Our town’s local newspaper is the Newton Tab.  It is, expectably, painfully local in its coverage, but one of its features is a weekly summary of real estate transactions not only in Newton but also in Boston, Brookline, Wellesley and Needham  WESTON?.  Thus the list covers a wide variety of neighborhoods and socio-economic strata.  Aside from the expectable wide range of transaction values, from a few hundred thousand dollars (minimum ante for buying a condo or house in Greater Boston these days) to many millions, one fact jumps out of the page: the number of purchasers with Chinese names is stunning.

I am accused of being prone to racial or ethnic stereotyping by occasionally noting anecdotal observations which are not statistically supportable and which are derived from extremely limited sampling taken subjectively.  I plead guilty.  I enter the obvious disclaimers: I admit the methodology and deny any prejudice. It may be unwise to do what I do, or to publicize it at all, but here goes.

Excluding what appear to be commercial transactions, out of ___ reported transactions for one week the number of purchasers with names which to me connote Chinese origin were ___, or __ percent.

I happen to think this is interesting.  Greater Boston is diverse in this sense, if not in other important ways.  You may take this as you will.  I simply suggest what I already suggested: this is interesting to me.