[HN Gopher] A place I've never been to. A place I'll never go
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A place I've never been to. A place I'll never go
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 128 points
Date : 2024-04-25 18:21 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (jacobfilipp.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (jacobfilipp.com)
| underlipton wrote:
| I think there is a strong argument for the Library of Congress or
| some other public/quasi-public entity to archive Google
| Maps/StreetView data. Redevelopment has been an ongoing fact of
| life for much of the time I've lived in my area, and huge swathes
| of the landscape are nigh unrecognizable from when I was a kid.
| However, a lot of the way things were is preserved in that map
| and image data. I think this is valuable for any number of
| applications, let alone the basic act of grounding oneself within
| the fact of the change that one's environment has undergone over
| time. Unfortunately, for however grateful I am that Google has
| made all of this available to us, I don't trust them to preserve
| it all long-term. I don't think it would be a good idea to let it
| all slip through our fingers without a plan.
| ogurechny wrote:
| Why rely on Daddy Google so much in the first place?
|
| A couple of months ago, I was puzzled enough by the lack of
| large scale urban history services in the West to post this
| question (with examples of what was possible):
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38090473
| nomdep wrote:
| Why almost every store have their names written in Chinese (?)
| and English.
|
| Is the post a joke with photos from Asia malls (or AI generated)?
| Or it's just common in that part of Canada?
| supportengineer wrote:
| I see that everywhere in USA also.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| You see names written in Chinese and English everywhere in
| the USA? Or did you mean something else? Because if that's
| what you meant to say, that is absolutely not how things are
| "everywhere in the USA".
| Jcampuzano2 wrote:
| I live in Texas, and have lived in California and New York.
| In all three of these places the areas with a large Chinese
| presence will have stores with names in both Chinese and
| English.
|
| This is absolutely common in the US in pretty much any
| large city, I can't imagine someone having never seen this
| before in the US unless they never lived or went to an area
| that was diverse. And its not just Chinese, many places
| will have Korean names, Japanese names, and of course on
| the other end Spanish names accompanied by english but most
| are more used to this.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| As someone who regularly shops at those sorts of places,
| there is a large part of the US population that ignores
| or is otherwise unaware of them, most of my family
| included. I've had multiple conversations where people
| have been shocked when informed that there's an Asian or
| Mexican market a short distance away that they had no
| idea existed.
| shermantanktop wrote:
| We all live in private worlds that are overlaid on top of
| the same geography.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I see it in Chinese restaurants, sure. And in Chinatowns.
| (And with Spanish in the southwest.) I don't see it on
| "almost every store" "everywhere in the US", though.
| Jcampuzano2 wrote:
| I think you're simply taking "everywhere in the US" too
| literally then if your interpretation of that was "almost
| every store".
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| "Almost every store" is a _direct quote_ from nomdep.
| klyrs wrote:
| Nomdep was referring to the pictures in TFA -- the rest
| of the comments are explaining why a mall may look like
| that. Not an entire city.
|
| A reasonable interpretation of "you see that everywhere"
| is "most cities have a mall or neighborhood that would
| result in a similar set of pictures.
|
| It's incredible how many "hackers" in this thread don't
| understand how quantifiers work in contexts other than
| code. How the hell does this industry translate business
| needs into code without this rudimentary skill?
| Maxatar wrote:
| Did you really think that OP meant that literally almost
| every single store in the U.S. has Chinese names written
| on their storefront?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Yes, it is very common in urban and even suburban USA to
| find stores, and in larger cities entire neighborhoods of
| stores, where names are in both Latin and some other
| script, and other text is in English and some other
| language (whether or not both use the Latin alphabet.) It's
| not too uncommon in, say, California to see this for
| several different east asian languages (Chinese being the
| nost common generally, but there is regional variation),
| Spanish, and maybe Arabic and/or Russian, _in a single
| moderately sized city_.
| bombcar wrote:
| Even out here in the sticks, the local Chinese restaurant
| has both English and Chinese menus.
|
| It's quite likely that the only people around here who can
| read the Chinese menus work there or are related to those
| who work there.
| int_19h wrote:
| From what I've seen, it is an established and expected
| cultural practice for "ethnic" restaurants in US to have
| bilingual menus regardless of their actual location. It
| could be a Mexican restaurant in an area that is 99%
| white Anglos, and it will still have menu in English
| _and_ Spanish.
|
| Personally I think it's great; it means that you get some
| exposure to other languages even if you never leave your
| corner of the woods.
| dingdong33 wrote:
| I've been twice in USA recently and I didn't see that
| anywhere.
