It is hard to imagine a place more delightfully colorful than Chinatown in New York City. It doesn't matter if you are seeing it for the first time or the fiftieth time - it is always wonderful.

New York's Chinatown is the largest in the United States and it contains the highest concentration of Chinese in the Western Hemisphere. Although it is only two miles square, it is estimated that around 100,000 people live there. Most Chinese New Yorkers live in Chinatown and, along with tourists, enjoy hundreds of restaurants, fruit and fish stands, and stalls selling trinkets and sweets.

Chinatown is a maze of narrow and winding streets packed full of people. There are scores of markets selling fresh and dried fish, candy, fruit, and every possible ingredient for Chinese cooking. Barrels full of goods are stuffed into small spaces. There is color and noise everywhere. Somehow or another, people manage to navigate the streets without knocking each other over. The residents of Chinatown are polite and the shopkeepers are friendly and helpful.

If you enter any one of the food markets in Chinatown you will immediately be aware of how much the Chinese love candy. Bins filled with colorfully wrapped sweets take up a good percentage of floor space. You won't see a lot of chocolate, but that is changing. The Chinese are eating more and more, although the chocolate they prefer is less sweet than what the rest of the world is used to.

It is fun to look at the candy wrappers in these Chinatown shops. They are much more decorative than anything you will find anywhere else. Some of the ingredients might also bring a smile to your face. "Peanuts" are featured as "pignuts."