23rd Annual Vancouver Chinatown Festival starts next weekend

Vancouver's Chinatown faces a number of challenges as it looks to revitalize while maintaining its 140-year-old legacy. Kier Junos speaks with a man who has been giving guided tours of the area for nearly 20 years.

Next weekend marks the 23rd annual Vancouver Chinatown Festival, and the Chinese community in one of the city’s oldest neighbourhoods is getting ready to showcase why it’s a pillar of the city, the province, and the Canada we know.

“It’s a celebration of our roots, of our character, of the people, of the food, of the merchants,” said Bob Sung, founder of A Wok Around Chinatown.

Sung has been giving guided tours of the historic neighbourhood for nearly 20 years.

“It’s one of the reasons I developed this tour, to make the general public at large aware of the colour, the history, the culture of what Chinatown means,” Sung said.

Not just your average tour guide, Sung knows the ambition, heart, and vision of Chinatown like no other. His family has lived it, and he shows this on his tours every day.

Sung, who is now in his 70s, is a third-generation Chinese Canadian whose family has decades of culinary history in British Columbia.

“My generation, my parents’ generation, we had to assimilate into the Western culture,” he said.

“We could only assimilate so much, but now it’s time to showcase my culture and heritage. And the medium I do is food.”

Vancouver’s Chinatown was first settled in the 1880s, and discrimination clustered Chinese immigrants in the neighbourhood.

Today, it’s the centre of many Chinese community associations. Its buildings form a visual aesthetic that combines Western construction with the architecture of China’s Guangdong province, making it a rich backdrop for a tour.

Part of the neighbourhood, which faces a number of challenges as it looks to revitalize while maintaining its 140-year-old legacy, has Canadian heritage status.

“What’s really interesting is the Chinese Community, they’re doing a 10-year application to make these two blocks a UNESCO World Heritage site,” Sung said. “So that’s how proud we are in the history of Chinatown.”

This year’s Chinatown Festival runs July 12-13. Sung will be out and about, sharing a taste of history.

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