Abstract
Along East Broadway in Manhattan's Chinatown, many homes and businesses, once predominately those of Cantonese-speaking immigrants from Hong Kong and South China, are being replaced by those of recent arrivals from the Fuzhou region of Fujian Province—a province on China's south-east coast just north of Guangdong. A local New York industry has arisen to cater to the ritual needs of the Fuzhou emigré population. Within a single block of East Broadway, four businesses, advertising themselves as ‘flower shops’ (huapu or huadian), compete with one another to provide ritual services, paraphernalia, and personnel for events of social significance. This paper explores ways in which the ‘flower shop’ industry creatively fashions new traditions and why the people to whom it caters—the Fuzhou people—find a greater need for traditionalist activity than do their neighbours, the Cantonese.
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