Earlier this week at The Atlantic, Damien Ma took D.C. proper and Chinatown, in particular, to task for having a “wholly disappointing Chinese food scene.” And as anyone knows, it’s been like that for well over 20 years, as the area’s increasingly affluent Chinese community fled to the suburbs. Ma rails against the American food chains that have taken over Chinatown and argues that Chinatown could be an ethnic food paradise, recommending that China subsidize restaurants as a method of diplomacy. I completely agree with the assessment that Chinatown lacks what I consider to be good Chinese restaurants. But this failure is not solely a result of big bad chains pricing restaurants out of the area.