The bunker was built by Polish workers who could not speak English, and officials denied its existence until 1967, 10 years after it was constructed. The building sits on top of a heavily fortified nuclear fallout bunker with more than four miles of tunnels that was built to protect visiting Chinese officials in the event of a nuclear war. The Guardian Telephone Exchange was, I thought, just another unassuming brick building on George Street, but I found out that it has a sinister history. And perhaps most intriguing, the neighborhood was also ground zero for bizarre secret-intelligence operations. Since then, this part of the city has witnessed the opening of Manchester’s first Chinese restaurant and the construction of the Chinese-carved, ornately decorated, dragon-and phoenix-covered Paifang archway, a present from the Manchester City Council to the Chinese community in 1986. Though today it’s just a short hop from Manchester Piccadilly train station, Manchester’s Chinatown was established more than 100 years ago by Chinese peasants who emigrated to find their fortune in England’s bustling industrial heart. Picture a street lined with Asian supermarkets, restaurants serving the best Chinese-meets-British food and a Paifang Chinese archway, and then add people speaking with a strong northern-English accent, and you’ll know you’ve arrived. Manchester, the capital of northern England and the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, is a haven of cultural integration, but what I found in the city’s famous Chinatown was a unique combination of Chinese foods and cultural traditions with a northern-English twist.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |