Lily Lo hosts her 2nd Chinatown night market under the lanterns to welcome APEC visitors on Nov. 10-11

(SAN FRANCISCO) With the success of creating her first Chinatown night market to celebrate the newly-installed lanterns and the Mid-Autumn Festival, the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit has motivated Lily Lo to host another night market in Chinatown to bring in more visitors to benefit the community.

The APEC Chinatown night market will be held on November 10 and 11, Friday and Saturday night, from 5 to 9pm along the 500 and 600 blocks of Grant Avenue where new lanterns were unveiled to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival in September.

Chinatown is Lo’s second home. She has worked in Chinatown for over 3 decades since she graduated from college and later became the CEO of the Northeast Community Federal Credit Union which is located in Chinatown.

Lo co-founded BeChinatown 8 years ago to enhance her advocacy for Chinatown and small businesses.

The goal of BeChinatown is to revitalize Chinatown and make it more sustainable for future development. Lo believes that the lanterns are good tools to revitalize Chinatown to attract more visitors. As of now, she has finished 10 projects to install lanterns and light up Chinatown with LCD decorations.

However, Lo has received no support or funds from the City in any of the 10 projects, although she has tried to speak to Chinatown Supervisor Aaron Peskin and Office of Economic & Workforce Development for years.

"Again there are no public funds for the upcoming APEC Chinatown Night Market. It is all from individuals' private donations," said Lo.

Lo said she always wanted to promote the beauty and treasure of San Francisco Chinatown to many more visitors from our country and overseas.

"The weeklong APEC summit is the best moment to let people know more of Chinatown history and its unique food culture. At the same time, I trust that the night market would be a good channel to bring in more businesses for our Chinatown merchants based on our last experience holding the night market at the night of Mid-Autumn Festival on September 29," Lo said.

"People liked our food and drinks. Our prepared food was all gone within one hour," Lo recalled. Both the visitors and the merchants asked Lo to continue the night market project in Chinatown on a regular basis.

Henry Chen, owner of AA Bakery, has been one of the strong supporters to bring back night markets to Chinatown. Chen had participated in the Chinatown night markets decades ago. "Night markets were good for both the customers and Chinatown merchants," Chen said.

"We have learned from experiences and lessons from previous night markets. There are always rooms to improve our services. We will review the advantages and disadvantages. I am sure that our next night market would be very successful," Henry said with confidence.

Chen suggested the merchants not take cash from customers at the upcoming night market for safety reasons and the situation. "San Francisco is not safe. It is dark at the night market. It is better for the vendors to minimize their cash volume at the booths. I support the voucher system that Lily Lo put in place for the Mid-Autumn Festival night market. The system was to let the vendors take vouchers instead of cash when they sold their food and drinks to customers," said Chen.

In order to make the night market more efficient and avoid long waiting hours for visitors, Lo said the voucher system would be in place again at the APEC Chinatown night market.

"There will be three booths to sell vouchers of $5 or $10 each to customers at the night market," Lo said.

The food and drinks would be all prepared and packed in containers or cups for a value of $5 or $10. Visitors do not need to worry about carrying cash to the night market. The vouches are sold by cash or credit cards at the booths.

Since the night market idea has surfaced from the Mid-Autumn Festival event, it has been very popular among the merchants in Chinatown. Lo said she and the night market committee members who are volunteers have been in the process of selecting vendors. "We want to sell Chinatown’s best specialty food and drinks to our night market visitors," said Lo.