CENTER OF ATTENTION : Alpine in Chinatown Bustles Around the Clock

The old people, more than 100, arrive soon after dawn. They spread out across the lawn, the patio, the basketball court and even the sidewalk across the street from the Alpine Recreation Center in Chinatown.

The place is strangely silent as they move their arms and legs in what seems like a slow-motion dance. Some hold toy swords as they practice the martial arts movements of t’ai chi ch’uan, but most do Chinese calisthenics they call the “Six Fists.”

The seniors, most of whom live in Chinatown, are but the opening act of Alpine Center’s day, which never seems to end. Even at 2 a.m. it’s not unusual to see young men there playing basketball.

One of the smallest and most crowded of the city’s 151 recreation centers, Alpine is also Chinatown’s only open space. Just under 2 acres, it hosts an average of 6,700 visitors a week, city officials say, while the entire population of Chinatown itself is an estimated 10,000.

Soccer and flag football players squeeze themselves onto the tiny lawn outside the center’s red brick building, while ballet dancers and volleyball and table tennis players share the small gymnasium with Head Start preschoolers.

On a Roll

To make it all work, staffers and the center’s numerous volunteers have literally put their activities on wheels. At 8 a.m. on weekdays, women running the Head Start program, for example, pull shelves, tables and cases full of toys, books or teaching displays--all on rollers--onto the gymnasium floor.

Like stage managers, they arrange their items like a room, putting tiny plastic chairs, for 62 tiny children, in the middle.

When the children leave, they whisk their props away, and others take their place. Ballet teachers, with children in pink tights and little net skirts, roll out mirrors on wheels for lessons and practice. When they go, Ping-Pong players roll out their tables.

Alpine is also a microcosm of its community, which includes American-born Chinese, immigrants from Hong Kong, Vietnam or Cambodia, and a small number of Latinos. Lion dancers practice there to keep alive an age-old tradition outsiders usually see only on Chinese New Year.

Old men play mah-jongg in the afternoon, while young mothers watch their children on the playground swings. On Sundays, a dozen men and women take free English classes there to prepare for U.S. citizenship exams. They drink Classic Coke and eat candy, always donated by former classmates who have taken the test and passed.

Jan Landrum, director of Alpine for 20 years, started the ballet programs, which led to the formation of the Asian-American Classical Ballet in 1981. Alpine is the only recreation center that has a ballet troupe, she says, which performs several times a year in Chinatown and throughout the city.

But most of the programs are run by community volunteers, who raise the money themselves to pay for the equipment they need. Chi Mui, who was born in China, and his wife, Sharon Lowe, a local attorney, coach a group of mostly immigrant teen-agers in volleyball.

“It’s more than volleyball,” Lowe said. “We try to make it like a family. Some of them don’t have families.”

Culture Gap

For those who do have families, there’s often “a big gap” between the children and their parents, Mui said, because the children adopt the American language and culture so much faster.

“They don’t talk to their parents,” he added, “so as a friend and a coach they do bring problems to you.” One Vietnam-Chinese youth told Mui his parents once said he wasn’t their son, that he’d been found in a garbage can. He finally confided this after years of being confused and upset, Mui recalled, adding: “He didn’t know how to feel about that, that maybe he was garbage.”

The table tennis coach, Y. C. Lee, sits on a 10-member advisory council that presses for improvements at Alpine. That is a frustrating effort, Lee said: “There’s a lot of equipment we need, and we need bleachers because there’s no place for spectators.”

After years of pushing, the community has finally gotten some changes. A 5,400-square-foot addition, costing nearly $1 million, is nearing completion, paid for with funds from the Community Redevelopment Agency. At the urging of Councilwoman Gloria Molina, who represents the area, the Department of Recreation and Parks made a new gymnasium for Alpine a high priority. Officials said they are seeking $1 million in state bond funds, and hope to have the money next summer.

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Lee laughed one recent evening, because the city is “slow” and the new addition has taken 1 1/2 years to finish. Lee, vice president of a Beverly Hills real estate firm, travels to Alpine twice a week to coach table tennis, a program he started 15 years ago.

“I make a very good living, and I wanted to give something back,” he explained. “I thought table tennis is something most people can do.”

Two teen-agers he trained from childhood were among 24 in the country invited to try out for the Olympics this year, he said. Although they did not make the two-person team, one of them, Lan Vuong of Chinatown, has been selected to represent the United States at the 1989 World Table Tennis Tournament.

Most of the players, who range in age up to 76, are not champions and just have fun, Lee said. “We have it like a club. We have a feeling of belonging.”