The Millennium Gate welcomed us into Chinatown and it was still very impressive even in the dreary weather! There are numerous restaurants, cafes, teashops, bars and clubs and of course there are many retail shops, selling traditional Chinese goods from groceries, gifts and clothing. In addition there are museums and other tourist and cultural sites to visit.
Shopping in Chinatown is always a fun as it is always an experience for all the senses! Colourful displays from shops spill out onto the pavements and of course there is a lot of red and gold to entice shoppers into the stores. All the stores are full to the ceilings of various goods and trinkets and every shop seems to sell anything and everything you could ever want. Many shops have incenses burning and each shop smells different from the next, one could be sandalwood and the next could be Chinese spices. You are usually welcomed into the shop by the owners and they couldn’t be more helpful and friendly, helping you to find what you need in their maze like stores, to me it looked like everything was in a jumble but they knew exactly where everything was kept, it was quite amazing! Moving on from the traditional shops of Chinatown you come across The International Village Mall, a modern development in contrast to the old styling’s of Chinatown. The mall contained a mixture of some Chinese stores to more international places such as Starbucks.
The Asian diaspora in Vancouver is very prominent so it was no surprise how strong the Chinese diaspora is and how popular Chinatown is for both Chinese and other people. You can also tell it is a very proud community and they enjoy displaying their culture and history to visitors. As I have said there are cultural sites to visit within Chinatown and one is the Canadian Chinese Monument, it is shaped like the Chinese character “zhong” and symbolises Chinese, moderation and harmony. Next to the character are two statues, one of a Chinese Railroad Worker the other of a World War II Solider. I found this monument particularly interesting as it celebrates the hybridity of Canada and China and because it means harmony it represents the harmony between the two cultures. Also the two statues shows how much history the Chinese have in Canada and how important they have been in the past development and future of Canada. Even though Chinatown is a clearly separate part of Vancouver it is still very integrated in the sense that people all of all races come to visit and work there and Chinese people of Vancouver have an important role in the city.
Links:
www.vancouver-chinatown.com/
DSC-comment: Chinatown in Vancouver seems to be a very interesting place to visit and your description of it is very vivid making it come alive to me while reading it. Having been to Chinatown in New York City or in Toronto, for example, I was very interested in your description of the one in Vancouver. As I was a little bit disappointed visually of Chinatown in Toronto (for more about my experience of Chinatown in Toronto, see my blog-entry about it), which does not have many impressive “typical Chinese” monuments or buildings, but looks rather like the surrounding neighborhoods with Chinese advertisements, I was very interested in your description of the Millennium Gate as a very much visual monument marking the entrance to Chinatown setting a certain mood, I could imagine.
ReplyDeleteSome of your other observations are very much like the ones I made in Toronto with many retail shops smelling of different incenses and selling traditional goods, clothing and food owned by mostly welcoming Chinese people. Although in Chinatown in Toronto many of the goods sold were not necessarily Chinese, but just a collection of very cheaply produced random goods sold at rather low prices appealing to tourists. It would be interesting to know, if this practice was also used in Chinatown in Vancouver.
Your remarks about the Chinese community being a very proud one enjoying the display of their culture and history to others sounds very interesting and I can relate to and agree with it by looking at the impressive Millennium Gate or the Canadian Chinese Monument you posted. In Toronto I did not really witness any comparable visual or traditional statues or buildings except a few pillars, thus it would be interesting to find out if the roles and (self-) perceptions of these Chinese communities in their respective surrounding societies are differing from each other.