Forever, Chinatown

Artist Frank Wong has captured his memories by building perfect one-inch scale models of rooms and streets of his youth in San Francisco’s Chinatown starting in the 1940s. Guided by his traditional Chinese spiritual heritage, he also plans to cremate his exquisite works with him upon his death in order to “live inside them” in his afterlife.

Created from fading memories, photographs, and romantic recollections, Frank’s seven miniatures portray his life in Chinatown between 1945-1993, and have taken over two decades to complete. These breathtakingly realistic dioramas — most the size of shoeboxes and built to an architectural scale (1 inch = 1 foot) — unlock deep, emotional triggers for Frank: losing his parents at a young age; being raised by an extended family of aunts and a godmother; working as a child extra in Hollywood movies; starting a career as a prop master during the racist, xenophobic McCarthy era; sharing an “enchanted cottage” with a special friend while working in Hawaii.

A bachelor most of his life, today Frank’s newly formed family consists of an immigrant nephew and a young godson; together they navigate a rapidly changing San Francisco cityscape together. Quietly flamboyant, he faces his sunset years with romantic, inconsistent reflection and confides that his realist artwork is “half-wishing, half memory.” Through his life’s stories, the film Forever, Chinatown explores aging and mortality, memory and legacy, and the regeneration of the creative spirit.

Determined not to be forgotten even while dismissed by technology, he surprises everyone around him by embarking on his eighth — and possibly final — miniature.