On this hot day in early August, there is a long line of sweaty 20- to 30-somethings standing outside Wai Ying, a hole-in-the-wall restaurant.

The 25-year-old eatery (below) in Manila’s Chinatown, also called Binondo, is famous for its crispy wontons and juicy roasted duck, several of which the cook has hung in front of a greasy window overlooking the street.

Those inside pause for a moment to whip out their mobile phones and press the record button before tucking into their food. Some of these videos will get thousands of views on TikTok and Instagram.

Binondo, believed to be the oldest Chinatown in the world, has become the trendiest spot in the city for young Filipinos and tourists alike.

For those who take the time to scour its busy streets, rewards such as fried xiao long bao, tanghulu (a candied fruit snack) and a flaky pastry called hopia (Hokkien for “good biscuit”) await at various street corners.

Centuries ago, this was one of the first places that hua qiao (华侨), or overseas Chinese, set foot in as they left their home country to find a better life for themselves.

Often arriving in host countries as traders or manual labourers, many began assembling in ethnic enclaves – their “homes away from home”. Thus formed the building blocks of early Chinatowns, which to this day are recognisable across the world by their gateways and architectural features sporting traditional Chinese motifs such as dragons.

The biggest archway in Binondo, said to be the largest among all Chinatowns, was installed in 2015 along Padre Burgos Avenue. The structure, a combination of bold colours and gold motifs, is finished with curved eaves typical of Chinese architecture.

In other Chinatowns, similar pai fang (牌坊) stand, some clearly weathered with age. These arches of varying sizes, placement and style demarcate boundaries or significant points and are commonplace in ethnic Chinese neighbourhoods. They present a visual link between the many Chinatowns across the world.

Throughout history, Chinese migration has occurred in waves. Many who left in the 19th century in search of better economic opportunities overseas were from the country’s southern provinces of Guangdong and Fujian.

Attracted by the prospect of work in tin mines and rubber plantations, or in farming and trade, the Chinese came to countries such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and even India. This gave rise to Chinatowns of varying traits, which adapted to their respective host societies while still maintaining universal characteristics of Chinese culture.

Meanwhile, in recent years, new Chinese communities have begun to form alongside older ones in places such as Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, with the arrival of new immigrants, many of them affluent, educated and seeking new opportunities.

Based on available figures, the UN International Migrant Stock data logged about 10.5 million Chinese nationals living outside of mainland China in 2020.

The current Chinese diaspora remains one of the largest in the world, along with the Indian, Russian and Mexican diasporas.

However, recent local estimates have pegged the figures to be much higher. For example, there could be at least 150,000 Chinese nationals living in Malaysia, and approximately 110,000 Chinese citizens in Thailand.

In 2023, an expert on South-east Asian studies from the Guangxi Academy of Social Sciences, a think-tank, said hua qiao hua ren (华侨华人) — a collective term for Chinese overseas — could number some 60 million. Some 35 million live in South-east Asia.

Hua qiao refers to Chinese nationals living overseas, while hua ren refers to foreign citizens of Chinese descent or ethnicity.

Filipinos of Chinese descent, known locally as Chinoys, have long assimilated into the Philippines. And despite ongoing tensions between Manila and Beijing over the disputed South China Sea, life in Binondo is a harmonious melding of Filipino and Chinese cuisines and cultures.

Named after the Filipino word “binundok”, meaning mountainous, Binondo was established in 1594 by Spanish colonisers as a permanent settlement for Chinese traders in the Philippines.

Historians say the enclave was situated just across the Pasig River from the seat of the Spanish colonial government so officials could keep an eye on immigrants.

Intermarriage between new arrivals and locals gave birth to a vibrant fusion of Chinese and Filipino cultures that has defined aspects of life in Manila’s Chinatown. The area is home to some 20,000 people today.

Binondo’s narrow streets are lined with shops and stalls selling goods that are quintessentially Chinoy, from medicine to snacks like kwek-kwek (quail eggs deep-fried in crispy orange batter). People pray and light incense at street-side Buddhist shrines that often also display crosses and other Catholic imagery.

The best way to get to know Binondo is through one’s stomach. After all, some of Manila’s oldest restaurants first opened in Chinatown – they were called panciterias because they sold pancit, or noodles. The oldest restaurant in the country, Toho Panciteria Antigua, opened in 1888 and is still serving customers to this day.

