Hawaii’s famously fusion culture owes a lot to its location. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the archipelago has always been a crossroads between East and West, and was first visited by the Chinese in 1789. In the capital here on the island of Oahu, Chinatown touches the water where the first shiploads of Chinese laborers disembarked in the 1850s, bound for the sugar plantations.

As the neighborhood took shape along Honolulu Harbor (granite blocks used as ship ballast from China became paving stones for the sidewalks of Chinatown), it continued to serve as gateway for a flood of Asian immigrants. Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, and Vietnamese all found a home in Chinatown. Like the rest of island culture, the neighborhood became a jumble: "kapakahi," Hawaiian for mixed up.

Honolulu was the first place I remember feeling at home as a Chinese—American. A close friend who grew up along Oahu’s shores and knew my love for all things aquatic introduced me to life here. With my brown skin and Chinese heritage, I blended in. More than half of Honolulu’s population of about 380,000 is Asian.

Everywhere you look, Chinese traditions have made their way into Hawaiian life. "Li hing mui," the preserved, salted plums that the Chinese ate with rice on the long journey to the islands, evolved into crack seed, the mouth—puckering snack that every local child is weaned on. Chinese New Year is a monthlong affair that involves the entire city in its celebrations. Sweet red bean paste ended up at the bottom of the quintessential Hawaiian shave ice, flavored with syrups like lychee and guava. Chinese lion dances entertain at weddings and at baby luaus, held on a child’s first birthday. And if you page through the Oahu phone book, there are more Changs than Smiths, more Lums than Joneses.

In a city where the Chinese have been around a long time — and where Chinatown itself has long been a mix of cultures — you might think that Chinatown’s glory days are a bygone thing. But look closer and you’ll see that its story is one that is unfolding today in Chinatowns all over the country, of how a traditional Chinese neighborhood can evolve while staying Chinese.

Over the course of the 20th century, this Chinatown played many roles: as the city’s thriving social center in the 1930s; as a red—light district for GIs during World War II; and, most recently, as a downtown arts district. As in many urban centers, cheap rent and proximity to downtown generated the ideal alchemy to attract working artists. In high—rent Honolulu, this neighborhood is the only one where significant stretches of dilapidated buildings remain.

Nowadays, galleries stay open late and serve wine on the first Friday of every month, drawing nighttime crowds of young hipsters to Chinatown; the fact that long—established artists — including Ramsay and Pegge Hopper — have galleries here has given the area real artistic cachet. "It’s one of the few neighborhoods in Honolulu where there are still spaces that are big enough and cheap enough to work in," said Roy Venters, one of the early arts pioneers here.

A recent exhibition called "Chinatown, HI" took over the popular Arts at Marks Garage gallery, borrowing many artifacts, such as a stunning Cantonese opera costume in embroidered pink silk and a ceremonial drum, from the Chinatown—based Hawaiian Chinese Multicultural Museum and showing them alongside prints and Chinese landscapes of modern Honolulu by artists like Guo Liang Cai. Other artists from the neighborhood also put on performances.

Lounge rooms and bars with boudoir decors and names like Opium Den give a nod to scandalous attractions of years past (like Hotel Street’s Club Hubba Hubba, now boarded up but with its come—hither neon sign still intact). A monthly short film challenge, "Showdown in Chinatown," was created as a jump—start showcase for local independent filmmakers.

Throughout it all, the neighborhood has endured as a Chinese cultural touchstone. As many residents say, it is a gathering place. A recent Chinese immigrant still looks to Chinatown as a refuge; a fourth—generation local still comes here to fill in the blanks in his knowledge. Many visitors end up at the Art Treasures Gallery, a pristine, art—filled shop at the corner of Nuuanu Avenue and Pauahi Street, to examine a piece of the past.

Fong Chan, the owner, immigrated to Honolulu in the late 1970s, and was among the first artists to begin living and working here in the ’80s. Luminous window displays of hanging ropes of pearly, amber—hued beads, delicate jade figurines, and firecracker—red bowls with scalloped edges draw passersby. Resident Marianne Mok said the shop reminded her of a museum.

"It’s a very special place here in Chinatown," she said. Chan is a font of stories about Chinatown and Chinese art, and often shows rare objets d’art to illustrate his points as with a lipstick—red 17th—century Chinese vase that used French techniques for oxidizing gold to achieve its eye—popping color and an 18th—century porcelain created for the Vietnamese royal court by Chinese artisans.

Honolulu Chinatown continues to attract people from everywhere, according to James Ho, a local historian who runs the Hawaiian Chinese Multicultural Museum. "Taiwan, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, you name it," he said. On some blocks today, there are as many signs in Vietnamese as Chinese, and the densest cluster of pho houses — shops serving traditional Vietnamese noodle soup — is sometimes called Little Saigon. But even with the intermingling, Ho says Chinatown remains the center of Chinese life in Honolulu, with more than a hundred organizations active in the community. The Chinese have a historic claim on the neighborhood, an inclination to stand slightly apart from the rest. After all this time, he says, it’s still a Chinatown.

With all the new activity, the city’s mayor, Mufi Hannemann, has gone so far as to call Honolulu "the only city where the culture and arts are centered in Chinatown." While that might be stretching it a bit, since homelessness and other issues of urban blight are still very much a part of everyday living here, a revitalized Chinatown made over by art has drawn many back to the neighborhood after dark.

And during the day, as they always have, Chinatown’s distinctive open markets surge with shoppers, both local and tourist. A block from the harbor, a wide pedestrian lane called Kekaulike runs between two rows of old brick buildings, lined with palm trees and cardboard boxes piled high with fragrant papayas, apple bananas, pineapples, and spiky, ruby—colored rambutan. Signs in Chinese advertise the varieties of tropical produce. Just east of this open—air cornucopia is Maunakea Street, a riot of tiny lei stands where the flower ladies of Chinatown have woven their delicate, pearly garlands for generations.

At the end of Maunakea, in the fish stalls of Oahu Market, Chinatown’s oldest, workers heft trays of iced tuna and unload trucks stacked with large whole pigs, their flesh still pink. People come to make their daily purchases, to meet friends. Day or night in this tropical American Chinatown, it is an eclectic, gritty mix of humanity that is worth firsthand exploration.

Bonnie Tsui, a freelance writer in San Francisco, is writing a book on American Chinatowns, to be published next year by Free Press. She can be reached at bonnietsui.com.