I Was Lured Into A Tea Shop
Vancouver’s Chinatown from 2013-2015

It all started when…

In 2013, I started a photography project for myself that was meant to challenge my commitment to be photograph for 1 year. At the end of that year, I compiled a number of my photos and created a book from them. Within weeks of sending to print, I had received a text from my wife saying “the book is here!”

It was really exciting to see some of my work in print. It really made things very tangible. As my fingers carefully pulled each page across, I saw more and more of Chinatown come together in that book. At the end of that book, I recall that there was one main thought in my mind… and that thought was: “I’ve only scratched the surface of this project”.

Vancouver Chinatown 2013-20.jpg

Well, I scratched that surface more and more and it led me to eventually being a part of an exhibition at the Sun Yat Sen Gardens documenting the ever changing life and times of Vancouver’s Chinatown. I joined the Wong Association, I took part in 4 Chinatown Parades and I got to see a whole different side of Chinatown that I never thought existed. And I wanted to ensure it was all documented to the best of my ability.

Vancouver Chinatown 2013-14.jpg

However, let’s go back to the beginning. At the end of 2012, I made a New Year’s resolution to complete this Chinatown Project. And so, I began in the cold months of early 2013 and started walking around Chinatown. I would usually start from the large gate standing over Pender Street and then work my way around the various streets, exploring shops and stalls and observing the people and their surroundings.

Vancouver Chinatown 2014-12.jpg

I was an outsider. My story of Chinatown started in 2013 but there was not much of a past to draw on. I would occasionally go to Chinatown with my grandparents or my parents for groceries (this was before T&T and other Chinese shops popped up in the suburbs) but in my youth and young adult days I had no reason to go to Chinatown.

Having no contacts or friends in Chinatown at the time and further not knowing the Cantonese language meant I was doing more hiding behind the camera than I was trying to get to know people. I would walk around the streets of Pender, Keefer, Gore and Main and not say much to people; just observe and photograph if I felt it. I took in the smells of the herbal shops and the sight of the meat shops. Occasionally I would document people as they were walking around Chinatown. There were a lot of seniors.

Vancouver Chinatown 2014-6.jpg

One day, as I was starting my walk along Pender, I recall passing by this random shop and seeing a Chinese boy in the window beckoning me in. It caught me off guard as it was very very… strange. I recall stopping in my tracks and just staring a bit bewildered as the boy continued to beckon me in. With a slight hesitation, I eventually decided to step inside and… it was a tea shop. I met the owner whom I soon found out was not only the tea shop owner (and the boy’s mother) but an artist as well and she had just completed a portrait project on Chinatown (shown here). From here I met some other photographer friends and a few other connections and this really grounded me while I was in Chinatown. I had a place to go and people to talk to while I was doing my visits and walks and often found myself stopping into the tea shop and just chatting and hanging out before heading out down the rest of Pender Street.

Vancouver Chinatown 2014-21.jpg

A lingering thought that had occurred to me as I was making these photographs was finding that a lot had Chinatown had changed. It had been many years since I had last visited (although I had probably passed through Chinatown on the way to something else) and I remember seeing stores closing, buildings being torn down and new and fancy shops opening up. Even within that one year of photographing in 2013 (and even more so when I photographed in 2014 and 2016), there was a lot of change happening. Chinatown was changing and it was happening fast.

Chinatown right now stands as a dichotomy of the old and the new. Where it will go from there... I really don't know.

This was the original book that I had created back in 2013. I made only one copy but that single copy prompted me to keep going with the project.

This was the original book that I had created back in 2013. I made only one copy but that single copy prompted me to keep going with the project.