“When the Chinese came to Manila, they brought with them their ancestral culture and adapted to the local culture as well. You see it in the expressions of religion and food here in Binondo,” cultural expert and well-known Chinatown tour guide Ivan Man Dy, 46, told The Straits Times.

Mr Dy, whose Chinese grandfather moved from Fujian to the Philippines in the 1930s, has conducted his famed Old Manila Walks and Tours for 19 years.

The Binondo tour involves a stop at 57-year-old restaurant Quik Snack, whose offerings include the Chinoy-inspired kuchay ah, a flaky pastry filled with meat, and fresh lumpia (spring rolls).

While social media helps to keep businesses alive, establishments must also come up with new ways to tantalise the crowds, said content creator and architect Mitch Ngo, 27, known as The Chinita Foodie on TikTok. She has drawn more than three million views for her foodie walking tour in Binondo, which she shares on social media.

She cited the decades-old grocery Vege Select, a purveyor of vegetarian ingredients, as an example. The store now has stalls on the pavement outside where eye-catching veggie skewers are grilled and dumplings are cooked, drawing eager foodies who have seen her videos.

“(They) have to do something new, or something that will catch people’s attention, so (people) will buy from (them),” said Ms Ngo.

New establishments like Apologue Coffee and Pastry, whose interior resembles a library-cum-apothecary, have also added to the Binondo buzz.

The cafe’s menu pays homage to Binondo’s Chinese-Filipino history through creations such as its signature Binondo Latte, which uses sticky ube with milk and espresso, and its Pei Pa Koa Latte, featuring the traditional Chinese herbal syrup used for cough and sore throat.

It’s a less hopeful story at another Chinatown more than 3,500km away, where a group of primary schoolchildren at Chien Kuo School are belting out a Chinese song on their teacher’s cues.

It could be a scene out of anywhere in China, but the school is in Kolkata's Tiretta Bazaar, which is home to one of two Chinatowns in the eastern India metropolis.

Back in the 1950s, when teacher Ho Sui Yin was herself a student at Chien Kuo School, there were about 200 students, and all of them were of Chinese origin. Today, however, the 78-year-old principal and teacher is the only one of Chinese descent left.

All the English-medium school’s 120 students come from the local community, and are mostly the children of Hindi-speaking, lower-middle-class Muslim families — a change that is emblematic of the irreversible decline that has set into the wider Indian-Chinese community of Kolkata.

Fewer than 2,000 residents of Chinese descent remain in Kolkata today, a sad fate for a community that traces its origins as far back as the 18th century and numbered more than 40,000 at its peak in the early 1940s.

“I am very, very sad,” said Ms Ho, whose grandparents migrated to Kolkata from Guangzhou. “There are no Chinese among us in Tiretta Bazaar.”

Tiretta Bazaar was once a thriving home to ethnic Chinese from the Cantonese and Hakka dialect groups in India, but declining economic opportunities and the 1962 war between India and China have eroded their numbers.

During the Sino-India conflict, the Indian government rounded up more than 3,000 members of the Chinese-Indian community whom it suspected of being Chinese spies or sympathisers and incarcerated them in an internment camp in Deoli, in the western state of Rajasthan. Some were detained for up to five years.

Thousands of others fled or were forcibly deported soon after the war via ships from Chennai and Kolkata that were headed to China, a country many had never seen in their lives.

For those who remained in India, lingering mistrust and poor education prevented them from securing jobs. Gaining Indian citizenship for those who still held Chinese passports or who were stateless also proved a challenge.

Not surprisingly, many from the community have, in the decades since, migrated abroad to find a better future and escape the horror of another potential incarceration.

Tensions between India and China, which continue to simmer and erupt from time to time with border clashes, still cast a long shadow on the Chinese-Indian community.

Dr Tathagata Neogi, chief experience officer of Immersive Trails, a heritage-focused company that conducts walks across Kolkata, including in the Tiretta Bazaar Chinatown, said there is “a constant fear that 1962 will be repeated”.

“There are those of Chinese origin who still don't feel safe in India because they think that any flare-up along the border might lead to another round of incarcerations. So they don't want the younger generation to live in this constant fear and are sending them abroad,” he told ST.

