It Sounds like Woo Hoo

In the rain at Portsmouth Square, the Chinese ladies huddle under the parking garage overhang and play cards, dice, mah jong. The men are on the other side of the building, playing pai gow, dice, go. When the rain stops they all run out onto the park benches, hundreds of elderly and somewhat-less-than-elderly men and women gambling, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee and tea, slamming their cards down with a winning hand and crying out in excited single syllables when they've won a pot. Bills and change are in plain sight, but the police would not be so stupid as to try and put an end to this cultural mainstay of Chinatown.

Whenever Plotnik walks in Chinatown he is hard pressed not to stare into the papered-over windows of the Nam Yuen, closed for years, just to see if the 18-year-old Plottie and 19-year-old Judy Wong are still inside, leaning against each other at the round table in the back under the black, oval mirror, eating exotic foods the kid from the San Fernando Valley had never heard of before, and tasting all those previously unknown flavors, including the secretest and sweetest taste of all, the one she was saving for him, the one she knew he'd been waiting for.

Plot squints through the grimy shop window -- is that them? The girl smiles, her hip and knee touching his, as she teaches him step by step to use his chopsticks. When he gets it right, she claps her hands, without ever dropping his.

Nope, the place is empty. Chinatown looks drab and forlorn these days, a city within a city of cramped SRO hotels, crowded apartments, housing projects filled to overflowing with the elderly, shops that sell trinkets and restaurants who cook for tourists.

But money still changes hands in Portsmouth Square, as clouds threaten and the old ladies pull the collars up on their jackets before slamming their tiles onto the playing board and collecting a pot, all the while shouting something guttural, that though it comes without even the tiniest accompanying smile, sounds a lot like Woo Hoo!