Chinatown Requiem

When I was attending the University of Houston I used to frequently go into the area near the George R. Brown Convention Center (where Houston's Second and third wards meet) known as "old Chinatown". There was (and still is) a store from which I could buy different spices for a fraction of what I'd pay at other stores and there were at least a dozen restaurants.
We called it Old Chinatown, because in the 1950s Houston's Chinese community flocked to the area and opened scores of businesses. In the 1980s there was an influx of South east Asian immigrants who settled in the area between the med center, 3rd ward and The Montrose area. This became little Saigon and it catered to the many Vietnamese who initially lived in the fourth ward and Allen Parkway village. In the Late 80s and early 90s Houston's Asian communities began to buy up cheap land in Bellaire and opened several thriving shopping centers and restaurants and the area became "new Chinatown".
Last night as I drove home I glanced to my right and saw the Signs for The Silver House Restaurant, Yit Ing Ho, the Old Chinese Businessman's Association, and the parking lot where in my childhood stood the Borden Creamery. All that remains of my college haunt are a handful of "all you can eat" buffets, two shops that sell martial arts supplies and various other things, the Supermarket where I still buy spices and a landscape that seems to spout either a new taqueria or over priced loft every other day.
Gone are the places where I used to buy small pieces of jade. Gone are the shops where I could find strange little curiosities. The city evolves and all happens in cycles. As much as I hate to admit it, old Chinatown is dead and the handful of smiling elderly shop keepers to whom I give my patronage and I seem to be the only ones disturbed by it.
I occasionally sojourn to Bellaire to where Chinatown now resides, but in it I feel like an old man who lives in his child's guest room. You know you're welcome, but it feels as if you're imposing.