Chinese Culture Center

The Chinese Culture Center (simplified Chinese: 旧金山中华文化中心; traditional Chinese: 舊金山中華文化中心; pinyin: Jiùjīnshān Zhōnghuá Wénhuà Zhōngxīn; Jyutping: Gau⁶gam¹saan¹ Zung¹waa⁴ Man⁴faa³ Zung¹sam¹) of San Francisco, California, USA, is a major community-based, non-profit organization established in 1965 to foster the understanding and appreciation of Chinese and Chinese American art, history, and culture in the United States.

The facilities of the Center, totaling 20,000 square feet (1,900 m²), include a 299-seat auditorium, a 2,935-square-foot (272.7 m²) gallery, book shop, classroom, and offices. Centrally located between Chinatown and the Financial District, the Center attracts a broad spectrum of audiences from the Chinese community, the city at large, and the greater Bay Area, as well as visitors from all over the country.

History

The Center was built as a compromise between developmental forces, such as the San Francisco Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and ethnic associations such as the Asian People's Coalition, who wanted a community center or affordable housing in Chinatown. It was the first Chinese cultural center in the San Francisco Chinatown, located on one floor of a Holiday Inn. The Chinese Culture Foundation, established to run the Center the same year in 1965, was pressured by older Chinese Americans who wanted to use the center to preserve a link to the culture in China, and younger Chinese Americans who wanted to create a culture with both Chinese and American influences.

In the 1970s, the Center began hosting celebrations of the Spring Festival, including family-oriented activities such as martial arts demonstrations, batik and pottery making, and food demonstrations. The celebration included screenings of films and slideshows about post-1950s China. Then in the 1980s, the Center organized trips to sponsor American-born Chinese to visit their ancestral homes in China with its highly successful "In Search of Roots" program. Because it refused sponsorship by the Republic of China government, it was accused of supporting communism, and shunned by the Chinese establishment in San Francisco. However, after the Chinese economic reform and democracy in the Republic of China on Taiwan, the Two Chinas became less hostile, and so the San Francisco Chinese Chamber of Commerce and other older Chinatown organizations began to cooperate with the Chinese Culture Center in the 1990s.

Additionally, the Center hosts "the Roots Village Database" site for Chinese people to search for their ancestral villages in Taishan, Xinhui, Kaiping, and Zhongshan (Siyi), the Pearl River Delta counties of China.

See also

• History of the Chinese Americans in San Francisco
• Chinese American Museum
• Chinese Historical Society of America

External links

• Official site
• Interview with Chinese Culture Center program director on Art Practical.