Changing Chinatown, changing Strathcona

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      When Barb Lee moved into Strathcona in the 1990s, she was balking at a trend laid out by a generation of Chinese Canadians growing up in the working-class neighbourhood. Lee, a child of Chinese immigrants who moved into area in the 1980s, took on the social stigma of living in this traditionally low-income area, which had driven many to leave upon coming of age. Unlike others, though, Lee returned, lured by low property values, the antique French doors of her beautiful heritage home, and its nearness to her family. But with Strathcona’s accelerating housing prices, she says the makeup of the tight-knit neighbourhood is starting to break up.

      "I see a lot of urban professionals, lots of younger families," Lee told the Georgia Straight. "A lot of the older Chinese are either going home or passing away, and their kids are going elsewhere. Ethnic mix is reducing."

      "I see a lot of urban professionals, lots of younger families," Lee told the Georgia Straight. "A lot of the older Chinese are either going home or passing away, and their kids are going elsewhere. Ethnic mix is reducing."

      Chinese speakers in Strathcona dropped from 62 percent to 45 percent of the population from 1991 to 2001, according to the city's 2005-06 Downtown Eastside Community Monitoring Report. "Chinatown's relationship to Strathcona is radically changing with the gentrification of Strathcona," Andy Yan, a demographic analyst with links to SFU, told the Straight. "There is an increasing disconnect between those communities."

      Vancouver real-estate agent Jason Low also sees fewer Chinese and more young couples and professionals from a range of ethnicities starting to move in. "The Chinese are moving out," Low told the Straight. "They rarely move to begin with, but when they do, they don't buy back."

      Yan noted that Strathcona lost 10 percent of its population from 1991 to 2001 because of more expensive homes. "[Chinese immigrant] families can't afford to live there anymore," he emphasized. "They're being pressured into, say, 41st [Avenue] and Victoria [Drive]. They need new homes”¦and they just move on." He also claims that Strathcona's slow gentrification has led to an increase in double-income, no-kid households, yielding fewer children.

      Although the Vancouver school board cautions against using enrollment numbers at Lord Strathcona elementary school as an indicator of changing population tallies, the historical data is telling. The school board does not release exact attendance figures, but Rick Archambault, former chair of the Lord Strathcona parent advisory committee, estimated that the current attendance at the school is about 550.

      Twenty years ago, the school held as many as 800 students. Perhaps most strikingly, the Chinese in Vancouver at the time of the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act on July 1, 1923, were 3.5 percent of the population, but 230 of Strathcona's 1,100 students were Chinese. "Part of it is that there aren't as many families as there used to be," Archambault told the Straight. "A large house that might have held one or two large families, they're being replaced by much smaller families, with single couples."

      "What we're seeing is a slow decline in enrollment," affirmed Henry Ahking, manager of planning and facilities at the school board. "There aren't that many kids in that area." While Ahking agrees with Yan's assessment that gentrification is partly to blame, he adds that Strathcona probably suffers less from the problem than other district schools farther east.

      "The neighbourhood has evolved. Strathcona is in the empty-nesting stage." He and Archambault also emphasized that newer residents are less likely to enroll their children at Strathcona, which has a relatively large ESL population.

      As Yan and others suggest, these demographic changes will take a toll on Strathcona's sister community, Chinatown. Since its emergence in the late 1800s, Chinatown has spread its roots into old Strathcona, once known as the East End. Visitors can see their interdependence in the Chinese English street signs and the many Chinese benevolent associations based in Strathcona.

      But this relationship might be weakening, with fewer visitors making the trip for Chinatown's produce. "This is going to have a dramatic effect on Chinatown's retail, which is heavily dependent on families," Yan said. "Certain members in the community didn't understand the idea there is a cornucopia of Chinese services and goods other than Chinatown. If you combine that with this dramatic change in demography in Strathcona, you see the perfect storm."

      In fact, Strathcona's residents regularly bemoan the lack of suitable services and goods in Chinatown to match evolving needs. "I don't shop [in Chinatown] very much," Archambault said. "We buy produce there, but they don't have the kind of foods that we prefer to eat." It's up to the T&T Supermarket on the outskirts of Chinatown to furnish a wider selection, although variety is limited there as well.

