Death of Toronto's old Chinatown--and the birth of a new
Like many other cities in North America, Toronto, Canada's new locus of Chinese shopping and dining has moved out of the downtown core to the suburbs:
"Once a prosperous hive of activity, Toronto's downtown Chinatown, centred on Dundas St. W. and Spadina Ave, is now dismal and bleak. Most of the good restaurants have gone. Businesses are suffering. Only a few fruit stands remain. Litter swirls around the cold and lonely sidewalks.
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New Chinatown is a different world. The focal point is near the intersection of Kennedy Rd. and Steeles Ave., on the border between Toronto and Markham. Here sit two huge Chinese malls, jam-packed with cars on any day of the week, filled with shops that are bright and bursting with products. Market Village features large flat-screen and projection TVs near its sky-lit food court, which offers cuisine from all over Asia. Upstairs, a cultural centre teaches courses in brush painting, kung fu and calligraphy.The inside of Pacific Mall, a coliseum filled with hundreds of tiny shops, resembles the markets you'd find in Hong Kong or Beijing. In one glassed-in store, a man replenishes his jars of sliced ginseng and dried fish stomach because they've sold out; in the nearby atrium, people take a short rest in vibrating massage chairs. You can also find a sprawling karaoke club and a video-game arcade on the second level.Already huge, these shopping centres are planning major expansions. But that's not all. Across Steeles, another large mall is under construction: the Splendid China Tower, whose design will mimic Beijing's Forbidden City, and which promises to eclipse Pacific Mall as the largest indoor Asian marketplace in North America. "You walk along Steeles and you see the facilities are getting more and more because the Chinese population is booming," says Fu, the former Thunder Bay student, who now presides over Pacific Mall. "In our community people call it the New Chinatown.""
"Once a prosperous hive of activity, Toronto's downtown Chinatown, centred on Dundas St. W. and Spadina Ave, is now dismal and bleak. Most of the good restaurants have gone. Businesses are suffering. Only a few fruit stands remain. Litter swirls around the cold and lonely sidewalks.
...
New Chinatown is a different world. The focal point is near the intersection of Kennedy Rd. and Steeles Ave., on the border between Toronto and Markham. Here sit two huge Chinese malls, jam-packed with cars on any day of the week, filled with shops that are bright and bursting with products. Market Village features large flat-screen and projection TVs near its sky-lit food court, which offers cuisine from all over Asia. Upstairs, a cultural centre teaches courses in brush painting, kung fu and calligraphy.The inside of Pacific Mall, a coliseum filled with hundreds of tiny shops, resembles the markets you'd find in Hong Kong or Beijing. In one glassed-in store, a man replenishes his jars of sliced ginseng and dried fish stomach because they've sold out; in the nearby atrium, people take a short rest in vibrating massage chairs. You can also find a sprawling karaoke club and a video-game arcade on the second level.Already huge, these shopping centres are planning major expansions. But that's not all. Across Steeles, another large mall is under construction: the Splendid China Tower, whose design will mimic Beijing's Forbidden City, and which promises to eclipse Pacific Mall as the largest indoor Asian marketplace in North America. "You walk along Steeles and you see the facilities are getting more and more because the Chinese population is booming," says Fu, the former Thunder Bay student, who now presides over Pacific Mall. "In our community people call it the New Chinatown.""
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