Thousands attend Vancouver’s Lunar New Year parade as debate persists over Chinatown’s future

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Sunday’s festivities have been a chance for Chinatown to showcase the most effective of what it has to supply

Revealed Feb 11, 2024  •  Final up to date 9 hours in the past  •  3 minute learn

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The sounds of rhythmic drumming, cymbals clanging and the rat-tat-tat of firecrackers reverberated via the streets of Vancouver’s Chinatown Sunday through the fiftieth anniversary of the Spring Pageant Parade.

Regardless of persistent rain showers, throngs of individuals — typically three or 4 rows deep — lined the streets to soak within the sight of luminescent yellow and pink dragons, acrobatic lions, crimson lanterns hanging from timber, and dance troupes twirling rainbow-coloured umbrellas and followers.

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Coco Kao, who lives in Powell River, stated the parade, coinciding with the Lunar New 12 months, reminded her of her native Taiwan.

“It jogs my memory of my hometown, which is hundreds of miles away,” she stated.

“The parade is at all times phenomenal. I like the vitality.”

Surrey couple Danielle De Leon and Emil Sarmiento stated it was their first time attending the parade.

“It’s good to see how various the tradition is inside the Chinese language group itself,” De Leon stated.

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Lunar New 12 months is widely known throughout a number of Asian nations. Its timing varies as it’s primarily based on cycles of the moon. This 12 months is the 12 months of the Dragon.

Beginning on the Millennium Gate and snaking its manner down Pender, Gore and Keefer streets, the parade featured a wide range of contributors together with army veterans, members of the St. John Ambulance youth cadet program, martial artists, seniors folks dance troupes, conventional Chinese language drugs practitioners, varied Canada-China friendship associations, and quite a few dignitaries handing out fortunate crimson envelopes.

Within the lead-up to the parade, organizers got here underneath scrutiny for excluding sure teams from taking part, citing, partly, their “political activism.” However organizers reversed course and allowed two of the teams, Chinatown Collectively and Lunar New 12 months For All, to take part.

“We perceive it doubtless took a whole lot of braveness for the organizing committee” to vary their minds, stated Melody Ma, a group activist and vocal critic of gentrification in Chinatown, forward of the parade.

“For that, we wish to say thanks to the organizing committee.”

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Whereas the teams are nonetheless in search of an apology and a extra clear eligibility course of for future parades, they determined to place politics apart for the day “for the sake of group unity,” Ma stated.

Whereas Sunday’s festivities have been a chance for Chinatown to showcase the most effective of what it has to supply, the neighbourhood continues to wrestle with many challenges: discover extra culturally applicable housing for its seniors; deal with the speedy decline of greengrocers and butchers; and revitalize the native financial system whereas additionally preserving its tangible and intangible cultural and heritage belongings.

The problems weren’t removed from the minds of many parade watchers.

“I got here right here as a child and this was the hub to get Chinese language merchandise. Now every thing is out within the suburbs. … Rather a lot has modified,” stated David, who declined to provide his final title.

David stated he had lately travelled to San Francisco and was struck by how that metropolis’s Chinatown was nonetheless “thriving.” He lamented how among the social challenges confronting the Downtown Eastside had spilled over into Chinatown.

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Coquitlam couple Eloise Bathroom and Raymond Sheh stated they’ve been parade regulars for greater than 50 years.

“We come rain, sleet, snow or hail,” Bathroom stated.

Bathroom fondly recalled how her grandfather would deliver her to the parade and the way they’d seize steamed buns and egg tarts. Parade contributors have been rather a lot much less political and company than they’re now, she added.

Whereas she misses seeing among the older companies, such because the Chinese language-language printing press on the nook and the Pender Avenue bakery well-known for its apple tarts, she acknowledged that the neighbourhood can’t stay because it as soon as was.

“Life is altering. … Simply with variety, it’s OK.”

With recordsdata from Canadian Press

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