Vancouver born Larry Wong will be giving a talk on his life and old Chinatown – 7pm, Thursday March 25, 2010 at the Vancouver Museum (1100 Chestnut Street).
Larry is one of the UGLY Chinese Canadian’s old buds, and one can always count on Larry for all sorts of interesting and fascinating anecdotes about old Vancouver.
Larry Wong (2nd from left) and friends. photo courtesy of Todd Wong
He is one of the founding directors of the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia, and is a well respected historian on Chinese Canadians and on Vancouver’s Chinatown. He is also presently the historian and curator of the Chinese Canadian Military Museum in Vancouver’s Chinatown
Larry shared the following item with us, from the Vancouver Historical Society newsletter:
Growing up in Chinatown
Larry Wong will take us inside Chinatown through the history of his family and that of Chinatown.
Larry’s father, Wong Mow, arrived in Vancouver in 1911, a young married man of 20 who paid his $500 Head Tax and was eager to work as a tailor so he could support his wife and only son back home in China.
In 1911, Chinatown was twenty-five years old, the same age as Vancouver.
There had been a Chinese presence in the city right from the beginning. Chinatown began on Shanghai Alley near the shore of False Creek, which back then touched Pender Street near Carrall Street. When the CPR was completed, a roundhouse and maintenance shop was built on what is today’s Canton Alley.
Carrall Street was the main street of Chinatown.
Gradually Chinese businesses and residences spread out along Dupont Street, which was renamed East Pender Street, shortly after the Chinatown Riot of 1907.
Ten years after his arrival in Vancouver, Larry’s father married a second woman, Larry’s mother. She too, was subjected to the $500 Head Tax. The First Wife never came to Canada. She remained in China to look after the First Son. Her husband faithfully sent money home on a monthly basis until his death in 1966. His parent’s marriage was not that uncommon although they were in a minority to have families at all in Chinatown.
Larry’s family lived in the back of a tailor shop on Main Street and through his eyes, we take a trip through historic Chinatown.
The Chinese Freemason building that helped finance Dr. Sun Yat-Sen’s revolution and which today houses condos and the Modernize Tailor shop.
The world’s narrowest building wasn’t always narrow but there is a good story behind it, which we will hear.
We’ll learn about the Yip Sang, the oldest building in Chinatown, with photographs of the original structure and the present renovated gallery under new ownership.
There will be stories of how two teenagers built a homemade airplane behind their home on Market Alley… the young men and women who fought in the last World War and at the end gained the right to vote, which had been denied to the Chinese since 1875… the threat to Chinatown by urban renewal and more.
Chinatown itself has gone through its own recession in the last ten years but there are hopes renewed interest will appeal to a younger generation leading to a rejuvenation of the neighbourhood.
