Vancouver's Chinatown Research Articles

In their riotous tracks: Screen media and placemaking in Vancouver's chinatown

In their riotous tracks: Screen media and placemaking in Vancouver's chinatown

Vancouver's Chinatown Night Market: Gentrification and the Perception of Chinatown as a Form of Revitalization

Vancouver's Chinatown Night Market: Gentrification and the Perception of Chinatown as a Form of Revitalization

Vancouver Chinatown in Transition

AbstractMuch has been written about Chinatowns in North America as a self-sustained community with fairly complete social institutions. Chinatowns emerged under an era of racism and discrimination and offered some degrees of protection and opportunity to the Chinese. Historically, Vancouver’s Chinatown suffered from a public image of an unhygienic and immoral neighborhood where Chinese resided and where Chinese shops and businesses congregated. This image began to change in the 1930s as the Chinese reshaped Chinatown to suit the racial ideology of a culturally exotic neighborhood that offered Oriental cuisine and festivities to Canadians. As more Chinese immigrated to Canada after World War II, a new Chinese middle class began to emerge. Although Vancouver Chinatown continued to grow and to retain the image of a tourist attraction, it has ceased to be the choice residential and business location for the Chinese. In contrast, Richmond south of Vancouver has developed into a vibrant and affluent business and residential enclave for middle-class Chinese. This article argues that the emergence and decline of Vancouver’s Chinatown have been shaped by the nature of race formation in society as well as the internal composition and social organization of the Chinese community.

Flower Power's Enduring Poet Laureate

Gee continuedfrom previous page heartfelt, engaging, and particularly evocative when describing how Kiam feels in Jenny's presence, from his showing her a scar to their first kiss, and there are depictions of their subsequent embraces and burgeoning physical intimacy. How the writing is so truthful and moving is all too important because it contrasts where Jack O'Connor's life and ways lead him—we eventually learn of his own interests in Jenny. Whether characters can or should or do cross racial lines becomes a larger concern of the novel; it's well worth reading the entire book to discover who ends up with whom, and why. Whether characters can or should or do cross racial lines becomes a larger concern ofthe novel. Choy also comments upon interracial relationships with a more minorbut still substantial character, Meiying, a young woman also living in Vancouver's Chinatown who falls in love with a young Japanese man. The consequences of their relationship are as moving as what occurs between Kiam, Jenny, and Jack; Choy tells another story of life here through Kiam's perspective that will affect readers and provoke yet more intense thought and feeling. All That Matters is also a novel about the survival and growth of the Chen family. Kiam's stepmother, called "gai-mou" meaning helpmate (for the father), is a younger, beautiful woman who is shipped over from China. Choy creates a compelling portrait of her life, for the reader follows her from her arrival as she settles in and gives birth to three more children. Choy's sensitivity is admirable because he shows the reader, in very tender scenes, how the stepmother fears for the life ofthe first child, Kiam's little sister, Jook-Liang, since girls are often given away or removed upon birth in China. Choy also shows the reader the stepmother's struggles of giving birth to two sons and the pain and grief she must endure upon losing one. What should be admired most ofall, ifone steps back, is Choy's consummate skill as a novelist. He manages to weave all ofhis concerns-^Chinese Canadian history, the culture ofa Chinese family, the events of the world and Canada's reaction to them, and how a young man, Kiam-Kim, can find his place in life in Vancouver's Chinatown—into one longer compelling narrative. This is never easy to do, especially when writing about the past, far back in the 1900s. And all throughout, the prose is graceful, artful, filled with freshness and energy. The writer's mind could not be more insightful, the story always significant; and so All That Matters should be regarded as a rare, winning book, one to savor and carefully consider. Allen Gee is an assistantprofessor ofcreative writing at Georgia College* where he is alsofacultyfiction editorfor thejournal Arts & Letters. Flower Power's Enduring Poet Laureate Kirby Olson Richard Brautigan: Essays on the Writings and Life Edited By John F. Barber McFarland http://www.mcfarlandpub.com 314 pages; paper, $39.95 Time is central to the controversy surrounding writer Richard Brautigan. Neil Schiller, for instance, writes against linear understanding of Brautigan in his essay "The Historical Present: Notions of History , Time and Cultural Lineage in the Writings of Richard Brautigan": There is a malleable quality to Brautigan's time.... It can start and stop at will; the narrator can step outside of his moment and describe another one while waiting for that to come to an end. ...If history is a chaos of facts reconstructed into a narrative, then so too is time a maelstrom of impressions that are reconstructed into a chronology. It is not linear in and of itself, which is just one model of narrative . Another model would be cyclical; another perhaps modular. Brautigan's is dimensional, molecular, conceptually geographical, with moments placed like coordinates.... While Schiller argues that Brautigan is a leveler oftime-based linear narratives, many ofthe thirty-plus other critics in the volume see Brautigan as directly related to his time and unable to survive outside the ecosystem of flower-power. Kevin Ring writes, "He represented something almost intangible but very desirable, that myth of the literary west coast, when the...

