Insert quote from Jack Nicholson movie here

Today's Chinatown Economic Forum, the eighth such neighborhood business pow-wow hosted by Our Gav (but first in the land of dim sum) was not unlike the 30-Stockton -- it was crowded, it was stuffy, I didn't understand a word and small old women kept trying to knock me over.

Maybe some of that is because two-thirds of Chinatown residents do not speak English, or because they're one of the 55 percent of households in C-town that earn less than $25,000 a year -- households, mind you, not people -- sobering facts in the city with 33 percent Asian population and the biggest Chinatown outside of Asia.

I understood that much, as Gavin himself provided some of the dirty nitty gritty, and the rest of it was pasted up on the walls. What else happened? Well, city planner Bill Lee ran around the room shushing people too intent on chit chatting in between plates of duck to listen to speakers, Carmen Chu said a whole lot of nothing in English (but may have revealed the meaning of life in Mandarin or Cantonese, damned if I'll ever know), and I met a ton of candidates for Aaron Peskin's supe seat, most of whom I'll probably never meet again.

The consensus was 1. Chinatown is crowded 2. Chinatown is dirty and 3. Chinatown has no parking. That's all that stops Chinatown from becoming more than a glorified outdoor cafeteria and deadly tourist trap. That's all. So get at it... right?