A Trip to Chinatown

May 22, 2010

A Trip to Chinatown

I took my 7th graders downtown yesterday afternoon for a tour of Chinatown since we are studying China in social studies class. I was a little nervous about this field trip because Chinatown is located only one street up from East Hastings Street - and if you know anything about Vancouver, you know that East Hastings is NOT the safest place to be. But I had 4 parent volunteers come to help, so I was grateful for that!

We first visited the Chinese Cultural Centre where we learned all about the history of the Chinese Canadians. They had a huge part in building our railroad which allowed the British colonies to unite and form a country. Many went to fight in the World Wars even though they had no rights or privileges yet. After returning from WWII, they spoke out and demanded equality and it was finally given to them. Chinese Canadians have a huge role in the history of Canada.

After that, we hit the streets for a walking tour of Chinatown. It was so neat to see the old buildings and hear the stories to go along with each one. Here's what we saw.....

This is the Chinese Cultural Centre where we started out....

Chinatown gate

One of my (many) silly students...

A mural depicting the significant moments in Chinese Canadian history.

One of the oldest buildings in Chinatown. The son of the original owner still owns it (and might actually live there too). It used to only be 2 storeys high, but recently the 3rd storey was added to the top.

My students.... actually paying attention!!

In this picture, see the small windows above the first floor? It looks like the first floor has high ceilings, but it's actually a separate floor! Buildings used to be taxed based on the number of floors, so they built it to look like 2 floors rather than 3 so that they could pay less tax, and the Chinese didn't mind because the lower ceilings didn't bother them!

This is a picture I found that better shows how they would build a super tiny second floor and make it look like high ceilings on the first floor! Ingenious!!

The world's narrowest building! Only 6 feet wide! There are business on the main floor, used to be public baths below the street and the upstairs has large bay windows to significantly enlarge the width of the rooms. Again, ingenious!

A cool yin-yang mosaic on the sidewalk

This is the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Memorial Garden which honours him for over throwing the Qing Dynasty in 1911 and forming the Republic of China. We didn't spend much time there, but I'd love to go back!