St. Louis is a beautiful city and that’s why we must support the community here.  For example, it’s one of the most charitable cities in America.  We have so many charities in St. Louis and as a city, we just like to give and help those that are unfortunate.  We also give first class treatment to arts and cultural institutions.  In fact, I believe St. Louis has world class arts and cultural institutions in our very city.

We also have a large volunteer force.  The people of St. Louis love to volunteer and offer their spare time to help the city and its organizations.  I’ve been to other cities in America and while there are many volunteers there as well, it just feels like St. Louis citizens enjoy volunteering more.

Our football team, the St. Louis Rams, remains a competitive and model team in the NFL.  We have great fans of the St. Louis Rams and we are proud of the history of the Rams.  We also have an excellent baseball team in the St. Louis Cardinals and of course, I think we have one of the most lovely stadiums in the US.  Busch Stadium has an excellent view of not just the field itself, but you also get a great view of the city landscape behind Bush Stadium, including the Gateway Arch.

So, I’ve been studying Chinese lately with a tutor at www.mandarintutor.com and I wanted to find a place in St. Louis to practice my Chinese. As you may well know, the Chinatown that used to reside at Hop Alley is long gone.  Fortunately, we have a new Chinatown at Olive Boulevard in University City.  It’s roughly located between Interstate 170 and Midland Boulevard.  Around 1989, enough restaurants and businesses opened that the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of St. Louis was created.  Since then, several Vietnamese restaurants and even a Japanese restaurant has been established around the new Chinatown and you might even think it’s becoming a center for Asian business in general!  If you’re looking for a place to get asian groceries and goods, this is probably the most convenient place in St. Louis to get it.  The selection of groceries are excellent and fresh and if you want to try some of the asian oriented vegetables, this is a great place to get them.

Since the beginnings of the new Chinatown, many of the original businesses have remained including a newspaper, a salon, and a place for seniors to obtain services.  There is also a nice Chinese bakery to visit if you want to get your latest filling of Chinese cakes and pies.  In addition, there is expansion to create an International Center and build an indoor mall to host more tenants.  Chinatown shows how vibrant the city of St. Louis is and how we appreciate and support our minorities and their businesses.  We encourage more minorities to come to our city and to establish businesses and communities to make the great city of St. Louis more diverse.