How do we know that we have arrived at Vancouver, Chinatown?The answer may be one of the following ones:
[1] Around the are
a are low houses of different heights and designs, usually two to four storeys high.
[2] Shops of various kinds are mixed up. A shop selling poultry can be next to a shop of kitchenware and restaurant cutlery supplies and a restaurant can be above it.
[3] One never knows there is a hotel above their heads when they are shopping at some local shops selling clothes and Chinese luxurious healthy food.
[4] The lamp-posts are all painted red and some have dragons on top of the lamps.
[5] The shop and street names are in Chinese characters.
[6] The pedestrians are mostly Chinese.
[7] Here in Chinatown Vancouver, the salesmen and salesladies of shops are Chinese and they speak both Chinese and English.
[8] Some shop-keepers use those Chinese names we often see in Hong Kong for their shops, but their names in English do not match with the ones we see in Hong Kong.
The example here is 大班餐廳餅店 (The Boss Bakery & Restaurant) in Vancouver and 大班麵包西餅 (Taipan Bakery) in Hong Kong.
4 comments:
I just read in the news that Vancouver Chinatown is the second largest in North America... the biggest is San Fran. So you have been to the first and the second largest, as well as the oldest in N. America, dad!
I had been to Vancouver about 10 years ago. Vancouver Chinatown gave me the impression that the restaurants and food are better than SF. We just randomly dropped in a couple of Chinese restaurants there (without asking people which one to go for and without positive referrals). The food was real good and satisfying(good cooking with good taste and 好鑊氣). The streets are cleaner and wider too.
In San Francisco you often come across Chinese and English names of the same restaurant that bear no relationship to each other whatsoever, in meaning or what not. It's because when a restaurant is sold, the buyer tends retain the English name (so there is no need to go through the process of new business registration, and thus save registration fees and processing time) but they want to have their own Chinese name they like. The Chinese name can be changed without any restrictions since it does NOT go into the business registration. The owner usually choose common HK names so that customers from HK would feel some attachment to the names and so patronize it.
Thank you all for the knowledge.
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