SARS scare saps Chinatown

By Sean Hao
Advertiser Staff Writer

Despite no evidence of SARS in Chinatown, area merchants this week said the economic fallout from the illness is real.

Shopkeeper Duong Minh said business is down by as much as 60 percent at his store, Nhung's Market, since the start of the SARS scare. There have been no confirmed cases of SARS in Chinatown or elsewhere in Hawai'i. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

So far there have been no confirmed cases of the illness in Chinatown or elsewhere in Hawai'i, but gossip persists, said shopkeeper Duong Minh, leaning over a counter as he waited for customers to show up at Nhung's Market on King Street.

When any illness keeps someone from showing up or a storefront is unexpectedly closed, rumors about SARS begin to circulate, Minh said.

The Glowing Dragon restaurant on Maunakea Street was hit by a rumor that health officials had closed it. The restaurant later received a clean bill of health from the state.

"People talk too much," Minh said, blaming SARS for a 60 percent drop in his business since March.

Hawai'i's closest brush with the sometimes deadly illness was on March 31, when a China Airlines flight attendant passed through Honolulu. The flight attendant tested positive for SARS, but is recovering.

SARS has sickened thousands worldwide since it was discovered in November and killed more than 160 people as of yesterday. Yet, despite concerns over SARS, business in Chinatown yesterday morning appeared brisk, with fresh seafood, vegetables, discounted clothes and jewelry spilling out from storefronts and racks and barrels lining the sidewalks.

An estimated 200 businesses operate in the Chinatown area that is bounded by Nu'uanu Avenue, River Street, North Kukui Street and Nimitz Highway. Of these, it's the restaurants, such as Wong Kee Sea Food and New Empress, that appear to be among the hardest hit, reporting sales losses of 60 percent to 75 percent. In an effort to restore public confidence, Gov. Linda Lingle and other administration members ate lunch at six Chinatown restaurants this week.

"Lingle's visit helps," Minh said, "particularly with (restoring confidence of) the Filipinos and other groups, but the Chinese customers are still off."

Minh said he's disturbed by the reaction from some people, including those that go out of their way to avoid coming into contact with Chinese.

"If we can't trust ourselves, who can we trust?" he said.

Down the block at New Wo Fat BBQ, business is down about 30 percent in the last month, said owner Steven Chen, standing alone in his small cafe on Hotel Street yesterday.

"Before we had the SARS, we'd have people in here now," he said. "Right now, people aren''t coming down here."

While Chinatown is home, place of business and shopping area for a diverse mix of races, it remains a stepping stone for many Chinese immigrants. The work ethic of its shopkeepers is inspiring to Leo Young, who dropped into Chinatown from Kaimuki to shop for fresh produce.

"For me, coming down to Chinatown is a morale kind of thing," he said. "Many of these shopowners don't have much and they work so hard."

Young said he understood why people might be worried about contracting a highly contagious disease.

"People should be concerned about SARS, but they need to be educated, too, and not react to rumors," he said.

While Chinatown appears to be the community hardest hit by SARS fears, there are concerns about the potentially wider economic impact if worries about the illness extend to the state's dominant industry — tourism. During a workshop this week, several economists said SARS remains a wildcard that could derail a post-Iraq war rebound in visitor arrivals.

Byron Gangnes, a University of Hawai'i economics professor, said it?s unclear how long worries about SARS will last or how deeply it will affect Hawai'i tourism. Tourism from Asia — a key market for many Hawai'i businesses — declined in recent weeks as the number of SARS cases there mounted.

Gangnes and another UH economics professor, Carl Bonham, predict a 1.3 percent drop in visitor arrivals in 2003, in part because of jitters surrounding the war and SARS.

There's "a great deal of concern about the risk" of catching SARS, Gangnes said.

"Nobody wants to get on an airplane," he said.

"Nobody wants to sit next to anybody else."

Reach Sean Hao at 525-8093 or shao@honoluluadvertiser.com.