#HTE
Today’s Urban Design Observation: Asian Grandmother Cart Parking
My neighborhood borders the neighborhoods known as Little
Italy and Chinatown. Despite a few holdouts, the former community has largely
departed, displaced by the latter community.
A striking and somewhat heartbreaking sociological
difference can be seen in the local supermarkets. Whenever I see an elderly,
local Caucasian woman in the supermarket, her basket reveals she is shopping
for at most one or two people. In contrast, when I see elderly Chinese women in
the supermarket, they look like they are shopping for a large family. (I have
never photographed this in action because I feel it would be rude.)
Hauling groceries is not easy for older people. The elderly
Caucasian women in my neighborhood all seem to use the same wire metal folding
basket on wheels. The elderly Chinese women favor a sort of bag-cart hybrid.
Anyways, there’s a Chinese-language senior center in my neighborhood, and as I
walked past it today I saw the grannies inside had all parked their
grocery-getters outside.
There was one woman who was apparently tasked with watching
these. I kept her out-of-frame for politeness’ sake.
For the most part, there’s a commonality in color palette of the bags. So I bet the one with the polka dots is a real firecracker.
http://www.core77.com/posts/71185/Todays-Urban-Design-Observation-Asian-Grandmother-Cart-Parking
6 years ago