| 13of40 wrote:
| Not sure about Toronto, but there are a lot of places like that
| on the BC side. I don't know if it's true or not, but I heard
| once that leading up to the handoff of Hong Kong from Britain
| to China there was a lot of immigration to Canada, due to their
| easier process than that of the US. It could also just be an
| Asian neighborhood like you'll find in pretty much every major
| city.
| int_19h wrote:
| That was one of the major events, but in general there has
| been a steady trickle of immigrants from Japan and China to
| American and Canadian west coast settlements for the past 150
| years or so. As with most diasporas, the way it usually works
| is that the first people come there because it's cheaper
| and/or because there's work available, and then once they
| establish a local community, more immigrants start coming
| there preferentially because they have friends and family,
| because there are services available in their language etc.
|
| In BC, Richmond in particular has been a recipient of many of
| those immigrants from Hong Kong, which is why its population
| is still majority ethnic Chinese, and even many official
| signs are bilingual.
| KevinGlass wrote:
| Yes, almost all US cities have at least a couple grocery stores
| that stock imported products and have signage in multiple
| languages. most common is Chinese or general "Asian" but larger
| cities have more specific stores that specialize further on
| Korean, Vietnamese, etc.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| It's common in Canada for ethnic malls and stores whose
| proprietors and customers are mostly first- and second-
| generation immigrants, that they'd have signage in their own
| language. There's no rule enforcing it and no rule against it,
| except maybe in Quebec.
| ultrasaurus wrote:
| Quebec's language laws are fascinating, the newest version
| "requires non-French signs to be accompanied by French
| descriptions that are twice the size." Since the goal is "to
| ensure French predominates the visual field of storefronts,"
| you can have the logos be the same size as long as the
| tagline is in French.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-storefront-
| si... https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/new-
| regulations-will...
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I think the word you are looking for is "totalitarian". The
| legal system there virtually guarantees French as the only
| acceptable language. Even native-born Quebecois who are
| also native English speakers need to go through a process
| to be permitted to school their children in English.
| Jcampuzano2 wrote:
| Go to any large/well-known US city and you will with almost
| 100% certainty be able to find an area where this is absolutely
| common. I live in Texas right down the street from one of many
| asian street malls/plazas in my city where the majority of the
| store names are first written in either Chinese or Korean. I'm
| certain its likely the same in Canada
| morkalork wrote:
| That area of Toronto has a huge Chinese diaspora. I have many
| memories of trekking to Pacific Mall (also mentioned in the
| blog post) on public transit with my anime-watching friends in
| highschool to buy pirated DVDs and other merch. A nearby
| Walmart has bilingual English - Chinese signs inside.
| magneticnorth wrote:
| I'm curious where you live that this seems so unusual.
|
| I'm in the USA, and any area with a large immigrant population
| will have a shopping mall or at least a few stores where
| signage is in English & the language of the local immigrant
| population.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| In most of the southeast you're only going to see English.
| Even in medium size towns. Texas is completely different
| however, where you can easily see 3 languages alone set of
| store fronts.
| lhorie wrote:
| There's many pockets in Toronto with high density of Chinese
| commerce, the area around Steeles east of the IBM campus is
| one. Pacific Mall mentioned in the article is only one of the
| commercial centers in the area. There's also Metro Square a few
| blocks west, the T&T plaza next door, Skycity on Midland/Finch,
| and various other small plazas around the area, full of Chinese
| food goodness.
| acacac wrote:
| I grew up here. There's a lot of people in this area (generally
| non-working members of first gen immigrant families, think gma
| and gpa) who don't really speak English. My parents took me to
| these malls for a glimpse of the culture where home is (and to
| make me practice mandarin). As second-gen immigrants grow up,
| some have opened their own businesses too, combining aspects of
| Canadian and Chinese culture. To me now, it feels like home.
|
| The bakery in Denison Square is a clear example of a cultural
| mishmash - they offer many of the traditional hk style breads
| like pineapple buns, but also many twists that definitely have
| a Canadian influence (smoked beef sandwitch with milk bread).
| nox101 wrote:
| I don't know about Canada but SF, LA, NYC,
|
| https://bestneighborhood.org/race-in-san-francisco-ca/
|
| Zoom out can you can zoom into any city and see at least in SF,
| LA, NYC there are huge areas where you can expect non-English
| to possibly be common. Sorry it doesn't cover Canada but I'm
| sure some searching can bring up something similar.
| acchow wrote:
| It's like the 21st century "China town". Many new migrants
| prefer avoiding downtown and the old China towns so have built
| new ones, complete with huge parking lots.
