STROLLING IN CHINATOWN.

Byline: Eric Noland Travel Editor

On a visit to any major city, there is no substitute for being escorted about by a townie, someone who has been around long enough to become intimately familiar with its neighborhoods, its nooks, its secrets, its surprises.

For anyone who has ever poked around the edges of San Francisco's Chinatown district but always sensed that an entirely different world percolated behind those colorful facades, there is a tour that takes delight in unraveling a few of the mysteries.

Overseen by writer, chef and Chinatown cheerleader Shirley Fong-Torres, it transcends the conventional urban walking tour of historic buildings, statues and plaques. This one combines culture, history and superstition with food, glorious food.

In its 14th year, it is playfully titled the Wok Wiz Chinatown Tour, and although the 50ish Fong-Torres has a staff of 13 guides to help conduct it - she leans toward hiring older, longtime residents of the community - she personally headed up a recent three-hour-plus stroll through the neighborhood of her youth.

Along the way, her group of 13 trooped past vegetable and herb stands, tiptoed into a Buddhist temple, squeezed down narrow alleys, ducked into the shop of a venerable artist, sampled tea in a sit-down ceremony, jaywalked en masse and made a requisite stop at a fortune-cookie factory. And it all concluded with an elaborate dim sum lunch at a restaurant so far off the tourist track that the menu was printed entirely in Chinese and not a single server spoke English.

Throughout the walk, Fong-Torres served up delicious tidbits of lore.

``The doorways in this alley were built so narrow,'' she said at one point, ``so the burly white policemen couldn't get through easily when they were chasing someone.''

``Stop. Close your eyes. Listen. Hear that sound up above? The women are playing mah-jongg in a room above the street.''

``The other people of San Francisco discovered this area because of the wonderful smells coming out of here. There was a street for herbs, one for dessert, one for candy.''

The tour, which costs $37 including lunch, $25 without, is conducted daily at 10 a.m. Bring an appetite. And a healthy curiosity.

Fong-Torres began with a few words of orientation at her small office at 654 Commercial St. She described its feng shui - the superstitions and legends that govern placement of items in the room: why the mirrors are positioned just so, what the wind chimes and plants and idols represent, even the significance of the sequence of numbers in the address.

``It was very difficult for the Chinese people when they came here,'' Fong-Torres said, referring to an influx that was alternately fueled in the last century by California's Gold Rush and the construction of railroads in the West. ``They began to rely on gods and goddesses for good luck. They would eat the right foods - serving long noodles to someone for long life. They wouldn't give a clock to a woman in her 90s, so she wouldn't be reminded that her life was ticking away.''

Early in the walk, she halted the group across from the Bank of Canton, an ornate, bright-red building with the distinctive curved roof. There was a belief that evil spirits traveled in a straight line, so roof corners were curved upward ``to trick them,'' she said. The red signifies happiness, just as green represents progress and gold prosperity - which is why those colors are so prominent in this community.

The building once served as Chinatown's telephone exchange, we were told, and it was always a major event when someone received a long-distance call.

The tour group headed down a side street, stepped through a doorway and was greeted by a gaunt, gray-haired man whose art studio walls are lined with his paintings. Yiu-Kwan Lau opened weathered boxes holding his paints and brushes and shortly completed a drawing of a spirited horse in full sprint, much to the delight of a young girl who edged her chair closer to watch him work.

The next stop was a temple of Buddhist and Taoist worship. The air was pungent with burning incense, and statuettes were lined up shoulder to shoulder on every flat surface. The altar, we learned, is used both for praying and the telling of fortunes.

Next stop a grocery, where displays included roots, herbs, bark, sea horses, cicada, shark fin - most everything dried and shriveled. ``The Chinese were afraid of American foods,'' Fong-Torres said. ``We dried food to preserve it, using the sun. We were doing sun-dried tomatoes before it was trendy.''

As she spoke, she had to raise her voice to be heard over the shopkeeper, who was arguing loudly in Chinese with a supplier who had just brought in a crate of something brown and unidentifiable.

Next was Ross Alley, where laundry hung from the fire escape high above. Fong-Torres laughingly pointed out a tiny barber shop and said, ``Five dollars, five minutes.'' Then she unenthusiastically directed her charges to a fortune-cookie bakery. She includes this stop because she figures people will feel shortchanged without it, but she warned that the proprietors are unbearably pushy. And, indeed, we were not two steps in the door when someone thrust a tray of wares under our noses and barked, ``Try some? Now you buy some.''

The group stopped in at King Tin Restaurant on Washington Street, ``where you can buy duck feet, if you wish,'' Fong-Torres said. ``Waste not, want not. The Chinese people would use all parts of the chicken or duck.'' We were just browsing here, though; lunch would come later, after we drank to this new acquaintance.

The simple ceremony took place at TenRen's Tea, on Grant Avenue, where the walls are lined with bright-green tins of various types of tea and samples are poured continually. Fong-Torres guided her tourists to a table and chairs in the back to serve them oolong (to celebrate friendship), hibiscus and ginseng.

Finally, it was time for lunch. And what a feast it was. The chosen restaurant was Ryumon, on Washington Street. Two tables were set up and waiting for the tour, and Fong-Torres conversed animatedly with the staff in Chinese as she got everybody seated.

The fare soon arrived in a deliciously dizzying procession: chrysanthemum tea, pork dumpling, spicy mustard, chili paste, dumpling with young onions and shrimp, barbecued pork bun, bean curd roll, beef chow fun, snow pea sprouts, salty fish with chicken and rice (a dish from Fong-Torres' childhood, she said). Because the group included a vegetarian with a less-than-robust appetite, there were bonus dishes that were passed around: vegetarian dumpling, pot stickers, glutenous rice balls.

It was all sumptuous. Afterward, after we rolled out onto the sidewalk, Fong-Torres grinned and said, ``Once, Chinatown was so small, you didn't need a map, just a nose.''

She was thanked for letting us join her this day as she followed hers.

Wok Wiz Chinatown Tour information and reservations: [phone].

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

PHOTO (1 -- 2 -- color) Shirley Fong-Torres serves tea during a walking tour that offers a glimpse of San Francisco's Chinatown.

(3) One of the stops on the Wok Wiz Chinatown Tour is a temple of Buddhist and Taoist worship, where guide Shirley Fong-Torres explains the rituals conducted at the altar.

(4) The Wok Wiz Chinatown Tour includes a visit to the studio of artist Yiu-Kwan Lau, who will often open his boxes of paints and brushes and produce a drawing on the spot.

Eric Noland/Staff Photographer