Ms Monica Liu was about 11 years old when she, her parents and her four siblings were sent to a camp in Rajasthan, around 2,000km away from their home in Shillong.

They spent more than five years in captivity before they were released and dropped off at a bus stand in Shillong. The family rebuilt their lives by selling dumplings and bao on the street.

Today, Ms Liu is the owner of eight Chinese restaurants in Kolkata, several of which are located in Tangra, the city’s other Chinatown, or Cheenapara (“Chinese neighbourhood”), as it is known in Bengali.

The success of Indian-Chinese cuisine and restaurants is a rare bright spot for the community that was once known for its many skilled professions, including carpenters, leather workers, goldsmiths, ironsmiths and ship fitters.

Tangra in its heyday was home to hundreds of tanneries, all of which were ordered in 1996 by the country’s top court to relocate to an industrial complex on the city’s eastern periphery. As a result, many capital-starved Chinese-origin owners simply sold their businesses and moved abroad instead.

Today, hollowed-out tannery buildings dot Tangra, where some sites have been sold to real estate developers keen to tap the neighbourhood’s growing prime real estate value.

But Chinese community schools in the city have shut, its community newspapers folded, and items such as bird's nest soup, which appealed to Chinese patrons, have long been dropped from restaurant menus in Chinese restaurants.

Recalling the sight of hundreds of tannery workers on Tangra’s streets in blue shorts and wooden clogs, Ms Liu said: “Wherever you went, you could hear their voices and sounds, but now (they are) no more.”

The Chinatown in Tiretta Bazaar is also a pale shadow of its former self, with some even questioning if it deserves to be named as such. Ethnic Chinese-owned pharmacies, tailor stores and groceries have pulled down their shutters. A theatre where puppet shows were performed, built by a Cantonese in 1919, has long vanished.

Only a few Chinese eateries remain, alongside temples and community clubs that have been deemed heritage structures by the local government.

A neighbourhood that once “echoed to the clop of wooden sandals and the ivory click of mahjong pieces” is today mostly a chaotic commercial nerve centre that perhaps echoes with the inaudible sighs of an ageing and dwindling Chinese population.

Dr Neogi thinks the Chinese-Indian community in Kolkata will further dwindle, plummeting to around just 1,000 in the next five to 10 years.

But members of the community continue to preserve their legacy in various ways.

Each year, they put together a grand Chinese New Year carnival that draws members of the Indian-Chinese community from across the world. It is held in the sprawling grounds of Pei Mei School, which shut more than a decade ago because of dwindling enrolment.

Among the carnival’s much-enjoyed highlights are ethnic Chinese people singing Bollywood songs, and a lion dance performed by a troupe composed entirely of Indians of non-Chinese descent.

This steadfast resolve to continue with the community’s traditions is what keeps Ms Ho running the school, besides teaching her students Chinese.

After she dies, the legacy of the school will fall on the shoulders of her 40-year-old daughter, Ms Angelina Chen. “I believe I should be taking over so that the legacy continues… There is no end to the Chinese (link) then,” added Ms Chen.

Here in Singapore, some Chinatown traditions still endure, albeit on a smaller scale.

Decked out in red robes, Cantonese Taoist priests marked the Hungry Ghost Festival of the seventh lunar month with prayers and rituals on Aug 8.

The set-up in Chinatown Complex Hawker Centre was modest. The event drew some curious onlookers, but unlike in the past, there was no crowd.

These events have been scaled down over the years, said long-time Chinatown resident and retired engineer Victor Yue, 72. He noted that such cultural and religious celebrations have been getting duller over the years, in part due to lack of interest among newer business investors from mainland China and the younger generation of Singaporeans.

Singapore’s Chinatown was never exclusively Chinese and had small communities of Indian traders. Sri Mariamman Temple (below), Singapore’s oldest Hindu temple, which was founded in 1827, still sits in the heart of Chinatown in South Bridge Road.

The enclave grew rapidly in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In the mid-1960s, the Singapore Government stepped in to tackle overcrowding through urban renewal schemes.

Residents were rehomed in resettlement estates, street hawkers were housed in Kreta Ayer Complex – now renamed Chinatown Complex – and shophouses underwent major upgrading.

