Chinatown, Vancouver
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Chinatown in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, is one of the largest Chinatowns in North America. Its location is centred on Pender Street. It is surrounded by Gastown and the Downtown Financial and Central Business Districts to the west, remnants of old Japantown and the Downtown Eastside to the north and the residential neighbourhood of Strathcona to the east. The approximate street borders of Chinatown's commercial area are Hastings, Georgia, Gore, and Taylor Streets, although its boundaries extend well into the residential area south of the Downtown Eastside. Main, Pender, and Keefer Streets are the principal areas of commercial activity.
Due to the large ethnic Chinese presence in Vancouver—especially represented by multi-generation Chinese Canadians and first-generation immigrants from Hong Kong, the city has been referred to as "Hongcouver" (a term considered derogatory by some)[2]. Chinatown remains a popular tourist attraction, but was more recently overshadowed by the newer Asian immigrant business district along No. 3 Road in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond. Many affluent Hong Kong and Taiwanese immigrants have moved there since the late 1980s, coinciding with the increase of Chinese-ethnic retail and restaurants in that area. This new area is designated the "Golden Village" by Tourism Richmond.
Vancouver's Chinatown is one of the largest historic Chinatowns in North America. However, it went into decline as newer members of Vancouver's Cantonese Chinese community founded a new retail area centred around Victoria and 41st Ave in the 1980s and 90s to cater to a more suburban population. Today this is the largest Chinese Canadian neighbourhood in greater Vancouver.
Chinatown was once known for its neon signs but like the rest of the city lost many of the spectacular signs to changing times and a new sign bylaw passed in 1974. The last of the spectaculars was the Ho Ho sign (which showed a rice bowl and chop sticks) which was removed in 1997. Ongoing efforts at revitalization include efforts by the business community to improve safety by hiring private security; looking at new marketing promotions and introducing residential units into the neighbourhood by restoring and renovating some of the heritage buildings. Current focus is on the restoration and adaptive reuse of the distinctive Association buildings.
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[edit] International Village
In recent years Chinatown has been in the midst of a renaissance as the downtown boom in construction is encroaching on its limits. New high-rise towers are being constructed around the old Expo 86 site including the towers around International Village, a shopping mall with a variety of Asian oriented shops, restaurants, and a movie theatre complex, Cinemark Tinseltown. (The name of the theatres has led to the popular but incorrect assumption that the name of the mall itself is "Tinseltown"[3]). International Village mall was also designed to be downtown's answer to the Asian malls found in the Golden Village.
T & T Supermarket (a Taiwanese food chain) operates a store in the adjacent Paris Place building which is considered part of the International Village "neighbourhood", and is located near the foot of the Stadium-Chinatown SkyTrain subway station.
Besides the shopping mall International Village also refers to the name given to the area by the malls developer (a subsidiary of Henderson Land Development), however the area is more commonly known as Crosstown, which connects Chinatown toYaletown and Gastown.
[edit] Amenities
Chinatown is becoming more prosperous as new investment and old traditional businesses flourish. Today the neighbourhood is complete with many traditional restaurants, banks, open markets and clinics, tea shops, clothing and other shops catering to the local community and tourists alike. The Vancouver office of Sing Tao, one of the city's four Chinese dailies, remains in Chinatown along with the new Channel M television studio and headquarters.
[edit] Demographics
As with many other Chinatowns, it is still heavily populated by older immigrants; but younger residents, including Taiwanese, white, and Hong Kong yuppies lured by its convenient location and amenities at the heart of the city, have returned downtown and settled in Chinatown over the past decade. As promised by the new Millennium Gate, Chinatown remains the centre of Chinese culture and commerce in the region.
[edit] Facts and figures
- The 'China Gate' on Pender Street was donated to the City of Vancouver by the Government of the People's Republic of China following the Expo 86 world's fair, where it was on display. After being displayed for almost 20 years at its current location, the Gate was re-built and received a major renovated facade employing stone and steel. Funding for this renovation came through some government and private support; the renovated gate had its unveiling during the October 2005 visit of Guangdong governor Huang Huahua.
- The Sam Kee Building - The Sam Kee Company, run by Chang Toy one of the wealthier merchants in turn-of-the-last-century Chinatown, bought this land as a standard-sized lot in 1903. However, in 1912 the City widened Pender Street, expropriating all but 6 feet off the Pender Street side of the lot. In 1913 the architects Brown and Gillam designed this narrow, steel-framed free-standing building on the left over 6 feet. The basement, extending under the sidewalk, housed public baths; shops were on the ground floor and offices above. The 1980s rehabilitation of the building for Jack Chow was designed by Soren Rasmussen Architect and completed in 1986. The building is considered the narrowest commercial building in the world according to the Guinness Book of Records.
