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Chinese Culture Center
- Nearest Transit:
-
Chamblee (North-South, Northeast-South, East-West, Proctor Creek)
- Good for Kids:
- No
4 reviews for Chinese Culture Center
Their annual Chinese New Year celebration was good. Lots of food, lion dance and other performing arts, etc.
Parking was extremely difficult. Probably one has to park in the Marta parking lot which is about 2-3 minutes walking distance.
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Owned and operated by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Atlanta (say that five times fast), my experiences with this center focus on their annual Chinese New Year celebration. If you've seen Chinese New Year celebrations in San Francisco, New York, Boston, Chicago, etc....you'll be a little underwhelmed by this one. It's much, much smaller and is basically in the parking lot and main room of the cultural center. That being said, when you're in the Southeast you can't expect too much.
The best part of the New Year's celebration they put on here is the food vendors that set up inside the auditorium. It's booth after booth of home made Chinese food at awesome prices. I go for the food, stay for the show, and leave with little desire to eat anything else for the rest of the day. Chinese sausage on a stick is my personal fav, I could eat my own weight in it.
Parking is limited and difficult, but well worth a trip if you've never ventured to the West Coast or Northeast to see something like it before.
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I've grown up around the Chinatown shopping center and CCC. During the week, CCC is moderately quiet and it's mostly teachers and maintenance people that are there. However, on the weekends it is completely different.
Once you go in, you're drowned by incessant talking, music playing, and energy. There are about a billion things going on at once. There is cultural dancing in the back mirror room. There are countless conversations in the main hall along with the side hall. There is another dance practice on the main stage, and upstairs little kids are learning their Chinese in Chinese school. The office seems to be busy with paperwork, calls, and mischievous kids while others are posting up fliers on the bulletin board as people crowd around to see what it is.
Outside, you can see the effects of what the rough neighborhood has done to the place. Two stone foundations remain from what used to be stone lions guarding the entrance to CCC. The main window has some bullet holes, but none piercing the inch thick glass.
The whole center feels a little old and weighty, but it is still lively and is like a unpaved path caused my heavy traffic. It's not glistening clean, but it feels comfortable and inviting.
Recently, the president stepped down and conceded his position to a new president, a young lady that previously worked in Kansas City.
The events that do go on here are usually dinner parties and dances, along with cultural celebrations and performances. The biggest cultural celebration has to be the Lunar New Year Festival.
Occurring usually in early to mid February, the whole Chinatown plaza plus places around it gets backed up. Though relatively on the small scale, the entire CCC is packed with vendors selling authentic Taiwanese food and pastries, drinks, and small gifts. There are video game competitions and even a shooting booth outside in the back. Various performances are put on, and there's a Chinese character guessing board which costs $.50 to guess, but if you get it right, you get $1.00. The food there is amazing, and the whole scene is engulfing. There is also this amazingly good but amazingly foul smelling dish called stinky tofu. It fills the air right when you step in. Don't let the smell fool you, it's one of the best dishes there. There are dragon dances in the parking lot and lots of firecrackers going off to ward off evil spirits. It's the liveliest weekend of CCC, definitely worth visiting. The entrance fee for the celebration is $5, and your hand gets stamped for reentry.
It's definitely worth checking out on the weekends, and there is plenty of information about CCC and Taiwan located in the side hall. It is also the home of the monthly Asian American Leo Club of Atlanta meetings.
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no offense, but the ccc is pretty dead compared to other chinatowns up in boston and nyc. the food court is just depressing. they need to build up the ccc with some upscale restaurants and shops. they prolly need new management. even the toronto's pacific mall in markham looks 100% better than CCC. i no longer shop at dingho supermarket. the yellow gloomy interior with brown ceiling tiles. yikes! i go to h-mart and assi. i'm waiting for the new h-mart to open in doraville.
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