The streets of Manhattan's Chinatown in the late 20th century were a place of sharp contrast.

On the surface, they offered a world of color and culture, lanterns strung above Motte Street,

the smell of roast duck and steamed buns drifting through crowded sidewalks, neon signs,

flashing over herbal medicine shops, machoom parlors, and bustling dim soom halls.

Tourists came for the food and the exotic energy, snapping photos of storefronts and street

festivals. But beneath the facade was another world, one that the average visitor never saw.

Behind the storefronts and basements and back rooms and hitting in the alleys,

Chinatown was governed by rules unspoken, by codes outsiders didn't understand,

and by the shadow of men who controlled everything.

In the 1980s and 1990s, no name carried more weight in that shadow world than the flying dragons.

And no man was more feared or more respected than their

leader, Johnny Onionhead, Ng. The Flying Dragons began like many gangs as a group of young men

seeking protection and belonging. In the 1960s and 70s, Chinatown's youth were often caught between two

worlds. Many were immigrants or the children of immigrants,

navigating the difficulties of poverty, language barriers, and the racism of the city outside their

neighborhood. Jobs were scarce, schools were hostile, and opportunities limited. Gangs offered something

the larger society did not,

community, identity, and power.

At first, the Flying Dragons were no different

from the other Chinatown gangs,

engaged in street fights, petty crime, and protecting turf.

But the environment they grew up in was unlike anywhere else.

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