Eight men gather anxiously, leaning on counters or sitting on makeshift milk carton stools. Like commuters waiting for their trains to be announced they are fixated on the overhanging TV screens. You wouldn’t know it was the middle of a Thursday afternoon at the Wing Wong Variety Store on Grand Street, Manhattan. At the counter a lottery machine churns out tickets, and behind the group a vending machine dispenses “scratch and win” prizes. The Wing Wong is Grand Street’s version of Atlantic City where local Chinese men come to win and lose fortunes a dollar or two at a time.

While the gamblers take up the front room of the store, Wing Wong’s owner, Mr. Ng, paces the back aisles eyeing his inventory. Snapple iced teas chill in the refrigerator; miscellaneous tools and lighting fixtures hang from upper shelves; cereal boxes languish next to toiletries. But the Quick Draw machines make Mr. Ng his money.

He smiles awkwardly, perhaps embarrassed by his imperfect English or perhaps embarrassed by discussing himself. He keeps checking store items, adjusting his inventory, trying to avoid eye contact. Mr. Ng is a small man in his late 50’s—his back beginning to hunch from old age. He wears a baseball cap that says “Unite,” his favorite from a box of promotional hats some salesman dropped off.

At the age of 18 Mr. Ng left his native China to look for work in Argentina. Though he knew no one, he immediately found a position in a cotton factory, and soon got married. He lasted 19 years at the cotton factory, scrupulously saving his earnings so he could eventually move on. Mr. Ng jokes that he worked eight days a week. “Chinese people love to work hard,” Mr. Ng says, “You don’t see Chinese at welfare. What are you going to do all day, sit home? You need to work.” Ultimately, that work ethic undid his marriage. When he saved enough, he left Argentina for New York, and his wife—now his ex-wife—stayed behind.

He smiles awkwardly, perhaps embarrassed by his imperfect English or perhaps embarrassed by discussing himself.

When Mr. Ng arrived in New York, he took a job in a Chinese-Spanish restaurant nearby his new Brooklyn home. He never liked restaurant work much, but he trudged on for ten years, saving enough money to cross the bridge (rather than an ocean this time) to open his shop on Grand Street.

Home is here now, and has been for the past 10 years. Mr. Ng has a new wife and a toddler. Mr. Ng, however, misses his son from his first wife in Argentina. “He is a professor; he’s very smart,” Mr. Ng says. His son will, from time to time, visit him in New York, but Mr. Ng never goes back to Argentina. Mr. Ng has been back to visit China a few times, but says he doesn’t feel the same connection he used to. “New York is life,” he says, “You can do anything here.”

Mr. Ng continues to fuss over each product’s shelf placement. Thank god for the Quick Draw crowd, he says. The last few years have been tough, and Mr. Ng worries that the neighborhood will never recover from September 2001. The messy re-routing of the Grand Street subway hasn’t helped either. Still, Mr. Ng is happy here. “The people are all very friendly, always saying hello,” he says.

He moves aside a large box containing at least 20 “Take Five” hats. He offers one as a gift. He keeps smiling; his own generosity clearly makes him happy.