| gosub100 wrote:
| The immigrants have no interest in the culture of their host
| country. They are only there for economic convenience.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| I have a similar feeling when I bring friends to places I spent
| lots of time, but which have now been completely transformed by
| redevelopment. I can walk through and visualize my old
| surroundings as if they were still there, but I just can't convey
| them to others who are visiting to the first time. The best I can
| do is show old google maps photos.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| > I have a similar feeling when I bring friends to places I
| spent lots of time, but which have now been completely
| transformed by redevelopment
|
| Our family's 1800s home was one of five, on 2 forking dirt
| roads that meandered thru the woods. From our front porch, we
| could see across the creek, out to where the prison grew
| alfalfa and corn.
|
| Our dirt road+creek met the paved road; that was the school bus
| stop. Across the pavement and past a 40ac cow field was a domed
| radar installation. It served a nearby Nike missile base. The
| prison guard towers, maximum security and it's railroad were a
| half mile to the side.
|
| The missile base left in 75. The train ended in 77 w/ stock
| sold by 80. My brother evicted us in 87 - and for good measure
| razed the house and every tree. I married and left the area in
| 90. The sprawling prison complex sold to developers in 2000s.
|
| I visited my birth home (site) in 2019. I needed a map to find
| it. The paved road I knew had been ripped up and replaced with
| a different road going different places.
|
| The cow field where I waited for my bus was a forest. In it's
| way, this was the most disorienting part of the visit.
|
| The dirt road forking off of ours led to a sportsball park. It
| continued on a bit and was bisected by an 8 lane cross-county
| highway.
|
| My dirt road was paved and ended at a cul-de-sac of townhouses
| where my neighbors had been. Our lot was occupied by the
| commercial nursery that my brother had built and later sold.
| Our ramshackle garage still stood for some reason. The fields
| across our creek were more townhomes.
|
| I have historical photos of our home and nearby. However, I
| regret that we never took pictures of the 2 miles around our
| home - the land we walked and drove 1000s of times.
|
| It certainly never occurred to any of us that the roads
| themselves would disappear.
| mrweasel wrote:
| Earlier this week I went back to the small town where I went to
| school, something I've been meaning to do for the past two
| years. It's still a nice small touristy coastal town,
| absolutely relaxing, with wonderful fresh air and a really nice
| walk in the beautiful spring weather. But it's not exactly the
| same town. Stores have close, buildings repurposed,
| neighborhoods redeveloped and some things have just been torn
| down. I used to recognize a ton of people, but the population
| have changed over the past 25 years, now I don't know anyone.
|
| Going back was nice, especially the few things that had stayed
| the same, but expecting everything to just freeze and wait for
| you to return one day was perhaps a little naive.
| neilv wrote:
| Interesting malls that disappeared before the Web left less
| digital trace:
|
| https://tanasbournemall.blogspot.com/2011/12/tanasbourne-mal...
|
| As a kid, riding on the freeway to grandma's, I'd always wonder
| what that weird building with the futuristic windows in the
| distance was. Later, as a teen, working out near there, I learned
| it was a mall, but already mostly closed down, except for the
| Chang's Mongolian Grill.
|
| Thankfully, someone went to the trouble to retroactively put some
| information about it on the Web.
| morkalork wrote:
| I can empathize with the author after moving away from Toronto
| almost 20 years ago, so much from when I was a teenager is gone.
| I'm not "from" where I live now, and where I'm "from" no longer
| exists, I just feel perpetually detached from everywhere now.
| thenewwazoo wrote:
| You can't go home again.
| netsharc wrote:
| Grosse Pointe Blank reference?
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50G3ScEKP6Y
|
| Ironically his former home got turned to a, well not a mall,
| but a convenience store.
| mikestew wrote:
| Grosse Point Blank is making a reference to Thomas Wolfe:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can't_Go_Home_Again
| workingdog wrote:
| On those who step into the same rivers, different and
| different waters flow
|
| - Heraclitus ~5th century BC
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus
| whartung wrote:
| One of the reasons I like to watch "Colombo" is that it was
| essentially filmed in Los Angeles and around Southern
| California.
|
| It's an ad hoc capture of the southland in the early 70s. I
| like to reference IMDB to try to see if the landmarks in the
| show still exist. Some do, some don't. The criminals used to
| live in some very nice houses up in Bel Air.
|
| A recent example had Colombo at a winery. Well, the Pomona and
| Cucamonga Valley is where many of the wineries were back in the
| day. But, that's been transitioning away from that area for
| some time. The Ontario Airport exists where that winery was in
| the show.
|
| But there's still vestiges of all that in the area, and the
| area is still in rapid change. What used to be dairy farms are
| all turning into warehouses or new residences. Yet, there's
| still that same old local convenience store on the corner in
| its 70+ year old building just down the street.
