earticle

영어

Chinatown is often called “Chinese quarter”, “Chinese party” that refers to a dense residential area formed by the residences in the local area of Chinese immigrants who settled outside of the country of Chinese territory. Although there are many Chinatown around the world including London, San Francisco, the largest Chinatown scale in Asia is Jukuka located in Yokohama, Japan. Yokohama's Chinatown brings dense residential area of 150 years history, variety of Chinese architecture as well as Yokohama Overseas Chinese Association including general assembly of Overseas Chinese, Chinese school combined triple language services, Chinese temple with tomb compose of symbol mechanism of speciality of Chinese culture. In addition, Yokohama Jukaka China town with 600 stores is also a famous tourist destination where 18 million people visit per year. The purpose of this study through local surveys and in-depth interviews is to analyze how overseas Chinese who immigrated to Japan express collective memory and nostalgia to homeland in Chinatown. The findings of this study are as follows: first, Yokohama Chinatown retains a history of over 150 years that is not only formation of Chinese home in the country of residence in Japan but also formation a member and symbiosis of mainstream society in multicultural space. Second, Chinatown as Chinese home of ethnic Chinese compose in various symbol to homeland base on signifier and visual-religious-classic- educational. Third, Ethnic Chinese in Yokohama Chinatown is not fully assimilated into Japanese society, still strengthen ties with their home country keeping the national identity of their own through maintaining their native language and traditional culture.