Another milestone was the remaking of Chinatown, along with other ethnic districts such as Little India and Kampong Glam, into tourist heritage destinations in the 1980s. In many ways, the redevelopment gave these areas, which were in various states of decay, a new lease of life.

But inevitably, the redevelopment wrought changes to how people lived and worked in Chinatown. Traditional businesses such as medicine halls, wholesale dried goods stores and goldsmiths now sit alongside boutique hotels, bars and restaurants, and shops catering to tourists (below).

Better housing options elsewhere also saw most Chinatown residents moving out of shophouses, turning the neighbourhood into a largely commercial and tourism-driven area.

Reactions to the redevelopment were not entirely positive, with many lamenting what they saw as overcommercialisation and the reduction of heritage to a tourism commodity.

The beauty and vibrancy of Chinatown was that its growth was driven by the people who lived there, said historian Loh Kah Seng. Today, the communal and lived-in character of Chinatown has changed.

“As a tourist area, it’ll still be interesting for locals and foreigners to visit. For now, there are still residual areas where seniors gather and meet old friends, and you can see traces of old Chinatown,” said Dr Loh, who is the director of research consultancy Chronicles Research and Education.

Other changes have come to Chinatown, with Singapore becoming a notable destination for Chinese nationals to work, live and holiday in. In the first six months of 2024, Chinese tourists formed the biggest group of visitors to Singapore, with about 1.45 million visitors, according to the Singapore Tourism Board.

Old-time Chinatown business owners and residents have long noted the influx of more mainland Chinese businesses and tourists in Chinatown, with some replacing more intrinsically Singaporean businesses and cultures.

Pek Sin Choon, a 99-year-old Chinese tea business in a shophouse in Mosque Street, has seen its fair share of rapid changes, both in its business environment and physical surroundings.

Its long-time neighbours on either side — Tai Thong Cake Shop, a 73-year-old family-owned Cantonese bakery known for handmade mooncakes, and a coffee shop — are now gone, replaced by a Moutai retail store selling Chinese grain spirit from south-west China and a restaurant specialising in Sichuan cuisine. The new businesses cater primarily to Chinese visitors.

Tai Thong ceased operations in October 2023, when no one in the third generation took over.

For Mr Kenry Peh (above), Pek Sin Choon’s fourth-generation owner, the influx of Chinese tourists and new businesses is something he has come to terms with, but said that as heritage brands like Tai Thong wind up their business, “we’ll be missing a part of history”.

In a bid to both preserve and rejuvenate the spirit of the original Chinatown, the authorities are rejigging the tenant mix in the historic conservation area. Over the next few years, more local and international food and beverage outlets, along with creative lifestyle, retail and co-living/co-working concepts, will come up in a row of 13 state-owned shophouses in Smith Street, overseen by the Chinatown Business Association.

Malaysia’s centuries-old famous Chinatown in Kuala Lumpur has also undergone some demographic changes. In recent years, it has seen an inflow of residents of non-Chinese ethnicity and descent, and is no longer a settlement just for local Chinese communities.

With a growing presence of South-east Asian and South Asian migrant workers from Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh, some shops have altered their traditional offerings to cater to new customers, many of whom are Muslim.

Halal or Muslim-friendly Chinese food options have popped up in the Jalan Petaling area, attracting customers from local Malay communities as well.

Dessert stall Madam Tang Machi Popo, which sells peanut-coated muah chee, is now run by 24-year-old Liew Mun Yee (below), the granddaughter of the original owner, the late Madam Tang Kwok Wang.

In order to cater to Muslim customers, Ms Liew stopped selling the stall’s popular red wine-flavoured muah chee and now offers new tea-based flavours instead.

Lined with pre-war shophouses, some painted with colourful murals, Jalan Petaling Chinatown has also undergone a revival in recent years in order to attract tourists. In particular, Kwai Chai Hong, a narrow back alley, now frequently hosts art installations and events in its restored buildings throughout the year.

In neighbouring Thailand, the streets of Bangkok’s Yaowarat brim with tourists during the day. And at night, traffic slows to a crawl as busloads of visitors swarm roadside stalls serving rat na (gravy noodles) on hot plates or toasted buns oozing pandan custard or chocolate.

