope and see real opportunities: Opportunities for us to measure success in new ways… to build local, living economies, and most importantly, to help create a more permanent future. .............. although we’ve been at it for seven years, it feels like we are just getting started. .... After a lot of discussion about what kind of company we are and aspired to be, the team defined these core values for the company:
We are a mindful, transparent, and humane business.
We plan and build for the long term.
We value craftsmanship in all we make.
We believe fun should be part of everything we do.
We keep it real, always.
We want the company to last for a very long time and clearly stand for something in the world. ...... When you support a B Corporation, you’re supporting a better way to do business. Governments and nonprofits are necessary but insufficient to solve today’s most pressing problems. Business is the most powerful force on the planet and can be a positive instrument for change. ....... There are over 500 certified B Corps but Etsy will be among the biggest, along with mission-driven companies like Patagonia and Seventh Generation. ...... becoming a Certified B Corporation is one of the most important things Etsy has ever done. It helps us keep an eye on the “mindful, transparent, and humane” values we aspire to ....... Last year, over $525 million (525 with 6 more zeroes) changed hands among people on Etsy, and worldwide GDP was over $60 trillion dollars (that’s 600 with eleven more zeros). ....... Etsy has closed $40 million of funding from a roster of investors who have been believers in Etsy for a long time. ...... we plan to grow Etsy into an economic force all around the world and we want to provide more products and services to help sellers succeed and build their businesses on the Etsy platform. ...... Every day when I walk to our offices in Brooklyn, I walk past the spot where in 1855 the printers Andrew and James Rome typeset and printed the first edition of Leaves of Grass by great American poet Walt Whitman. ..... exactly 150 years later, barely three-quarters of a mile away, Rob, Chris, Haim, and Jared were doing the the 21st century equivalent of typesetting in coding the original version of Etsy.com.

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Breakfast With Albert (Wenger)

I don't want you to think I was sitting across the table from Albert Wenger, and we had breakfast. That is not what happened.

There were 100-200 people on two floors. We did have breakfast, cupcakes and milk. And Albert was there. But he showed up on stage mysteriously from behind.

Events: Week Of October 3

8:30am - 10:00am CreativeMornings/NewYork with Albert Wenger
Galapagos Art Space DUMBO, 16 Main Street, Brooklyn

So there was breakfast. And there was Albert Wenger.

I think he gave a great talk. It is a shame people like him get outgunned by stupid people lobbying really, really hard on Capitol Hill to defend old industries that can not be defended.

I was sitting in the front. I got to ask the first question. I asked him if he were to put together a trillion dollar stimulus bill for this economy what might it look like? He said the biggest part of it would be about getting cheap broadband to everyone. That reply was in total sync with my own thoughts on the topic.

America And Europe Need To Learn From Japan
The Mini Me Stimulus Bill Lacks Imagination



What Are You Doing Monday? Come Meet Al Wenger

Events: Week Of September 12

Monthly Metro Pass

Monday, September 12
AppsBidder.com Launch Party
07:00 PM - 11:30 PM, Galapagos Art Space, 16 Main St, Brooklyn, NY
F train to York St

Tuesday, September 13
Scenios presents: How the cloud will transform production as we know it
06:30 PM - 08:30 PM, Showbiz Store & Cafe - NY, 19 W. 21st St. , Ground Floor
F/M 23rd St

Event Of The Week: TechStars NYC on Bloomberg TV Premiere Party (Free, but all seats long taken)
07:00 PM - 11:00 PM

Wednesday, September 14
Expert Speaker Night, Cisco VXI Virtulization Experience Infrustructure (Event cancelled by Organizer)
06:30 PM - 08:30 PM Cisco New York Office One Penn Plaza 34th Street ,
between 7th and 8th Avenues 9th floor
E train 34 St

Plan B: Comedy School Dropout Presents: September is Greek for "Hilarious"
8:00 PM - 9:30 PM Beauty Bar 231 E 14th St Frnt 1
L train 3rd Ave

Fashion Week Websdays with Internet Week New York
7:00 PM 200 Orchard Street
F train to 2nd Ave

Thursday, September 15
Jumping Ship - How to leave your Day Job
07:00 PM - 09:00 PM New Work City 412 Broadway, Floor 2
6 train to Canal St

Data, Design, Diabetes Innovation Challenge DEMO DAY
06:00 PM - 09:00 PM AOL HQ 770 Broadway, 6th Floor
N/R 8 St/NYU

September NYC Tech BD Breakfast (No spots left)
08:30 AM - 09:30 AM

Friday, September 16
New Work City Third Anniversary Party
08:00 PM - 11:00 PM

Saturday, September 17
Jazz Brunch at Garage Saturday: Elli Fordyce Quartet Back by Popular Demand at Garage
12-4 PM Garage Restaurant & Cafe 99 7th Ave S
1/2 Christopher St

Sunday, September 18
New York City Apple Day Festival
02:00 PM - 4:30 AM Orchard, between Grand and Broome Streets
F train to Delancey

Nick Gray: Bollywood Moves

(Via Soraya Darabi)
Photo by Clay Williams

BollyBrook Says Hello
Bollywood Loves Brooklyn
Brooklyn Loves Bollywood

Guns Of Brooklyn: Peaceout

Brooklyn And Santogold/Santigold

Image by The U.S. National Archives via FlickrSantigold: MySpace, Wikipedia, YouTube

Barack almost took Brooklyn during the February 2008 primary. Things were looking so bad before the primary day, Congressman Weiner urged Hillary to make an appearance in Brooklyn, and she did.

