A downtown that Wants to be chinatown

On the second day the first place we went to in Washington DC was a college campus. We went to Georgetown University where we walked around with our group for a while until the student tour started. On this tour we learned a lot more about the facts of the university in which we would not have known without participating in this tour. The most interesting fact that I learned about is that one of the traditions of this university before anyone graduate, is that first they have to take a selfie while sitting on the statue of John Carl's lap, which can be pretty difficult because of the heat which makes it hard to climb up. (Tried this first hand) Second they have to dance on the fountain and third they have to steal the clock hand. After taking the tour, everyone was tired and hungry and we went to eat brunch at the Georgetown neighborhood, I ate spicy chicken wings from Wingo. The next place that we went to was the national archive where we walked around and learned about history. (This is preparing me for AP US History this fall) After going to the national archive we went to Chinatown which I would call Downtown (A Downtown that wants to be a Chinatown) because it looks completely gentrified with only a few more Chinese restaurants and the rest of the shops such as McDonald's and
Chipotle trying to be Asian, by having Chinese characters on the sign which I found to be pretty funny. This was also a pretty sad sight for me to see a Chinatown which is completely gentrified and all the Chinese culture and heritage pushed out because gentrification is also currently happening in the Chinatown in San Francisco. Seeing this makes me wonder if that is what Chinatown in San Francisco would become if gentrification does happen in the future. After walking around, we settled down and ate at Chinatown express, one of the few Chinese restaurants left around the area. We went to look at the Chinatown gates after eating and then went to the national mall tour where we had an amazing tour lead by a really enthusiastic person. In this tour we learned a lot about the important landmarks of Washington DC and the history such as the Lincoln memorial, Korean War memorial, and etc... The tour ended pretty late at around 11pm, everyone was tired as we all headed back to the hotel.
-Danny Yu