      Barb Lee, for instance, said that naan bread, Mexican dips and guacamole, and blueberry muffins are only some of the things that T&T does not supply.

      Broadcaster and writer Bill Richardson, who has lived in Strathcona since 2001, admitted: "For the longest time, I found Chinatown shopping kind of frustrating because I'm very, very western, and there was stuff you just couldn't find, like milk”¦ And if anyone wants to open, say, a dry cleaner, it would be most welcome."

      Some of Chinatown's merchants are making attempts to adjust. John Atkin, author of Strathcona: Vancouver's First Neighbourhood and a long-time resident, observed: "You're starting to see the larger stores [in Chinatown] change the product range they have. Some of the owners are starting to figure out that maybe they should have yogurt or that sort of thing, more common products."

      Nevertheless, Atkin believes that the herbal shops, of which there are many in Chinatown, will be hit hardest by the latest shift in neighbourhood tastes. Some of them have already closed in recent years.

      All this does not seem to faze Chinatown's leaders much. Toby Lam, president of the Chinatown Business Improvement Association, remarked: "For every traditional herbalist shop that closes down, you see two clothing stores opening up." Merchants also seem to be more interested in the new condo developments around the Cinemark Tinseltown and Shanghai Alley, which have seen an influx of Chinese Canadians. Lam, who owns a Vancouver-wide chain of appliance stores based in Chinatown, is marketing to these new residents. He said that although he would like to, it's difficult to advertise in Strathcona. "We can't knock on every door and ask them if they're new," he said.

      Syrus Lee, who once sold condos in the new Firenze and España towers along Keefer Street, also sees a good ethnic mix coming in. Lee, who is vice-president of the Chinatown Merchants Association, said that Chinese families make up more than 30 percent of the new buyers, and many Korean investors are buying too. As for the selection of goods and services, he concedes that it is still fairly limited, but the individual shop owners are ultimately responsible for their wares.

      "We do try to educate them, but we can't tell them what to do," Syrus Lee said.

      Perhaps the most significant alteration in Chinatown-Strathcona relations might be the way in which outsiders view these two neighbourhoods and their historical kinship. Atkin guesses that "Twenty years from now, people might say, 'Weren't those neighbourhoods linked at one point?'"

      Comments

      2 Comments

      darren

      Nov 6, 2007 at 11:56am

      This article bothers me. Chinese residents that leave Stathcona don't do so because they can't afford to live there anymore. They leave because the value of thier property has appreciated to five times what it was only ten years ago. They are just being smart in taking advantage of the progressive vision the new Strathcona residents have brought to the area. In terms of thier exodus to, say, 41st and Victoria, just another smart move to an uderappreciated area that will soon see its own growth. But while we're on the topic of displacing residents from their longtime neighbourhoods, and including the subject of race, I should mention this. Middle class whites, myself included, that grew up renting in Kits have been displaced to east Van, largely due to asian financial interest in our city. 41st and Victoria, where I live now, used to be primarily white people (is it ok to say that?). The chinese have completely displaced them. There are literaly no english speakers on my block. Where is my culture, my people. Increasingly it seems there is only money and self interest. Writing an article bemoaning the loss of a small pocket of chinese culture that the chinese don't even care about preserving seems insulting to me. The chinese don't need anything from us and will not learn english because they support each other in their community, wherever that may be. The indigenous Vancouverites are the ones that need a voice to oppose cultural displacement, but I think we're probably already too late.

      simon

      Nov 18, 2007 at 12:20pm

      Your comment really bothers me. Granted that you may be correct in your assessment that Chinese people are smart buyers, perhaps the white middle class can employ that same strategy as well to avoid displacement. That way, you will not be displaced to living in an underappreciated Victoria area inhabitted by the Chinese, away from all your English-speaking friends living in West Vancouver. Where is your culture, you ask? The "indigenous Vancouverites are the ones that need a voice to oppose cultural displacement"? I believe that First Nations deserve the title as "indigenous Vancouverites" - not the middle class whites. They have been voicing cultural displacement, and for the longest time, have been ignored by the colonizing Whites. So how is the Chinese purchasing property any worse than White Colonization? The indigenous Vancouverites are the ones that need a voice to oppose cultural displacement, and yes, darren, you are right - they are already too late.