Chinatown and Tolbiac
France > Paris > Southern > 13e > Chinatown and Tolbiac
The area between rue de Tolbiac, avenue de Choisy and boulevard Masséna is what is known as the Chinatown of Paris, despite the presence of several other east Asian communities. Avenues de Choisy and d'Ivry are full of Vietnamese, Thai, Cambodian and Laotian restaurants and food shops, as is Les Olympiades, an extraordinary semi-derelict pedestrian area seemingly suspended between giant tower blocks. One escalator leads up to it from 66 av d'Ivry, next door to a sliproad leading down to an underground car park; halfway down this access road lurks a tiny Buddhist temple and community centre, advertised by a pair of red Chinese lanterns dimly visible in the gloom. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons, from around 2.30pm, there are informal concerts of Chinese music; the rest of the time you'll find elderly Chinese people playing games and dozing on rickety sofas. As you step out into avenue d'Ivry, you'll find the huge Tang-Frères Chinese supermarket, stacked with mind- and stomach-boggling goods.On the north side of rue de Tolbiac, the parc de Choisy offers outdoor ping-pong tables with concrete nets and shady trees. There are some good modern buildings near here: Christian de Portzamparc's public housing estate on rue des Hautes-Formes, and, at 106 rue du Château-des-Rentiers, a ten-storey block of public flats whose facade, on rue Jean-Colly, has a map of the quartier in coloured tiles, with pipes to show the métro lines. Serious Le Corbusier fans could make the long slog down rue Cantagrel, where his Salvation Army building, blackened by traffic fumes, stands at no. 12.
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