- Lord Strathcona Elementary School, the oldest public school in Greater Vancouver, is the only public school serving Vancouver's Chinatown.
- Wing Sang Building is one of the oldest buildings in Chinatown. Built in 1889 by Thomas Ennor Julian, the six storey home was home to Yip Sang's Wing Sang Company (Wing Sang Limited) from 1889 to 1955.
[edit] List of historic buildings in Chinatown
| Name | Location | Builder/Designer | Year | Built by/for | Photo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sam Kee Building | 8 West Pender Street | Brown and Gillam | 1913 | Sam Kee Company | |
| Wing Sang Building | 51 East Pender Street | Thomas Ennor Julian | 1889-1901 | Wing Sang Company | |
| Chinese Freemasons Building | 1 West Pender Street | 1901 | |||
| Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver | 104-108 E Pender Street | 1901-1910 | CBA | ||
| Lim Sai Hor Association building | 525-531 Carrall Street | 1903 | Chinese Empire Reform Association | ||
| Mah Society of Canada | 137-139 E Pender Street | 1913 | |||
| Shon Yee Benevolent Association | 258 E Pender Street | 1914 | |||
| Yue Shan Society | 33-47 E Pender St. | 1898, 1920 | W.H. Chow | ||
| Chinese Times Building | 1 East Pender Street | W.T. Whiteway | 1902 | Wing Sang Company | |
| Mon Keang School | 123 East Pender Street | J.A. Radford and G.L. Southall | 1921 | Mon Keang School | |
| Lee Building | 129–131 East Pender Street | Henriquez and Todd | 1907 | Lee Association | |
| Carnegie Centre | 401 Main Street | G.W. Grant | 1902-1903 | Vancouver public library; later as Vancouver Museum and City Archives | |
| Commercial Buildings | 237–257 East Hastings Street | 1901-1913 | |||
| Hotel East | 445 Gore Street | S.B. Birds | 1912 | ||
| Kuomintang Building | 296 East Pender Street | W.E. Sproat | 1920 | The Kuomintang (KMT, or Chinese Nationalist League) | |
| Chin Wing Chun Society | 160 East Pender Street | R.A. McKenzie | 1925 | ||
| Ho Ho Restaurant and Sun Ah Hotel | 102 East Pender Street | R.T. Perry and White and Cockrill | 1911 |
[edit] Notable
In addition to Han Chinese from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China, Chinese Latin Americans have also settled in the Chinatown area. Most of them were from Peru, and arrived shortly after Juan Velasco Alvarado took over the country in a military coup in 1968. Others hail from Brazil, Mexico, and Nicaragua.
[edit] See also
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[edit] Notes
- ^ [1] Vancouver-Chinatown website page on the Millennium Gate
- ^ Chinese Vancouver: A decade of change
- ^ Metroblogging Vancouver: The Tinseltown Mall: where retail outlets go to die
[edit] Further reading
- Anderson, Kay. Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875-1980 (Montreal and Buffalo: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1991).
- Anderson, Kay. Cultural Hegemony and the Race Definition Process in Vancouver's Chinatown: 1880-1980 in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 1988. Reprinted in 1996, Social Geography: A Reader, ed. Hamnett C., (Arnold, London)
- Anderson, Kay. The idea of Chinatown: the Power of Place and Institutional Practice in the Making of a Racial Category in Annals Association of American Geographers (1987 - vol. 77, no. 4). Reprinted in 1992, A Daunting Modernity: A Reader in Post-Confederation Canada ed. McKay, I (McGraw-Hill Ryerson, Ontario).
[edit] External links
- Vancouver Chinatown Revitalization Committee website
- "For the love of Chinatown," 1968 clip from CBC Radio
- Chinese Community Policing Centre
- Vincent Miller, "Mobile Chinatowns: The Future of Community in a Global Space of Flows." Article analyzing the differences between Vancouver's Chinatown and the Chinese community in Richmond.
- "Yin and Yang: Chinatown Past and Present," Multimedia site from Knowledge Network based on Paul Yee's book, Saltwater City: An Illustrated History of the Chinese in Vancouver,Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1988.
- Walking Tour: Chinatown
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