`Chinatown' Tour Bridges Cultural Gap

It typically starts off with a talk about how different Seattle's Chinatown is from others across the country - how here there aren't only Chinese but Vietnamese, Japanese, Filipinos, Laotians, Koreans, Cambodians and other Asians.

Then there's a hands-on lesson on how to use the abacus.

The medical effect of Chinese health balls is the next topic, followed by a video on how fortune cookies and rice noodles are made. Finally, Styrofoam cups of hot Chinese tea are offered before the guided walking tour of the International District begins.

While following a general pattern, the tours that Vi Mar gives through her business, Chinatown Discovery Inc. at 419 Seventh Ave. S., rarely repeat themselves exactly. It's hard to do so, she says, because the tours are subject to the weather, the questions people ask and a "living, working environment."

What remains the same is an attempt to educate people about a community and something of its diverse heritage. And along the way, tour-goers also can pick up something about their guide, a Seattle native of Chinese descent who is known for her civic activism and belief in building cultural bridges between Asians and non-Asians - a legacy befitting this month's Asian Pacific American Heritage celebration.

"When I see a group walking around, I know it's Vi's," said Debbie Louie, who works a few shops up the street at the Wing Luke Museum. "Her bringing people into the community is a positive thing. It gives a human perspective to the ID (International District)."

The small group that Mar hosted on a recent day was mostly Caucasian retirees who rarely visited the International District and wanted to know more about the community. They weren't disappointed, the visitors said after the tour.

"I love the history she puts into it," said Marlene Grubb of Seattle, who has been on a tour before. "She's very vibrant."

Another, Pat Litaker, 69, said she never had been to the district before that day, though she has lived in Bremerton since 1950.

Mar wasn't totally surprised. Other non-Asians have said something similar. Come to think of it, Asians also.

"I learned never to assume," Mar told the group just before taking them outside for the tour. "I used to turn down Asians for my tour, telling them, `Oh, you don't need to come because you know everything already.' Not true. Some who moved out to the suburbs and the young have lost contact with the community."

So while the tours try to familiarize non-Asians with a different culture, they're a chance for Asians to reacquaint themselves with their heritage.

There's also an opportunity to counter a misperception that portrays the International District as crime-ridden, Mar says.

In fact, Mar, a former travel agent, decided 10 years ago to start her tour business in response to the negative publicity the International District received from the 1983 Wah Mee Massacre, a robbery at a local gambling club that left 13 people dead.

"People became apprehensive about coming down here," recalls Mar, who set out to bring people back.

As she took her latest tour group outside, the air was rich with a mix of fragrances from the restaurants, herbal stores and fresh-seafood market.

She hustled the slow-moving group from her blue-colored shop front, with the Chinese-style roof ornament, and led them down Seventh Avenue South, crossing South King Street.

First stop: a community bulletin board on the side of a building.

"This is a historical landmark that can't be torn down," Mar said. Early in the century, when the Chinese didn't have their own newspaper, they flocked to the board to read from posted announcements. More recently, she said, a local artist gained notice by making collages out of the board's fliers.

The group then crossed Seventh, headed up South King and entered the Yick Fung Co., a dimly-lit, cramped food import/export business.

From the shelves, Mar picked up a box of "1,000-year-old," or aged, eggs, saying they're a Chinese delicacy served as appetizers. She also pointed out a row of jars containing preserves such as ginger slices, salted olives and apricots.

"As a little girl," she recalled, "I would come down here and get some preserves and nibble on them. You know, preserves are better for you. The Chinese believe in what's natural." She also remembered that back then the shop had boarders upstairs. Taking in tenants was common at the time among Chinatown merchants, including Mar's father, who ran a hardware store a stone's throw from Yick Fung.

For her father, the tenant side of the business became more of a community service. "By the time my father passed away when I was 8 or 9," Mar says, "there were four books filled with names of people who owed him rent."

Mar's tour business works the same way. She says she doesn't see any profits from it but just loves to promote a neighborhood with which she has deep ties.

Mar was born just a few blocks from the International District. She graduated from Garfield High School and later enrolled in some night classes at the University of Washington before marriage and three kids became her priorities.

She worked as a secretary at the UW medical school for a while, then took a commissioned sales job with a travel agency. She eventually served on the Seattle Community College and Harborview Medical Center boards. She also has been a docent for the Seattle Art and Wing Luke museums - an experience that has proven beneficial in her tour business.

In 1981, she started her own travel agency and later Chinatown Discovery, first as a sideline and then as a full-time operation.

The merchants at first laughed at the idea of giving tours of the International District. "They asked, `What's to see down here?' " Mar said. But she lived up to her name, which in Chinese translates as perseverance, and now merchants welcome the exposure Mar's tours bring.

This day's group wrapped up its tour with a visit to a Chinese-medicine/acupuncture clinic on Maynard Avenue South, where one member received a free check-up.

But Mar continued dishing out tidbits of Asian history and culture as well as pork buns and chow mein during a late lunch at a Chinese restaurant.

In recent years, Mar said she has focused her tour on younger visitors, realizing that shaping positive cultural attitudes among kids may be the best way to eliminate racism.

For information on the International District tours, call 583-0375.