Reworking democracy: contemporary immigration and community politics in vancouver's chinatown

This paper examines the political repercussions of large-scale immigration from Hong Kong on a pre-existing Chinese community in Vancouver, British Columbia. Through an examination of the context of these migration flows, and through a discussion of two case studies of political challenge and institutional transformation in Chinatown, the fieldwork reveals how internal political change and the reworking of the normative democratic values of Canadian society reflects not a linear movement of assimilation to the dominant values of the ‘modern’ nation state, but rather the historical context of a nonlinear transmigration network.

Book Reviews

Abstract The Mountains of the Mediterranean World: An Environmental History. J. R. McNeill. Reviewed by Karl W. Butzer, Departments of Geography and Anthropology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas. The Biophilia Hypothesis. Stephen R. Kellert and Edward O. Wilson, eds. Reviewed by Robin W. Doughty, Department of Geography, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas. Andean Ecology: Adaptive Dynamics in Ecuador. Gregory Knapp. Reviewed by Karl S. Zimmerer, Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wis-consin. Las Chacras de Coporaque: Andenería y Riego en el Valle del Colca. John M. Treacy. Reviewed by Gregory Knapp, Department of Geography, University of Texas, Austin, Texas. Gold Seeking: Victoria and California in the 1850s. David Goodman. Reviewed by Randall Rohe, Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Waukesha, Waukesha, Wis-consin. La Géographie Culturelle. Paul Claval. Reviewed by Philip L. Wagner, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Geography and the Human Spirit. Anne Buttimer. Reviewed by Paul Claval, Universite de Paris-Sorbonne, Paris, France. Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875–1980. Kay J. Anderson. Reviewed by Benjamin Forest, Department of Geography, University of California, Los Angeles, and American Bar Foundation, Chicago, Illinois. The Sounds of People and Places: A Geography of American Folk and Popular Music. George O. Carney, ed. Reviewed by Peter H. Nash, Department of Geography, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Controlling Immigration: A Global Perspective. Wayne A. Cornelius, Philip L. Martin, James F. Hollifield, eds. Reviewed by Brigitte Waldorf, Department of Geography and Regional Development, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona. Sustainable Cities. Graham Haughton and Colin Hunter. Reviewed by William D. Solecki, Department of Geography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida. The Added Value of Geographical Information Systems in Public and Environmental Health. Marion J. C. de Lepper, Henk J. Scholten and Richard M. Stern, eds. Reviewed by Russell S. Kirby, Medical School, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin. Possibilities and Constraints of GIS Applications in Developing Countries. Pieter van Teeffelen, Leo van Grunsven, and Otto Verkoren, eds. Reviewer: Gary L. Gaile, Department of Geography, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado. Key Words: deforestationenvironmental historyMediterraneanmountain ecologyrural depopulationsoil erosionecologyenvironmentenvironmental ethicsperceptionadaptive dynamicsagricultureAndescultural ecologyecologyEcuadoragriculturecultural ecologyenvironmental historyirrigationPeruCaliforniacomparative historygold rushVictoriacommunicationcultural geographycultureenvironmentmodernizationvalueshistory of geographyhumanismphilosophy of geographyworld hypothesisCanadaChinesehegemonyplaceracesocial constructionfolk musicmusic geographypopular musicimmigrantsimmigration policiesrefugeescitiesdevelopmentenvironmentsustainabilityurbanismenvironmental healthGISmedical geographypublic healthappropriate technologydeveloping countriesGIS

Review: Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875–1980

Review: Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875–1980

Reviews: The Earth as Transformed by Human Action: Global and Regional Changes in the Biosphere over the past 300 Years, the APIC Series Number 37: Fundamentals of Spatial Information Systems, Different Places, Different Voices: Gender and Development in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875–1980, International Perspectives in Urban Studies 1, Industrial Subcontracting in the

Reviews: The Earth as Transformed by Human Action: Global and Regional Changes in the Biosphere over the past 300 Years, the APIC Series Number 37: Fundamentals of Spatial Information Systems, Different Places, Different Voices: Gender and Development in Africa, Asia and Latin America, Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875–1980, International Perspectives in Urban Studies 1, Industrial Subcontracting in the

REVIEWS

Australian Geographical StudiesVolume 30, Issue 2 p. 236-249 REVIEWS First published: October 1992 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8470.1992.tb00745.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Abstract Book reviewed in this article: J.M. Powell Plains of Promise, Rivers of Destiny: Water Management in the Development of Queensland 1824–1990 J.W. Handmer, A.H.J. Dorcey and D.I. Smith (eds) Negotiating Water: Conflict Resolution in Australian Water Management Norman Mackay and David Eastburn (ed.) The Murray Australian Defence Force Academy. Canberra D.J. Mulvaney (ed). The Humanities and the Australian Environment William J. Lines Taming the Great South Land Melbourne J.B. Kirkpatrick (ed) Tasmanian Native Bush: a Management Handbook Brotchie, J., Batty, M., Hall., and Newtown, P. Cities of the 21 st Century: New Technologies and Spatial Systems Kay J. Anderson Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875–1980 Daniel W. Bromley. Environment and Economy: Property Rights and Public Policy Wetlands: A Threarened Landscape Learmonth, Andrew Disease Ecology Volume30, Issue2October 1992Pages 236-249 RelatedInformation

Relocation of Vancouver's Chinatown Residents under Urban Renewal

Relocation of Vancouver's Chinatown Residents under Urban Renewal