The Life Of Chinatown
A New Zine series documenting Vancouver’s Chinatown from 2016-2019
(Release Date TBA)
The second part of my journey started in 2016 when I was serendipitously introduced to the folks of the Youth Collaborative for Chinatown: June Chow and Doris Chow.
After meeting and agreeing to help them with photography as they handled initiatives to bring about the tangible and untangible heritage in Chinatown, I found myself within a community of people who were interested in Chinatown itself and very keen on saving it’s culture. This led to documenting Summer mahjong gatherings, a number of protests fighting gentrification and also being introduced to many people and also many places in Chinatown. This would eventually lead me to the Wong Association, to which I soon found I had a deeper connection to.
Over time, I realized that in the Associations I was seeing a lot of older seniors in Chinatown and also young people being involved in Chinatown but there was definitely a gap in the generations. This was especially evident when I joined the Wong Association and realized that, other than a few people around my age, most of the members were seniors. It was very cool to see the young generation super interested in learning about and also picking up the heritage of Chinatown.
However, it definitely prompted me to think about the greater question of Chinatown’s future. Could the youth movement, powered by social media, create a revitalization of Chinatown? What happens when all the seniors are gone? As time passes, this question grows in great importance and could shape the coming future of Chinatown and what it will look like many years from now.
