During a trip to Vancouver, we decided to visit Chinatown and the Chinese Garden. Walking along Carrell Street, suddenly the ethnic variety of the town seemed to change and one could see more Asian people. Even the shops changed and there were more and more Chinese signs in the shop names. A new experience for me was that also banks, which are represented all over Canada, and other formal institutions names were written in English and Chinese. At the traffic lights, we saw Chinese symbols next to the Canadian symbol of the maple. One shop was particularly interesting for me. It sold Chinese food and spices, which had different flavors I was not used to. Although I was unfamiliar with the language, variety of products and different fashion styles in the shops, I did not feel unwelcomed.
Furthermore, this experience made me think about the advantages and disadvantages of neighborhoods like Chinatown or Little Italy and if in Germany there are also huge neighborhoods with a particular dominant nationality. Many people are afraid of Chinatowns and similar quarters. Reasons for this fear or discomfort may lay in the Otherness and unfamiliarity of certain dishes, clothes and especially the language which is dominantly spoken in that particular area. It is claimed that in districts where a majority of a specific ethnic group is prevailing, integration is not possible and a ghettoization may take place. This may lead to a feeling of difference and isolation. On the other hand, quarters with a dominant minority group have many advantages. They make an important contribution to the survival of the original culture in a diasporic context. The next generation has easier access to cultural traditions and habits and the language can be learned more easily, because the children share the same cultural experience and background. It is also a great enrichment for people who do not belong to the Chinese community. They can buy ingredients for Chinese dishes, talk to community members and get into contact with them.
As far as I know, there are not quarters like Chinatown in Germany. There are areas where a certain cultural group is more dominant, for example Mühlheim in Cologne or Kreuzberg in Berlin, but these places are not officially entitled as “Turkishtowns”. In my opinion, such neighborhoods should not be seen too negatively. They offer a possibility to come to contact with different people and get in touch with different ways of living so that the cultural diversity of each city is enriched. Only if other social factors occur and get associated with these districts, like criminality, poverty or other variables, the neighborhoods with a dominant cultural group get a bad name, are avoided by the dominant cultural group and members of the dominant group think that people who live in these certain districts are strongly unmotivated to integrate and struggle to be part of the nation- state. Places like Chinatown can be seen negatively and rather positively, but for me it was a really nice experience and I will definitely keep it positively in mind.
I enjoyed reading this journal entry as it considers both the negative and positive attitudes towards Chinatowns, and especially Vancouver's Chinatown, and not only regards Chinatowns as tourist attractions, but rather as functional urban districts, where Chinese people live and work and keep their culture alive.
AntwortenLöschenI have been to Vancouver's Chinatown several times and always experienced it very positively because as I was wandering along Pender, Keefer or Main Street, I always noticed a certain pride of their culture, may it be the Chinese cuisine or traditional Chinese decoration. Especially the huge archway shown in the picture was very impressive and appeared to me as an artistic expression of pride of the Chinese culture. At the same time it did not seem as if this Chinatown was mainly meant to be a tourist attraction because most of the people on the streets were Chinese themselves and I did not see many non-Chinese pedestrians besides myself. Of course, this might have been because of the time of the year, when Vancouver does not get as many tourists as during the summer. One thing (besides the numerous souvenir shops) that I did notice and that seemed to be designed to attract tourists was the Dr. Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden because this was a place in Chinatown where I mainly saw non-Chinese visitors. Because of the relatively high admission fee of 8-10 $ I can hardly imagine any Chinese residents of Vancouver’s Chinatown to be regular visitors to this definitely beautiful garden. On the website of Dr. Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden it is said that it was set up only in 1981 and was designed to “maintain and enhance the bridge of understanding between Chinese and Western cultures”. Furthermore, on the website it says that the garden is meant to “promote Chinese culture generally” and to “be an integral part of the local community”. As I said before, I doubt that local Chinese people constitute regular visitors of this garden but I appreciate the intention of the garden to be a means of communication between the two cultures.
As I stated above, Vancouver’s Chinatown seems to be more than just a tourist attraction and rather a place where visitors get the chance to immerge into a more or less authentic experience of Chinese culture in North America. An even more authentic experience in my opinion was my visit to Richmond, a city south of Vancouver, where 45 % of the population is ethnic Chinese and where I felt completely lost in between the Chinese signs displayed on all the stores and where it seemed to me at first, as if everybody only spoke Chinese. But I soon discovered that this was not the case at all, when I asked somebody for directions. Many of Richmond’s residents have probably lived in Canada for a long time and maybe only live there but work downtown Vancouver. Many of them may have been born in Canada and their families might have lived here for more than 120 years since the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed in 1885 by mainly Chinese workers. This is why I think that the Chinese community in Vancouver is highly significant because they contributed in large parts to the unification of the nation of Canada. Other ethnicities should therefore not meet them with disrespect for their culture but rather appreciate the fact that after such a long time in Canada, the Chinese culture is still kept alive within the Chinese diaspora and that they therefore contribute to the multicultural character of Canada.