Difference between revisions of "Category:Brimstone Chinatown"

Like Deadwood in the Sioux Nations, Brimstone is a boomtown fueled by the Ghost Rock and copper mines nearby, and the railroad that takes the produce of the mines to buyers throughout the country, and brings the country to Brimstone in turn. As in every boomtown, immigrants make up a sizable minority of the population, and nowhere is this more evident than on the western side of town, where many Chinese have made their homes in a section inevitably called Chinatown. Just behind the main thoroughfares (such as they are) of western Brimstone, Chinatown is a small but confusing maze of alleyways, livestock pens, market stalls (both wet and dry), shanties, tents, and buildings where much of the work that keep Brimstone running is done, and where many of the workers who keep it booming live. Alongside legitimate workers and businesses, almost any vice one might desire can be found in this little tangle. Opium, prostitutes, and darker services are all available – for the right price.

Zhou Jiang's Brilliant Laundry keeps the linens of the Turquoise Sky Hotel, Diamondback Hotel and Casino, and Clear Springs Inn clean and fresh, while also catering to individuals in need of personal laundry services. Zhou Jiang is also the Chairman of the Purple Yarrow Benevolent Association tong, which helps support the Han Chinese community, and acts as an unofficial mediator in community disputes and even as internal community law enforcement. If Zhou Jiang is the respectable face of Chinatown, the diminutive, grandmotherly Madame Luli is the real power there. She owns or takes a cut from every opium den, brothel, market stall, restaurant, landlord, and worker in Chinatown, directly or otherwise. She also has business interests in The Silver Palace, Gammon's Undertaker Service, the Bank of Brimstone, and at least two Ghost Rock mines. While the Purple Yarrow tong mediates and enforces the law among the Han community, Madame Luli makes the law. She can usually be found in her restaurant, the Celestial Café, right across the street from the mayor's office, where she serves lunch and dinner to the best sorts of people in Brimstone, and where the waiters and busboys tend to be very fit, very serious young men.

Solomon Mao has also settled in Brimstone's Chinatown, renting a room above a traditional Li Yu's Apothecary. Li Yu is a septuagenarian whose traditional herbal remedies for everything from broken hearts to malaria are strangely effective. A grump and a tireless nag, Yu is constantly bemoaning the loss of the old ways and the lack of filial piety among the young Han of today. As part of his rent, Solomon also gets the use of a horse-stall sized room off the front of the apothecary which he has turned into his workshop. Here, Solomon stores his tools and works on smaller projects. His skills are regularly in demand, particularly when it comes to gunsmithing and repair. Indeed, he has an arrangement with O'Hara's General Store and Morton's Mercantile to handle their general and mechanical repairs, while both Morton's and the Gentleman's Gunnery also give him some gunsmithing work from time to time. Solomon also does a good business as a tinker, repairing pots and pans, etc. for which he sometimes pays Wang Bao, the blacksmith, for the use of his small forge and tools.