jademarket.jpg

The first of several planned Jade Night Markets, in the Southeast 82nd parking lot of Fubonn Shopping Center parking lot.

Clearly, there’s a hunger for this type of event in the area that has become the city’s real Chinatown, because the small section of the lot they set aside for this event (a joint venture between The Jade District and the Asian Pacific Network of Oregon) was not nearly enough to handle the estimated 5,000 people organizers said showed up for the market, from 6 pm to 10 pm.

We showed up at 8 pm, just as it was getting dark, and were stuck fighting intense traffic, and, once we made our way in, a glut of people and very little to actually do. I know there were Chinese dragons and other more relevant performers, but while we were there, it was a band of white girls with ukuleles and washboards. Not so night market, but so *very* Portland.

Many of the six or so food booths were also sold out by then, although my friend managed to get her mitts on some killer scotch quail eggs with dipping sauces before they went sayonara.

jademarket2.jpg

This was the first one, and there’s always going to be hiccups. Organizers should seriously consider taking more of the parking lot for the event itself, and actively recruiting more food vendors and some better quality merchandise. No reason Fubonn shouldn’t stay open either. There’s a lot of potential, and it would be so good to see a solid, organized Jade Market become a unifying staple of an area that could really use it.

The next ones are set for Aug. 30; Sept. 6 and Sept. 13. They’re planning to do more Jade Markets if they stay popular. Hopefully, with some adjustments, that will be the case.

Andrea Damewood is a food writer and restaurant critic. Her interests include noodle soups, fried chicken, and sparkles.

9 replies on “Inside the New Jade Night Market”

  1. Andrea, you should stop writing in Portland. Sorry, but you cast too large a shadow. I’m sure you are better suited for fiction novels or short stories in Seattle. Best of luck.

  3. This event has potential, but the night market itself was sort of disappointing. There wasn’t a great selection of Asian food–a Bahn Mi stand and a Fillipino place and then some random stuff, the shopping vendors were kind of boring, and the whole event was so crowded you basically just pushed through a wall of people at all times. Your average food cart pod anywhere in Portland has a much better selection of Asian food. We didn’t even bother trying to get to the beer garden or watch music by the time we got to that part of the market.

    It does seem to work in terms of bringing people to check out the neighborhood; because the food selection was so lacking at the market, every other restaurant around the event was completely packed, though poor Beijing Hot Pot looked shell-shocked and was unable to bring out food for most customers for over 45 minutes(and you cook it yourself) and Ocean City was closed with a wedding event.

    I have hopes that they figure out a way to make this a better event, for one, why not build it in the much bigger back parking lot of Fubonn? And get some Chinese food vendors(considering it’s supposed to be Portland’s actual Chinatown) or grilled meat/seafood on a stick like every other Asian night market in existence and maybe they’ll be able to get people to come back. But how it is right now, I’m not that excited about returning.

  7. Enormous crowds of people crammed into a small space? Yep. Sounds a lot like my experiences in Beijing, so I guess that makes the Asian night market legit!

  9. What an odd article, and another lesson of Portland’s white privilege. I would expect more from The Mercury — taking 10 minutes to reach out and learn more of the roots of the story vs just reporting surface observations. I don’t know of a more diverse event in Portland’s recent history, nor one envisioned and organized by communities of color, immigrants and refugees.

Comments are closed.