When Phil asked me to write a guest post, I knew I wanted to highlight the creators of Chinatown Pretty, a street-style blog celebrating fashionable Asian American seniors and their stories in San Francisco Chinatown.
Photographer Andria Lo and writer Valerie Luu met through food -- Andria shot the photos for Valerie's Vietnamese pop-up restaurant and catering business, Rice Paper Scissors. Their inspiration for Chinatown Pretty? Man Ta, "the woman with the jade shoes," who Valerie first spotted getting off a bus somewhere between Chinatown and North Beach. She just knew she had to find out the story behind the chic octogenarian and her bright green kicks.
As it turns out, the sneakers are from a store on Stockton Street, and she owns ten pairs: "I wear them until they break," Man Ta told Valerie and Andria. A longtime Chinatown resident, she has since seen that store on Stockton shutter.
