Exploring Chinatown: A Children's Guide to Chinese Culture is a book written by Carol Stephanchuk. She worked at the Chinese Culture Center in SF Chinatown many years ago. The book is published by Pacific View Press and illustrated by yours truly. The book contains about twenty two of my illustrations. I finished the drawings in November 2001 and the book is now available at many bookstores that carry children's books.

Illustrating this book was really natural for me though it took a lot of time into the wee hours of the morning. I came up with most of these images with very little help from reference materials. Being born and raised in San Francisco Chinatown, scenes of the Chinese community are deeply etched in my mind.

Also special thanks to Nancy Ippolito of Pacific View Press for choosing me as the illustrator and Mark Ong of Side By Side Studios the designer of this book. I admired Mark's artwork back at Marina Junior High School in the mid-sixties, so it was great to finally connect with him after all these years.

This illustration is of Chinatown, San Francisco morning scene. It is based on the corner of Stockton and Jackson Street. The store there was called Orange Land. It is only half a block from my elementary school, formally Commodore Stockton, now Gordon J. Lau Elementary School. It illustrates the tight community feeling which I grew up with. The mother taking her children to school and seeing the familiar man at the grocery store, waving to say "Jouh Sahn!"

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