The Chinese are everywhere in the world. They often build Chinatown and make their living on their own. In 1858, Japan opend its door to other countries. Port of Yokohama was opened in the following year. Various countries created their settlements there. The Chinese too moved to Yokohama as the translator and broker between the Japanese and the Westerners. As their number grew, they built their own town here. Chinatown collapsed after the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, and the WWII discouraged their economic activity thoroughly. Since the war ended, Chinatown recovered gradually. It became the touristic site for the Japanese when diplomatic relations were established between China and Japan. Nowadays, it is more like a commercial site for tourists rather than for the Chinese immigrants.


Shunsets (Chunjie in Mandarin) is the celebration of Chinese New Year. Because they use the lunisolar calendar, the Chinese celbrate a different date than the Westerners and the Japanese. It was Febryary 18 in 2007, and will be February 7 in 2008 and January 26 in 2009. On the eve, they have countdown party. At midnight, they explode bakuchiku (firecracker) which gets rid of devils as the Chinese believe.

Chinatown also shows a performance of Chinese dance as well as lion dance during the shunsets season. Shishimai (lion dance) was changed a lot and adopted by the Japanese culture. However, here you can see the original dance by the young Chinese who communicate with each other during their performance in the perfect shape in Japanese.