Storytelling Center aims to be a permanent reminder of Vancouver’s Chinatown pioneers

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The photo shows a row of older Chinese men sitting at the counter of the BC Royal Café in Vancouver’s Chinatown, circa 1950. They wear felt hats and have a cup of coffee or a steamed bun in hand.

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It is one of the many evocative pieces of the new Chinatown Storytelling Center, which opens its doors on November 6 with the goal of telling the stories of Chinese Canadians.

“It was important to have something permanent in the neighborhood,” said Carol Lee, president of the Vancouver Chinatown Foundation, which purchased a building on East Pender Street in 2017 for this purpose.

The opening is one of several efforts in Vancouver to present historical and contemporary stories of resilience and survival in Vancouver, which has been hit by a new anti-Asian racism during the pandemic.

The storytelling center is located in a former Bank of Montreal branch. There is a gift shop near the entrance and a lobby dedicated to the story of Tommy Mah, the first manager of an ethnic Chinese bank in Canada in 1966.

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Inside, the walls are covered with large floor-to-ceiling photographs. There are one-minute video displays in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin, and display cases filled with artifacts to highlight various important time periods, beginning when Chinese immigrants came to British Columbia from China and California, in search of gold, and then to build. railways. There are documents from class associations, political groups and cultural organizations started by immigrants to support each other.

In one corner, there is a space dedicated to the photographs of photographer Yucho Chow, who opened his first studio in Chinatown in 1906 and took formal portraits of many Vancouver families. In another, there is a pagoda pay phone booth, red with flared roofs in green and gold, a recreation of those in the neighborhood.

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The BC Royal Café photo is on a back wall and is smaller than some of the other images. It conveys a palpable feeling of loneliness even though the diner is full. Businesses like this were a necessity in a community of singles, men separated from their families for years, even after Canada repealed laws preventing immigration from China in 1947, but before restrictions based on race and the origin in 1967.

The downtown showroom also delves into later years when there was a fuller “round-the-table gathering” of immigrant families and others in Chinatown’s busy chop suey restaurants, dim sum palaces, nightclubs and other businesses. There are menus and old bowls and plates.

“I take a look around this neighborhood and think about things throughout all this confusion,” Lee said. “In one generation, they could have (three) university presidents. Think about it. They had this hope. “

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Lee’s father, real estate mogul Bob Lee, was Chancellor of the University of British Columbia in the early 1990s, while businessman Milton Wong was Chancellor of Simon Fraser University, as was HY Louie CEO. Co., Brandt Louie, later in 2005.

There are also the many contributions from lesser-known names, and Lee hopes there will be interest in the stories of people like Henry Con.

He was born in Coquitlam in 1922 and ran a small souvenir shop and Canada’s first post office in Chinatown. He served as a translator during WWII and later volunteered with the Chinese Freemasons, the Chinese Benevolence Association, and the Strathcona Landlord-Tenant Association. He was awarded the Order of Canada in 1982.

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At two kiosks, visitors can scroll through descriptions and photos of more than 100 people, companies and organizations.

“Now there is a home for these stories,” Lee said.

Down the street, the Museum of Vancouver, the University of British Columbia and the Canadian Chinese Museum of British Columbia jointly present a temporary exhibition, “A Seat at the Table,” and present a book of essays, stories and photographs with the same name. .

It chronicles Chinese immigration to British Columbia and “is a reckoning and recognition of those who dreamed of a better life, who stood firm against racism and rejection, and who in their resolve and resistance, their dignity in the face of shameful treaties, they were granted redemption. for all of us, ”wrote history teacher Henry Yu.

Here’s a large, eye-catching piece of art that stands in stark contrast to the image of the BC Royal Café.

Exhibition organizers in charge Family Dim Sum on Sunday by artists Stella Zheng and Elisa Yon. It’s an aerial view of a contemporary, multi-generational Chinese-Canadian family, sitting around a table, talking, laughing and sharing a sumptuous meal that was painted in bright enamel on a large 1.2 meter diameter steel wok in 2020.

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