CHINA
I sat with the 'Godmother' of Chinatown at dinner at a private table in a very packed Chinese restaurant in New York City's own buzzing Chinatown. Someone had told her about me and my interest to pursue a story about Chinese immigration to America. I wasn't sure what she had heard but she invited me to chat and my curiosity, which always wins over my sensibility said yes. I told her about the myth I had heard; that the Chinese believed money grew on trees in America and how that myth is the number one reason Chinese immigrants choose America to find a better life and not other countries. She just smiled, neither confirmed or dismissed it. I continued to ask her questions and listen to her answers and her thoughts. She was incredibly charming but I didn't feel like she had really told me anything, but had spend the evening talking round and round of several subjects. The two pieces of advice I took from her however were. a) go to China- ask the locals yourself and b) be careful. So I went to China, to meet the locals, and I was careful- most of the time.