Photographic Justice at the 145th Golden Spike event in Utah

I made it out to the 145th Anniversary of the Golden Spike event in Utah.

I went because fellow photographer Corky Lee wanted to do this flash mob of many Chinese at the two locomotives.  145 years ago there were no Chinese in the photo though the Chinese played a major role in the building the transcontinental railway.

I always had a problem with that.  I started to paint a mural at the Chinese Historical Society of America's museum where I am an artist in residence.  When Corky told me what he was doing, I wanted to be a part of it.

The local Chinese community of Salt Lake City organized the Chinese community and loaded three tour buses full to the Golden Spike event.  The event organizers accommodated us to get that picture.

I took Amtrak to Salt Lake City.  Arriving there at 3am was a bit rough.

We got to check out the railroad museum in Ogden.  We took a light rail called the Front Runner there.  That evening we went to Ho Ho restaurant for dinner.

The following day after a simple lunch at Little Taste Chinese restaurant, there was a press conference at the State Capitol.  Both the Governor and Mayor  whom were to present proclamations did not show up.  That evening the local Chinese group CATS-UT treated us to dinner at the Golden Dragon.

On the third day we boarded the buses at 7am for the 90 minute bus ride to the Golden Spike event.  It's out in the middle of nowhere!  Apparently the railroad does not run through there nowadays and the two replica locomotives are there only for show.  Other than us 175 or so Chinese...there were about the 200 regular (white) people there for the event.

That evening we were treated to a bbq at Ze and Andy's house.

We got stuck out in Salt Lake city by two days as a rockslide in Wyoming, tornadoes in Nebraska and a freak snow storm in Colorado delayed us from leaving till Tuesday evening.  And it wasn't till 2am that we boarded the train on Wednesday morning.

I first went to Salt Lake City back in 1979 to lion dance for the Keelung sister city and Pioneer Day parade.  A lot has changed since.  There were probably three Chinese restaurants in Salt Lake City back then.  The food was so so....but nowadays there are many Chinese restaurants and some are suprisingly pretty good.  South State Street which seems to be the main drag now has many Chinese restaurants.  There's a new Chinatown mall that opened last year with a fancy gateway.  And of course many Chinese and Asians in Salt Lake City.