Living Room Listening

What is the soundtrack to your living room? From our favorites on the radio to the conversations woven over them, our living rooms ring with the sounds and stories of our families.

Bringing together music and oral history, Rochelle Hoi-Yiu Kwan (aka YiuYiu 瑶瑶) will gather us for an intimate living room listening through the Chinatown Records 華埠錄音 archive. Pulling from over 30 record collections inherited from her family and neighbors, we'll listen together to songs that have long filled Chinatown living rooms – and the histories and memories that come with them. 

Rooted in the belief that we can all be DJs and oral historians, we invite you to bring a favorite song of your own to share and soundtrack our living room with us, whether on a vinyl record or online. Come step into these musical portals with us, back to a time – whether 50 years ago while dancing in our youth or to our childhood singing along at family karaoke parties – that etched every word and beat into our memory.

Pay-as-you-can RSVP required! If you are unable to contribute financially, please don’t hesitate to reach out to [email protected] – we would still love to have you there! If you're able to support our programs with a donation, Think!Chinatown can keep them accessible to our Chinatown neighbors.

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Sponsored by Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and NYC Dept of Cultural Affairs

Rochelle Hoi-Yiu Kwan (aka YiuYiu 瑶瑶) is a cultural organizer, artist, and oral history educator based on Lenape land in NYC's Manhattan Chinatown. She takes on her childhood name YiuYiu 瑶瑶 as a researcher and DJ for Chinatown Records 華埠錄音. Bringing together art and history, she leads oral history projects and training with Think!Chinatown and a wide variety of classrooms that have taught her so much all along the way. @rochellehkwan

Chinatown Records 華埠錄音 is a homegrown community effort to celebrate the richness of music, memory, and history that comes with inherited family collections. Spanning across Chinatown block parties, sonic family histories, living room listenings, and endless learning with family and neighbors, Chinatown Records 華埠錄音 is an ever-growing record of the people we love, who bring all this music back to life with us. @chinatownrecordsproject

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Chinatown Arts Festival is a month-long festival produced by Think!Chinatown to celebrate the cultural richness of Manhattan’s Chinatown with musical and dance performances, storytelling projects, film screenings, art exhibitions, a block party, and so much more! This series of cultural programs presents traditional Chinatown artists, and emerging Asian American artists in context and dialogue with each other, bringing the generations together and making connections with a wider arts audience. The festival also highlights cultural happenings presented by neighboring organizations and artists to increase awareness of Chinatown’s cultural assets. Learn more at thinkchinatown.org/artsfest

Think!Chinatown is an intergenerational non-profit based in Manhattan’s Chinatown, here to listen, to respond, and to build China­town’s capacities as a strong & vibrant immigrant neighborhood of NYC. Our mission is to foster intergenerational community through neighbor­hood engagement, storytelling & the arts. We push from within our neighborhood to shape better policies and programs that define our public spaces, to celebrate our cultural heritage, and to innovate how our collective memories are represented. Learn more at thinkchinatown.org

Host or Publisher Think!Chinatown