Five Years in the Making
My great-great grandfather opened one of the very first restaurants in Boston's Chinatown. My family told me this since I was young, and encouraged me to do a story on it. I always said I could get it later. Then, when I had aspirations to become a filmmaker, my family encouraged me to make a video on it. I said I could get it later. Sometimes later never comes. My grandfather, who worked in Hong Far Low himself, passed away in 2017. Not long after, his siblings — the few people with direct knowledge of the restaurant — were gone too.
In 2019, I began to regret not having gotten the story sooner. But I also felt that now was the next best time to start. I reached out to my Great-Aunt Dorothy — one of the last remaining of that generation who knew the restaurant and our family's history.
I began talking with Dorothy — listening to her stories, understanding what documents and archives she had. When Covid hit, the visits stopped, but the research continued. I called her regularly to hear more of the story. I also dug deep into archival research on the restaurant and the history of Boston's Chinatown as a whole.
With things beginning to open up, I got to see the physical archives I needed — Boston city records, land and ownership documents, affidavits, maps of the city's history. I also began documenting and archiving the photographs my family had kept for decades.
Boston Globe, 1922
Recording began. I made multiple visits to Dorothy to capture her stories on camera. I also recorded interviews with Dr. Michael Liu, who wrote Forever Struggle (2020) on the history of Boston's Chinatown. Dorothy gave me the stories of the family. Dr. Liu gave me the stories of the neighborhood.
With over 10 hours of footage, I began to shape the story. How would I structure it? How long would it be? What was I really trying to say? I shot extensively in Chinatown, knowing what I needed to help tell the story. I worked with my composer on the tone and music. By the end of the year, I had a working cut that was 75% of the way there.
The first half of 2024 was spent on the final cut — countless nights and weekends editing, shaving the film from 45 minutes, to 25, to around 15 where it now sits. The final cut was completed in September 2024 — almost five years since I began, and, in a wonderful coincidence, exactly 70 years after Hong Far Low closed in September 1954. I sat with it for one month before making final tweaks. The film was officially completed on October 19, 2024 — the day before my 29th birthday.
In May 2026, Hong Far Low was screened at the Paramount Theater in Downtown Boston as part of ArtsEmerson’s “Profiles of Boston: Portraits from the Heart of Chinatown” — a sold-out event featuring four films and a panel Q&A. The most meaningful moment came after the screening, when people approached me to say they were inspired to capture their own family’s history. That response is the reason Aaron Wong Films exists.
