In 1788, 50 Chinese Artisans were brought by Captain John Meares from Guangzhou, Guangdong province. Their destination is Nootka Sound in British Columbia, at that time Spanish have the absolute dominance on the west coast of North America. Since then, more and more Chinese immigrates to Canada. The reason behind is there were many conflicts at that time’s Qing Dynasty. The First Opium war and also the rebellion of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. All those chaos boosted the immigration process in 1850s. Most of these Chinese immigrants were from the Delta between Guanzhou and Hong Kong, their job come to Canada is to construct CPR which stands for Canadian Pacific Railway. Here is a memorial for them:

Since these Chinese immigrants comes to construct railway with harsh conditions and much lower wage than these Caucasian workers. It is a starting point that all discriminative policy settles down in North American continent. In 1885, they proposed head tax for Chinese who enters Canada. It’s $50 at that time. The price rise higher in 1900, it turns out to be $100 and several years later this becomes $500. In 1923 the Chinese Immigration Act was published, all Chinese were restricted to enter Canada. This was proposed in July.1st, 1923. Among Chinese Canadians this day were seen as the humiliation day. It remains until 1947 when WWII finishes and more people required equality as a reason to abolish this policy. The apology comes until 2006 when Stephen Harper was present on the Prime Minister position. During that time, because of the racism and discriminative policies Chinese were only interacts within themselves. They got their own shops, laundry store and restaurants. That is how Chinatown grows, here is my walk in the Vancouver Chinatown:

Chinatown in Vancouver is at the definite east side of the city. It is pretty close to the intersection of Main St and Hasting St which is the most Chaotic district among Metro Vancouver, therefore it would not let people have a feeling of safety when they come to this district. In fact, the new area more Chinese are coming in to like Metrotown and Richmond are much newer than the historical Chinatown. This place was developed since 1881, it was still the time in Qing Dynasty. Over 100 years, China changed many different governments to today’s PRC. It is developing as well, Beijing, Shanghai are all mega cities. Unfortunately, Chinatown didn’t follow the track of developent neither in Canada nor China. That’s the problem Vancouver Chinatown exists, it happens may because of the historical reason but since Canada as an open environment Chinese group need to touch other cultures. To stay in this diversified environment, it’s not only keep it’s own culture but also have some interact with others. Actually, this happens not only in Vancouver, Canada. But also other places around the world where Chinatown exists, there’s a long way to go for Chinese people who lives in the foreign lands to open their heart and accept, respect other people’s culture in a peaceful way. That is at least what I have learned for the past few years.

Source: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/chinese-canadians