|
| It's a very interesting place to just watch the change happen
| around you.
| netsharc wrote:
| Apparently people who grew up in East Germany have this but
| worse. Their "home culture" (TV shows, snacks made by the state
| snack factories) got "demolished" when East Germany got
| absorbed into Germany...
| ephesee wrote:
| This is one of the many aspects of the so-called "Ostalgie":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostalgie
| kstenerud wrote:
| I had trouble getting an apartment in Leipzig a few years
| ago, because so many of the (older) landlords didn't want
| "Wessies" in the house who would just leave in a couple of
| years rather than staying and joining the house community.
| mattpallissard wrote:
| I've tried explaining this feeling to people so many times.
| Unmoored is a good word.
|
| We now live in a place where the locals are warm and welcoming,
| but I'll never be one of them. My kids are, but I'm just a
| little different. When I go back to where I was raised, I'm no
| longer a local there either, just a little bit different. It's
| more than the place itself changing. It's as if there is some
| continuity that's been broken somewhere.
|
| It's not bad, just odd. I can't quite put my finger on it.
| ElFitz wrote:
| As a kid we never lived in a country more than a few years.
| Now, everywhere feels a bit off. And I feel a bit off
| everywhere.
|
| Which, you are right, isn't bad. Just odd.
|
| Unmoored is adequate.
| ben_w wrote:
| An old partner of mine described herself as a TCK, "third
| culture kid": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_culture_kid
| muro wrote:
| "Without roots"
| joemaller1 wrote:
| > The good thing is that, after 5 years of >
| construction, a beautiful new mall stan... just kidding! >
| > This is Canada. The place where construction > has to
| stop because you're not allowed to uproot > a tree on your
| own property. Or a vindictive neighbour > holds up your
| project in Committee of Adjustments, until > you build
| them a new deck as a bribe. Or construction > is blocked
| by a surprise Heritage Listing on your > building. I could
| keep going!
|
| Little throwaways like this are brushstrokes in a much bigger
| picture.
| Maxatar wrote:
| Yeah it's an exaggerated rant, including the idea that you
| can't uproot a tree on your property which is only somewhat
| true, but it's not much different than most developed countries
| including the U.S.
|
| With little exception, there is a heck of a lot of construction
| in Canada. Canada has among the highest construction per capita
| in the world.
| randohostage wrote:
| the amplification makes one wonder was it all in the books all
| along or was it a real movement in the first place?
| pstrateman wrote:
| surprise heritage listing?
|
| that's not a thing, you would 100% know when buying that a
| building was listed
| gattr wrote:
| I've read someone mentioning that in the UK such matters
| often resolve themselves by means of an accidental fire.
| Xophmeister wrote:
| Karma's a bitch:
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-
| staffordshire-68...
| amluto wrote:
| Where I live, an administrator can decide that there is
| insufficient evidence that a property is _not_ historic to
| permit unrestricted changes.
| acchow wrote:
| > The place where construction has to stop because you're not
| allowed to uproot
|
| Strange take for Toronto where houses are being torn down and
| rebuilt as larger houses or high rises everywhere
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| How does a "surprise heritage listing" come up?
|
| I don't know that I'm always a fan of heritage designations,
| but they're not exactly a surprise to a buyer, right?
| wbl wrote:
| They absolutely can be. Often the designation process can be
| started by a complaining neighbor, who won't act until
| notified about construction.
| debo_ wrote:
| I bought many things at this offshoot of p-mall. It was there
| long before Pacific Mall, but gradually became its undersized
| sibling. There was a kitchen supply store there that had great
| stuff at good prices. I still have many of those purchases and
| use them often.
|
| It had the advantage of being a lot quieter than Pacific Mall,
| although parking was equally impossible. I'd usually walk through
| P-mall for fun, and then use this place to actually shop.
| gembeMx wrote:
| Why is this relevant to hn ?
| samus wrote:
| > Hacker News Guidelines
|
| > What to Submit
|
| > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting.
| That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to
| reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that
| gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
| jader201 wrote:
| I like that Google Maps now lets you view a time in the past of a
| location on Street View. I hope this serves as an archive of
| sorts of how things used to look, at least from the outside, for
| decades/centuries to come.
|
| If the various locations I've lived and visited become
| unrecognizable like this, at least it would allow me to get a
| glimpse of how it used to look.
| wwilim wrote:
| I once went to see an antique palace with my wife, which
| according to Google reviews was home to a 3-star hotel with a
| restaurant. Turns out the hotel was long gone, the property
| turned private, and the new owner didn't notice us and locked the
| gate when leaving, trapping us and our car inside. We jumped the
| fence and found the guy and kindly asked him to come back and
| open the gate.
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