Here in Little Italy, just two blocks away from the fire hydrants painted red, white and green—the colors of the Italian flag—stands the man in gray, selling Chinese fruit.
Yau has been selling his fruit on the street in New York for nearly 15 years now.
“It’s good life,” he says through a translator. His cart is full to the brim with a mixture of Western and Chinese fruit. Bananas fill one side of the cart, while lychee, a tropical Chinese fruit, can be found on the other. But nothing seems to draw more attention that his abundance of durian, a large spiky fruit infamous for its smell.
“Many people stop and ask about it,” he said. “It may smell bad, but it tastes good.”
Yau, 63, wasn’t always in the fruit selling business. After he first moved to the U.S. during the 1970’s with his wife, he worked for a restaurant in Chinatown. He later worked in a small shop in Chinatown and, after spending years in the kitchen and the stores, saved enough to buy his cart.
On this bustling street, surrounded by Chinese storefronts of all types, Yau’s cart thrives in large part, he said, because of competitive pricing.
“I charge less than the markets,” he said. When asked where he purchased his wide array of fruit, however, he declined to comment.
Throughout the day, Yau greets regular and new customer alike. Although he speaks English, Yau said he is more comfortable with his Cantonese, and he usually has conversations with those who can speak it.
Yau, who commutes from an apartment in neighboring Chinatown, said that street vending can be difficult throughout the various seasons, but because he has a permit, he said he rarely has trouble with police or inspectors.
As he straightened up his cart, rearranging his exotic fruit and homemade signs, Yau said that although this area may be Little Italy by name, it was definitely home to him.
“This is my neighborhood,” he said. “My cart belongs here.”
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