Jazz Kiang

Jazz Kiang may only be eleven years old, but he is well already a well-known face in Chinatown. Jazz is the son of Dr. Peter Kiang, the Director of Asian-American Studies at UMass Boston. Since pre-school, he has been an active participant in the youth programs offered in the Chinatown community.

Kiang still remembers his years at Acorn Child Care Center, a bilingual preschool program offered through the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center. “I loved going to the playground at the Tai-Tung apartments. I always wanted to play where the big boys played. Well, they were seven and I was four. But when I got older, I eventually got to go to that area and play on the monkey bars,” Kiang says.

When Kiang entered the first grade, his parents enrolled him in the Kwong Kow Chinese School’s after school program. Kiang attended Kwong Kow five days a week, receiving instruction in Cantonese language, reading and penmanship. His family’s home in Jamaica Plain is covered with assorted trophies, certificates and ribbons he earned in the classroom and in penmanship and speaking competitions.

“There were three of us who were really into it, my best friend Jason and another childhood friend called Alice. It was at Kwong Kow that I started my friendships with them,” he says.

Although a promising career as a soccer goalie has temporarily put his Cantonese studies on hold, Kiang says that Chinatown is his true home. “Whenever I go to Chinatown, I feel like it is my place. It is where all my homies are. Whenever I go there, or I know I am going to be going, I feel very happy,” he says.