Lisa Lee, a 65-year-old immigrant from China, had just finished a sumptuous Thanksgiving lunch — turkey, rice, potatoes, peas and trimmings — at the Lady Shaw Senior Center in San Francisco, and was pleased by more than just the food.

“I’m really happy to be here, with so many police here,” she said through an interpreter, referring to the police, sheriff’s deputies and firefighters who helped serve meals to residents and neighbors at the edge of Chinatown.

When a reporter expressed surprise, Lee’s mother, 89-year-old Wu Cai, explained through the interpreter, “The police are here to protect us. ... We’re not afraid of them.”

The comments reflected the cross-cultural nature of the annual event. The attendees, most of the senior center’s 75 residents and their neighbors, spoke to one another in Cantonese or Mandarin. Though none are homeless or starving, many of them have “nobody to be with” on most days, said Tiffany Wong, a volunteer staffer. More than 2,000 meals were prepared for them at the center, while another 900 meals were delivered to disabled and home-bound seniors living nearby.

Zhao Rui Tang, 86, pondered the differences between her life in China, where she worked as a language teacher in elementary school, and San Francisco, where she moved with her husband 21 years ago to care for their grandchildren. Her husband, also a teacher, died eight years ago, and Zhao moved to the senior center a year later.

“It was a pretty difficult life in China,” she said through the interpreter. Classes were Monday through Saturday, preparation occupied her evenings and Sundays, and there was “no time for rest.”

Here, she said, she’s more comfortable, both physically and mentally. “You don’t have to watch what you say,” Zhao said. It was different in China, “especially around politics.”

Bridging the culture gap is a goal of Amber Xu, a U.S.-born, multilingual, 17-year-old high school senior.

“The Chinese community tends to self-segregate,” she said. “It’s safe, and they share a history and a language and a culture. ... There is a communications gap, a values gap as well, and a political gap. We don’t converse a lot” with others.

Xu volunteers with a group that is trying to provide “a conduit for their voices into a larger arena.” And, while applying to college, she is looking forward to “a career in public service.”

The lunch, whose guests included Mayor London Breed and Police Chief Bill Scott, provided a very different atmosphere for the officers. Sheriff’s Deputy Clide Wu spends most of his workdays at City Hall in the personnel division, recruiting, hiring and testing new officers. Most members of the public he deals with are “victims, criminals or suspects.”

“This is 180 degrees different, regular community members,” Wu said. “A calmer, happier environment.”

Police Officer Warren Ng spends his workdays walking a foot patrol on San Bruno Avenue in the southern part of the city, encountering residents, “individuals who are less fortunate” and merchants from a variety of ethnic groups. He can communicate better with the people he meets, both on the beat and at events like Thursday’s festive lunch, he said, because his parents, who emigrated from China before he was born, spoke their native language at home.

Asked why they were there, the officers replied in words virtually identical to those used by the police chief in a brief thank-you statement: “It’s all about giving back to the community.”

Officers have been a part of the Thanksgiving event since it began more than 35 years ago, said Anni Chung, president and chief executive of the sponsoring nonprofit, Self Help for the Elderly. She said the organization, with 300 volunteers, serves more than half a million meals each year at 14 sites in the city and in deliveries to those unable to leave their homes.

One with no such mobility problems was 87-year-old Siu Kuen Yip Li. A schoolteacher in China and a laundromat employee for about 20 years after immigrating in 1982, she visits the senior center regularly “to practice Chinese exercise, a form of tai chi,” she said through an interpreter. Even after suffering a stroke, she soon returned to exercising, encouraged by her daughter, she said.

“All ladies and gentleman like me. They said I’m very determined,” Li said, stating the obvious. After assessing the meal — “the turkey was delicious, but I’m not a big fan of the rice, not salty enough” — she demurred when asked if she had a message for the reading public. “I don’t want people to be knowing me for awhile,” she said.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko