A child’s perspective reveals moments of beauty and wonder amid daily life in Chinatown.

Commissioned by the Asian Art Museum for the Lawrence and Gorretti Lui Hyde Street Art Wall, Kayan Cheung-Miaw’s This Asian American Life asks: How might a child experience San Francisco’s Chinatown? In a series of panels, the mural slows the hectic pace of city life to highlight the special moments a child might focus on.

“My own time spent walking the streets of Chinatown takes me into a space where the sights, sounds, and people — their lives and especially their struggles — feel deeply familiar,” says Cheung-Miaw. “A child, by contrast, has the ability to get absorbed in and find wonder in almost anything.”

The mural depicts this working-class neighborhood — full of bustling restaurants, restaurant workers, crowded rooms, and public life — reflected through a child’s sensory experience of daily instances and encounters: the wings of a bee, the scent of a bowl of noodles, a cook taking a break, a bus driver waving hello, and the music from a gāo hú.

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