I moved to New York City summer of 2005 and placed myself in the smack center of the borough.

A Small, Historic EatUp

So around noon I showed up. Oleg was there, his wife was there, his brother was busy serving.

Amy Cao of FoodSpotting showed up. This was not my first time seeing Amy, but this was my first time talking. And we talked at length.

There was this guy. He said he was just passing through town. He was in the city for a few months. He showed up. He said he knew Amy from meeting her at a few events.

So when it was time for the group photo, it is this guy and me, with Amy taking the shot. And I am feeling a little awkward. I hope she got the truck in the background. The truck matters. I am just an eater.

Both the dude and Amy took pictures of my food. My lunch was on the house.

Amy and I first talked on Twitter. Then I saw her briefly at the FoodSpotting panel the first day of Social Media Week, but did not get to talk.

A Guggenheim Walk

Last night I was at the Guggenheim for about two hours for a free concert. The line was long. But the wait was worth it.

I was wearing blue jeans.

There was this newly retired Chicago couple - college sweethearts - right in front of me. We chatted. I ended up talking about ethnic prejudice in Nepal.

I was one of the top Obama volunteers in the city, friends with the founders of Manhattan For Obama, Brooklyn For Barack and so on. When they finally published the names and profiles of the prominent Nepali Obama supporters in the city in the Nepali newspaper in Queens, I was not on the list. That is ethnic prejudice for you. (Am I Smart?, Larry Ellison)

July 1 Digital Dumbo: Do Not Miss

I discovered Digital Dumbo a few months back after signing up for Charlie (@ceonyc) O'Donnell's events mailing list, the best thing Charlie ever did.

I have hinted at it before, but today I am going to spell it out. Digital Dumbo is the best tech party in town. There, I said it. And Dumbo is the only locale of its kind in town. New York City is too big, there is too much happening, there are too many big, established industries - there is finance, there is media, there is Queens ... okay, so Queens is not an industry, Africa is not a country - for all of this city to turn into some kind of a tech haven. But Dumbo has carved it out. Dumbo is tech Mecca. And it is an amazing location. You see the bridge, the belly of the bridge nonetheless, the water, and you see Manhattan. That is too many good things at once. It feels urban, it feels tech. Dumbo is the go to place in town if you are a techie or someone obsessed with tech.

I was a little blase about Internet Week, I figured I got a little too excited about Social Media Week back in February, so I would take this one a little easy. But I might have missed out. And the July 1 Digital Dumbo might let me do some catching up. The July 1 Digital Dumbo is presenting itself as the wrap up party for Internet Week. That right there tells most of the movers and shakers of Internet Week are camped out in Dumbo.

Digital DUMBO #17 IWNY Wrap Up
Thursday, July 01, 2010 from 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (ET)
Galapagos Art Space
16 Main Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Did you miss out on Internet Week NY? Or maybe you had so much fun networking and crashing parties that you want to re-live it all over again?

Join us for a summary & wrap party Digital DUMBO style where we will showcase some of the work done for the event by Dumbo's finest. We're heading back to Galapagos and we hope to see you there to toast to another Internet Week NY event gone by!

LiveStream: Internet Week NY

Yes, I did miss out. I was able to go to only four events during Internet Week, and I missed the biggest one: IgniteNYC, after having given word to the chief organizer, emcee person Tikva Morawati only the evening before that I will be there. Ugh. (Ignite, Set It On Fire) Something came up that had me tied.

Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever

But I have not missed out on the World Cup, and I am going to show up wearing a shirt that screams ARGENTINA! So help me God. (Walking On The Moon)

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Manhattan?

"Where do you live?"

What do you do? Where do you live? When you go to an event, those are some of the first questions people who don't know you ask you. They can be nice ice breaker questions. They open up the conversation.

Where do you live? That can also be a question asked by someone who really prides himself/herself in knowing the names of many different neighborhoods in the city. When I was new in the city, I did not realize that. I'd say I live in the city. Then I started saying I live in Brooklyn. People would say, where in Brooklyn? I'd say near Prospect Park. And people would get impressed. Wow, we have a Park Slope dude over here. I did not live west of the park, but south.

Cultural diversity is my favorite thing about this city. People from every little town on earth live here. How do I know that? People from every little town in Nepal live here. I know that. And Nepal is the poorest country on earth outside of Africa. So I am extrapolating that. People from every little town from every country must live here. I think that is true.

I had a whole bunch of audio cassettes of Hindi music with me  when I came to America late in 1996. My next door neighbor in college - Luke Payne - once asked me, "Can I ask you something? Why do you listen to the same song again and again?" And the dude was a music major.

