If you are in Toronto on September 12th and are interested about the history of its Chinatown, be sure not to miss Mapping Chinatown, a Walkabout around Toronto’s Downtown Chinatown.
In the same theme, that of Toronto’s old Chinatown, I recently found out about East Chinatown (in Riverdale), which I read about on Spacing Toronto.
Montreal’s own Chinatown is changing. In this past decade and a half, a new Chinatown has emerged further west, close to Concordia University. My uncle and aunt who were visiting Montreal this summer, after being abroad in Hong Kong for more than 10 years now, told me that they were not aware of this second Chinatown. When she was a student at Concordia, my aunt never noticed such concentration of Chinese-owned restaurants and boutiques. (It was also a time when they could watch Hong Kong films in a movie theatre in Chinatown and see big Cantopop stars perform in the city.)
I’m very curious to see what Plaza Swatow, what seems to be the largest Chinese commercial centre in Montreal ever, will bring to our Chinatown(s) in the coming year.