Exploring Space With Your Eyes Open....And With Your Eyes Closed (Part 1)

It is sometimes said that the measure of a city is what you can find in that city. The French have a word for someone who seeks what a city can offer. A flâneur is defined by Edmund White as "a stroller, a loiterer, someone who ambles through a city without apparent purpose but is secretly attuned to the history of the place and in covert search for adventure, aesthetic or erotic".

On a Thursday in November, I got off the bus at Sherman Way and White Oak in the Lake Balboa community of the San Fernando Valley. I walked toward HK Valley Center, a large complex of shops, restaurants, and services catering to the surrounding Korean population. A wall on the outside of the complex displays in Korean and English, all the businesses that are available here. This collection of businesses is a self-contained enclave of Korea. All manner of establishments and services can be found here, all Korean. Korean shoes. Korean video rental store. Korean newspapers. Postings (in Korean) for rooms and goods available. Korean health supplements. There is a large full-service Korean supermarket. Within it are Korean insurance agents. An astounding variety of Korean products are available, including various meats, radishes, and a large section of kimchi (spicy cabbage). Also within this complex is an Asian-style karaoke spot, where you rent out private rooms by the hour with a group of friends (as opposed to American-style where you take turns going up in front of strangers in an open location). Korean BBQ restaurants (where meat is brought to your table and your cook it on a grill in the middle, along with the various "banchan" or side-dishes). A Korean day spa. A Korean chiropractor (with services available in Spanish). Across the street from the HK Valley Center is Seoul Music (an after school program for Korean music lessons). I exit the complex and continue westward on Sherman Way. I pass a medical marijuana store. I come to a shopping center with a Spanish-language religious book store, a Korean restaurant, a Japanese restaurant, and "Hair 4 Men" (a baldness treatment center). My eyes go to Dvin Market, a Russian/Armenian market. A hand written sign in Russian is on the door, the message it conveys to me is unknown. Inside are various Russian and Central Asian products including warm entrees behind a glass counter, and Russian ice cream (CCCP - the initials for the USSR/Soviet Union in Russian). I purchase a Baikal carbonated beverage and continue down the road.   I take note of the 1950s/1960s apartment buildings. Rising above the low 1950s houses of the area, something catches my eye. An elegant blue glass dome atop a structure. Upon further investigation I find a sign: School of Islamic Sufism. Sufism is the quasi-mystical branch of Islam, stressing the desire to seek oneness with god through metaphysical contemplation. The gate around the center is graceful, coiled silver roses and a gilded crest. Across the street looms a semi-monolithic clean mid-century modernist office building. Across from this is a Persian restaurant. Aroound the corner: Mexican kosher ice cream. Behind this, an unassuming medical marijuana store. I see more Russian and Armenian writing on a nearby glass storefront. Next to this a Persian notary. Next to this Jamaican Jerk chicken and Louisiana fish. The Los Angeles Ballet Academy takes up residence next to this and to a vacant lot that formerly held buildings, the foundations still clear. A sign in Spanish warns people not to intrude. An aging sign welcomes people to Reseda: Hub of the West Valley. Here in a shopping center, a Pay Less with window advertisements in Spanish. Starlight Housewares, a Persian business. More Russian writing. Real estate opportunities in Persian. The newspaper stands announce the Dodger-related news of the day (even the Spanish paper). I pass Miss Donuts, site of the scene in Boogie Nights with the bloody robbery. They serve tamales and empanadas now. A Korean adult health care center. A sign on a car beckons me into a thrift store where I find very old books on US History, very outdated. A message from President Kennedy speaks of immigration, still relevent in this community. I cross the street to sit under a tree where a violinist gives me a personal solo concert. I take note of the age of the sidewalk, poured in 1952. I continue on. A Persian gift store. A Korean restaurant. A store specializing in shipping packages to Guatemala, Mexico, and El Salvador. A banquet hall that announces itself in four languages: Armenian, Russian, Spanish, and Perso-Arabic. A Latino clothing store. A Spanish-language church in a building that used to be a concert venue where bands like Metallica played some of their first shows in the 1980s. I pass several Persian rug stores, peeking in to view the intricate designs. Now I am at Reseda Boulevard where I pass by the sweet bread for sale at Guatepan (a Guatemalan bakery). Above it I can see the old sign from when this space was a pizza place. The apartments look a little newer. I have entered the Vietnamese enclave. Vietnamese Community Center of the San Fernando Valley. Vietnamese pharmacies, cafes, restaurants specializing in pho (noodles), and banh mi (sandwhiches), art and advertisements  in Vietnamese. Bangluck Market, a Vietnamese, Chinese, Filipino and Thai market. Inside, green onions, sriracha, strong Vietnamese coffee. Meat products including uterus. Vietnamese and Chinese newspapers. Barber shop sign in Persian, Vietnamese, and Spanish. Across the street, Hebrew Academy, Persian business, Guatemalan and Salvadoran restaurant. I grow hungry and I select a banh mi cafe. Inside, I have a pork banh mi (sweet pork, radish, cilantro, spicy pepper  in a French roll) and iced Vietnamese coffee while I read LA Weekly. I will decide where to go from here. The description and photographic companions, shall take place in Part 2