For Jacobs, to guarantee streets in cities safe is the surveillance not from police but the residents along it so that “these public street spaces have eyes on them as continuously as possible” (p. 36). This requires “a substantial quantity of stores and other public spaces along the sidewalks in a district…enterprises and public spaces that are used by evening and night” (p. 36). While bars, night clubs and cinemas play the role of guard in many cities in other countries, in China, restaurants, street stalls and 24-hour convenience stores shoulder this kind of responsibility unconsciously.
This relates to one part of Chinese food culture: the culture of midnight snack. Whether “Daipaidang” (a kind of sidewalk food booth often holding a larger area than usual food stalls) or Chinese BBQ, whether night markets (often set just on the street) or food street, from the evening until early morning, searching a midnight snack is a social and cultural lifestyle. People sitting on the “cheap” plastic chairs along or on the streets, eating, drinking, talking and laughing, that is so-called Chinese character. The noise and the smoke are the best protectors of the streets lasting nearly all over the night. There is a series of documentaries called “The Story Of Chuaner” (人生一串 in Chinese, link is here), which records Chinese BBQ stalls all over China and the stories between owners and customers, revealing such life attitude. In addition, Japanese-style 24h convenience stores such as 7-11 and Lawson set all over the big cities like Shanghai or Hangzhou also increase the safety of streets.
Besides, many small restaurants or other types of food stores in China are located along the neighborhoods. Though there is a trend that many trendy and “high-status” restaurants — many of them are chain stores — are located in plaza or shopping malls, often the lowest and highest floors for them, those individual or family-owned restaurants or street malls are still vital in Chinese cities. Zukin, Kasinitz and Chen wrote in their book that “shopping streets in low-income and working-class neighborhoods rarely appear in online blogs and travel guides, and are certainly not depicted as hip, cool, or trendy” (p. 20), yet it is not the case in terms of food part of Chinese streets. These old, small and “untidy” eateries are still very attractive for Chinese, because they are seen as the representation of “true Chinese food”. In fact, searching old eateries is becoming the trend in China, “The Story Of Chuaner” which gained a huge public attention as an example. This prevents the disappearance of these “eyes” all over the streets, which leads to a certain level of safety in streets.
The food delivery apps can also be functional at some level, even though it pushes people from streets back to home. Because of the midnight snack culture, Chinese like ordering food on Apps in the midnight. In this way, thousands of delivery boys go across big or small streets at night, in other words, they become “the mobile eyes”. In order to be faster, delivery boys will choose those shorter pathways that sometimes cover those tiny streets, which is better for protection.
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