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1 year ago
#Treme - dredging up memories
#Treme reminds me of childhood Sundays going to church near that old N’Awlins neighborhood: http://bit.ly/9LcjiC
Before my parents and some other like-minded folk struck out and started their own Chinese Church in Metairie @ Memorial Baptist, we attended the Chinese Presbyterian Church of New Orleans. It was roughly 5 blocks south of the formal boundry of the Treme and while the building still exists, the actual Church meets in Kenner now. I always thought it odd that smack-dab in the middle of an all-black community was our ethnic Chinese church. I remember driving from our mostly-white Kenner or Metairie suburb on I-10 to Carrollton then on up to Bienville… the smells, sights, sounds, and even the pace of New Orleans neighborhoods seemed so strange and foreign.
Soon enough, they became familiar though still not quite my own in terms of culture - now I still view the Treme mostly as an outsider but I can still dredge up flashes of memory through the car-windows of my mind: funeral processions and impromptu musical marches through those aged, weary neighborhood streets of the Big Easy.
More info from National Geographic:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/05/new-orleans/treme-interactive
