China News Service, June 15 (Xinhua). According to a compilation report from the Chinese website of China, 10 years after former Morgan Stanley insurance analyst Wilson Tang took over the century-old New York Chinatown restaurant Nanhua Tea Room, he returned to entrepreneurship. mode.

  As New York City slowly recovers from the blockade of the New Coronary Pneumonia epidemic, Chinatown where Deng Wei is located is also recovering painfully from its collapsed business. The 42-year-old Deng Wei hardly remembered that New York had a harder time, even during the financial crisis of Wall Street from 2008 to 2009.

  Two months after the closure of the business, the Nanhua tea room reopened on May 17, local time. Deng Wei has been driving his car to deliver lunch boxes to nearby apartment buildings. He has provided a large number of orders for tenant organizations. He will also drive to pick up employees from Bensenga, Brooklyn in the morning. Due to the risk of infection, employees are vigilant about taking the subway.

  After a full day of work, he sent them home again.

  Like most parts of Manhattan, Chinatown’s economic base that relied on tourists and high-income professionals disappeared during the epidemic. Because the city has just opened, there are not many tourists visiting, and few white-collar workers commute to urban areas. Overall, the impact on Chinatown seems to be greater than on many popular areas on the island.

  Chen Zuozhou, executive director of Chinatown's joint development agency, said that as of June 5, only 46% of the community's nearly 300 restaurants had reopened. According to data from business software provider Womply, the proportion in New York City is 63%.

  Sun Qicheng, founder and chairman of National Treasury Bank, said that the bank received a record level of home loan deferred payment application at the peak of the pandemic, although he explained that this was partly because people initially misunderstood the 90-day mortgage relief order in New York . He still hopes that most people will eventually repay the mortgage interest in full, because Chinese borrowers tend to have more savings.

  The epidemic has ruthlessly exposed the long-standing problems of Chinatown in New York: family business faces the challenge of successors, an aging population unable to live elsewhere due to language problems, and dependence on low-profit businesses in the world’s most expensive cities .

  Wang Zhongyi, the owner of the restaurant Su Zhijia, which opened in August 2019, has not yet decided when to reopen. The waste of rent and inventory during the epidemic has already caused him to lose more than 50,000 US dollars.

  "We are walking down the street today to see which restaurants are open and to what extent they have recovered." He said, "It looks like most people are locals, not tourists. The locals look like they are just buying in a hurry Finish things and go home."

  To be sure, Chinatown has a history of reshaping itself. Since the 19th century, it has been a clothing center, transportation hub and food wholesale area. Now, as the tourism industry cannot be fully restored within a few years, some companies see opportunities for modernization—simple things like building websites, accepting Venmo payments, and providing services to customers outside of Chinatown.

  Patrick Mock, the 26-year-old manager of the gourmet shop at 46 Be Street, says he is trying out some of the measures his elders are usually reluctant to take: he works with non-profit organizations to explore gift card systems Free meals with seniors.

  "We have nothing more to lose." He said, "Then, you will use this as an opportunity to try all the methods you have never tried before, until it works."