Do all Chinese faces look the same to you? Then you must not be Chinese.

You have to have my global perspectives to see the texture of Queens. Black might be a race, but brown is not a race. It is not even a race.

When I was living in Brooklyn, I was living in Little Bangladesh. When I went grocery shopping, people would start talking to me in Bengali, which I understand a big chunk of, but can't speak back. They just assumed I was Bengali.

"Are you from India?" I have never replied to that question with a no anywhere in the US. I am half Indian, I was born in India. Wtf! It is just that I grew up in Nepal.

But in the "heartland," when you get asked that question, there is usually a follow up question.

"Are you a Patel?'

"No, I'm not."

"Are you a doctor?"

"No, I'm not, but I am very smart."

No, thank you. There is no town in America that does not have at least one Indian doctor. And Patels own motels all over the place. I once saw a huge billboard by the interstate highway in Tennessee: "Motel, run by Americans!" That does not happen all that often. My people pretty much have the motel business covered.

Where do you live?

That is sometimes a class question. Are you rich enough to live in Manhattan? Or do you live in the outer boroughs?

I have a healthy feeling about money, but money does not even begin to grasp the cultural diversity of New York City, and there Queens rules. New York City is the Amazon forest of humanity, and Queens is a big part of it.

The Dying Languages, In New York New York Times The chances of overhearing a conversation in Vlashki, a variant of Istro-Romanian, are greater in Queens than in the remote mountain villages in Croatia that immigrants now living in New York left years ago....... the languages that make New York the most linguistically diverse city in the world. ..... languages born in every corner of the globe and now more commonly heard in various corners of New York than anywhere else. ...... New York is home to as many as 800 languages — far more than the 176 spoken by students in the city’s public schools or the 138 that residents of Queens, New York’s most diverse borough, listed on their 2000 census forms.

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A MeetUp Has Me Excited: Y + 30

I am going to a MeetUp tomorrow evening - well, I am going to a Lunar Year celebration with John Liu for this evening, we are trying to get the guy to show up for a February 28 Holi celebration in Astoria, I be pulling strings - but tomorrow, Tuesday, I am going to this MeetUp that I am unusually excited about. I guess at some level I am bummed I had never heard of the MeetUp before this month. Makes me feel like I have been out of the loop. But I found out about it during Social Media Week, and I am glad. (Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever)

I don't know what to expect. That is another reason I am a little on the edge. Will it be pitch dark? Will they throw bright light in my face? Will they make funny noises? Will they make us wear costumes? Or at least goggles? Is the venue some kind of a basement? It is called a Brooklyn Future MeetUp, but it is in Tribeca, the Jay-Z Tribeca. I love Brooklyn, it is the most residential of all boroughs, but Y+30 is a much better name in the first place.

• Brooklyn 30
• Y 30

on Feb 23rd - we are talking the future of food, register for the event at http://meetup.com/BLKNY30 

From Michael Pollan to molecular gastronomy, food bloggers to food
porn, celebrity chefs to rock star butchers, the world of eating has
changed remarkably in recent years. There’s never been a more exciting
time to be a food-lover, and yet we’re also increasingly concerned
about issues like food safety, sustainability, and health.

What will the food world look like in 30 years? Will traditional
restaurants still be around or we will be eating in a world of pop ups
and food trucks? Will scientists rule the kitchen?

We’ll talk to experts across the industry, including chef Michael
Anthony of Gramercy Tavern, Glenn Roberts, founder of Anson Mills,
marketing whizzes from Rooster Design Group, and writer and Food52
co-founder Amanda Hesser. (@amandahesser)

After the panel stay for demos by cocktail experts and chefs, tastings
by local producers, and cameos by some of the city’s cult food
vendors.

Looks like they will be feeding us too. We get to sample some food stuff. I am all for that. And what is food porn? What could that be?

I left this comment at Sam Lessin's Tumblr blog a few days back. (@lessin)

I am so looking forward to this, you won't believe. I am so surprised I was not even aware of this MeetUp's existence until the first week of February this year. Finding about this MeetUp has been one of my rewards for having attended Social Media Week events with abandon. http://technbiz.blogspot.com/2010/02/social-media-week-best-ny-tech-meetup.html

Wow. I am like wow. What a theme for a MeetUp. I like vision people, I like vision talk, I like talk about the future. I am such a huge fan of Esther Dyson, and it is because she is such a visionary. She is a remarkable woman in many other ways, but that is my primary reason to like her so much.

Y+30 is stretching it, it is hard enough to figure out what the landscape will look like one year from now, or five, 30 is eternity, but the year will roll around for sure, and the reward is not in ending up being accurate - I fully expect most of our predictions to fall flat on the face - but in making the effort itself. Those who think hard about the future live the present more fully.

I am so excited about this event, I fear I might miss it. I am feeling superstitious.

I am so glad you have Disqus integrated to your blog. Disqus is my idea of a micro blogging platform.

Another reward to me from Social Media Week has been Tumblr. I use Twitter to broadcast, Facebook to connect, and Buzz/Tumblr to listen. Glad to be following you on Tumblr.

Excited about tomorrow.

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