In the narrow Plaeng Nam Road, Asian and Western tourists throng the almost-century-old Khao Tom 3/1, where a variety of ready-cooked dishes, such as pork sausage and stir-fried kang kong, are served with steaming rice porridge round the clock.

Yet Ms Noodjaree Juntarin, 52, one of the fourth generation of descendants running the family shop, said the crowds have not returned to levels before the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We had a lot more customers in the past,” she said. The eatery makes about 40,000 baht (S$1,500) daily, less than half of what it used to take in before the pandemic brought tourism to a halt.

“Many of the original owners have closed shop, and rented their premises out instead,” she tells ST.

A different picture is seen at Bangkok’s Huai Khwang district, where a newer “Chinatown” has emerged, serving a different clientele.

Located just down the road from the Chinese embassy, the stretch around Pracha Rat Bamphen Road is crowded with eateries offering Lanzhou noodles, mala hotpot and herbal teas popular with mainland Chinese customers. Many agencies here offer services to entrepreneurs from China wanting to start a business in Thailand.

The rapid changes in Huai Khwang have bewildered long-time resident Nipa Sukthat, 65, who runs a shop selling stationery and gifts in Pracha Rat Bamphen Road.

“When the Chinese arrived, it was like the street received a magical makeover,” she said, adding that rundown shophouses were snapped up by Chinese tenants, driving prices up and edging out potential Thai tenants.

Few Chinese nationals in this area visit Ms Nipa’s shop. “I don’t earn very much from them.”

Huai Khwang was where a large Chinese-language billboard advertising services to obtain Cambodia, Indonesia, Turkey and Vanuatu passports – priced in yuan – was displayed in July 2024, causing an uproar amid fears of criminals acquiring different nationalities to evade the law.

Some hackles were also raised when a new “Chinatown” emerged near Kuala Lumpur’s Sunway Velocity Mall eight years ago, following a wave of students and businesses arriving from mainland China. Next to the mall, Nanjing Street (below) has seen the entry of newer tastes and mainland Chinese flavours, such as spicier Hunan and Sichuan cuisines.

While mainland Chinese business and investment are generally welcomed in Malaysia, local small and medium-sized enterprises have felt squeezed by the entry of cheap Chinese products in the domestic market, said Tan Sri Low Kian Chuan, president of the Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce & Industry of Malaysia.

“Since 2012, Malaysia has had a trade deficit with China. From RM3.1 billion (S$930 million) in 2012, (the deficit) ballooned to RM66.4 billion in 2023, a (growth of) 20 times. It shows we are heavily dependent on China’s supply chain,” he told Malaysian media in July 2024.

These newer enclaves in parts of South-east Asia are more Chinese towns than Chinatowns, observers say.

Chulalongkorn University historian Wasana Wongsurawat said Huai Khwang cannot yet be considered a Chinatown, given the transient nature of the people who gather there.

Unlike the Chinese people in Yaowarat, who have long assimilated into Thai society, the Chinese who cluster around Huai Khwang are businesspeople, students or tourists who remain connected to China and have no intention of settling down in the country, she said.

Dr Wasana said: "Huai Khwang is not a Chinatown. Huai Khwang is an extension of the Chinese state in Thailand.”

Socio-political analyst Teoh Chee Keong, who specialises in Malaysian cultural and heritage studies, said it is only natural for new migrants to come and go, forming new communities in their host countries.

Kuala Lumpur’s Jalan Petaling also began life as a gateway for migrants from China 150 years ago. In the 2000s, migrants from South-east Asia and South Asia began to arrive. Today, the arrival of Chinese businesses and new Chinese migrants is all part of the ebb and flow of migration.

Professor Teoh, who teaches at University College Sedaya International’s School of Architecture and Built Environment, said: “Change is a permanent feature of Jalan Petaling as it still serves as a major gateway for migrants.”

What has never changed, he said, is Jalan Petaling’s inclusiveness of migrants.

As the Chinese left their homeland and moved to different parts of the world, they found their community and created a space where they felt they belonged.

Today, Chinatowns have put their stamp on many parts of Asia, and while some have disappeared and others evolved, they still provide a tangible link for locals and visitors alike to a Chinese culture that has lasted centuries.