Coolopolis' newly-hired Director of Foreign Affairs and Marketing in Asia Gu Fu Chiang presented us these photos taken in Monyhall on Jean Baptiste Day 1988. Bad photos of a bad event.Those were the years that provincial politicians were drooling over the notion of cashing in on the Hong Kong handover, but when they finally started scoring some of the moneyed Chinese set, they realized that just about 100% of them were immediately moving on to other provinces after moving here, something like what's happening again today. So here are the fruits of your tax contributions, an overfunded and highly-contrived celebration of the provincial holiday - my favourite being the ridiculously tacky oversized lamb at the bottom - amid the city's Chinese community. Nowadays there's nothing like this going on in Chinatown, in fact there's nothing going on in Chinatown at all, even the ol' tradition of the annual Chinese celebration has been shelved. Any input from someone who knows the Chinese community is welcome. Unlike in the past when there were always one or two spokesmen for the Chinese community in Montreal, there's not a soul who can speak for the gang nowadays.
There's plenty going on in Chinatown now. There is a street fair going on as I write this and the same St. Jean Baptiste celebration takes place every year --- and it's even bigger and more elaborate than in these photos, perhaps because it coincides with another early-summer edition of the street fair.
ReplyDeleteYou're right that there isn't anyone who will speak for the entire Chinese community anymore. I now realize that this is because the Chinese community is incredibly fragmented. There is of course a huge language split between Cantonese and Mandarin, which wasn't even an issue in 1988, and the usual petty rivalries that tend to emerge within small but highly diverse communities.
If you're looking for someone who is a keen observer of the local Chinese community, I would recommend talking to May Chiu, the former director of the Chinese Family Services who now works for Project Genesis. She is by no means a spokesperson --- in fact she is a somewhat controversial figure within the community --- but she knows what she's talking about.
If you want a more conventional spokesperson you could probably contact Tran Cam Dao, who is president of the Chinese-Vietnamese Association, vice-prez of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and owner of the big banquet hall Lotté Furama.
Now, speaking about the Chinese community a bit more generally, it is flourishing. China has been one of Quebec's top sources of immigrants for several years now and the impact is huge. Two new Chinese newspapers have been launched in Montreal that are geared towards mainland immigrants: Seven Days and Skyline Weekly. Mainland immigrants are making their presence felt in the southwest, Verdun in particular. In the past four months, at least three new Chinese supermarkets have opened on Notre-Dame St. in St. Henri, on Wellington in Verdun and on Notre-Dame St. in Lachine. They aren't fancy but it's pretty remarkable when you consider that, traditionally, the city's Chinese community has never had a presence in this area.
I wrote an article for the Gazette last February on how the west end of downtown beween Guy and Atwater is becoming "Chinatown West." The trend has only amplified since then.
Finally, a word on the HK Chinese that government officials were trying to woo in the late 80s: you're right that this effort was a miserable failure because most of the wealthy and middle-class people who did come ended up leaving for other provinces or returning to Hong Kong. It was pretty much hopeless from the start since Toronto and Vancouver are much more desirable places to settle for Hong Kong people.
But, from what I understand, many new mainland immigrants are more inclined to stay in Montreal. Of course, that doesn't mean they came here to buy a bungalow and become eager flag-waving Québécois. There will always be a constant back-and-forth exchange of people, which is true not only for Chinese communities in the rest of Canada but also for most immigrant communities in general. But most Chinese immigrants to Montreal are nothing like the well-heeled HKers who came here before 1997.
Anyway, the ins and outs of Chinese Montreal is one of the great untold stories of the city. Hopefully you'll be hearing more about it in the fall if I find some receptive ears at a certain local daily...
There's something I forgot to mention. Next time you're in Chinatown, check out the new restaurant Xiao Fei Yang at the corner of Clark and La Gauchetière, on the second floor. (It's the one with the sheep logo.) In a way it's a symbol of the changes underway in both Chinatown and Chinese MTL: Xiao Fei Yang is a huge chain of hotpot restaurants from mainland China. Montreal is its first North American location.
ReplyDeleteIt's a restaurant that is entirely geared towards Chinese customers: no compromises are made for picky white people. It's the kind of slick corporate Chinese restaurant you normally find only in places like Toronto and Vancouver --- and it's the first restaurant of the type in Montreal, whose Chinese food scene has long been dominated by restaurants that serve either second-rate Cantonese food or Maison Egg Roll-type "Chinese" food.
At the other end of the spectrum is the recent emergence of many cheap, home-style regional Chinese restaurants, which is another indication that the Chinese community is growing and becoming more self-sustaining.
Xiao Fei Yang website:
http://www.xfy.cn
Thanks for the comments and expertise, I'll look into some of that stuff. And yes I've met May Chiu and liked her but when she ran for the PQ and started shooting her mouth off about the father of her child being a 'sperm donor' I realized she lost a lot of my respect. She's not the only one, Ruth Koo Lam is somewhat unpredictable as well. And I'm glad that there's some critical mass among the new Chinese immigration but the recently-analyzed census data is also troubling. It states that new immigrants (not necessarily only Chinese) are moving out of Quebec as fast as they move in. Also about 20 years ago there was an annual late-summer Moon Festival (is that was it was called?) that no longer seems to exist. When I see integrated Chinese here in Montreal, I'm often curious as to what their family history here was, if their parents ran a Chinese laundry, etc, but I'm too bashful to ask. Overall, I don't see them any better organized vis-a-vis communicating with the larger society than they were in the say, 1920s.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, there isn't much in the way of political organization, but the community is much larger, more diversified and more economically influential than it has ever been.
ReplyDeleteI don't think there are too many descendants of the early immigrants who owned laundries, etc. In my own experience it's really hard to generalize about where Chinese families came from and why they settled here. Just for example, one of my friends was born and raised on the West Island to Chinese parents from Vietnam and Madagascar. They originally came here to study. I have a couple of other friends who were born in China but moved to MTL when they were kids. Their parents were professionals who came here when they found a job at one of the universities or some big company.
Another aspect of the Chinese community in MTL are the many thousands of students who come here both from Asia and the rest of Canada. There are many Chinese Montrealers who originally came here to study at McGill, Concordia or U de M and ended up staying.
One thing that is very striking about the Chinese community in Montreal (and especially Toronto) is that its origins are very diverse. Since the Chinese diaspora is so widespread there has been a lot of secondary migration from places all around the world. A large proportion of Calcutta's Chinese community has relocated to Toronto.
(In Vancouver, there are proportionally more Chinese than anywhere else in North America but the vast majority can trace their roots back to Hong Kong. It's a more culturally cohesive community than here in Montreal.)
As for immigrants moving out of Quebec, you must be thinking about the 2001 census because the immigration data for the 2006 census hasn't been released yet. Although Montreal definitely has a harder time holding onto its immigrants than Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver, I wouldn't be surprised if the situation has changed somewhat since 2001. The economy has improved dramatically while the cost of living has remained relatively low. But who knows... I think Statscan releases its new immigration data in December so we'll find out what's happening then.
Here's the article I was referring to, it cites a fairly serious demographic problem for Montreal, which has lost much of its shine to immigrants. I don't think it directly states that they're moving here and then on elsewhere, but I'm pretty sure that's an irrefutable trend nonetheless considering the numbers.
ReplyDeleteIt has also been cited repeatedly elsewhere that Montreal island loses over 20,000 residents per year. We barely make up for that with new immigrants, so the pressure is on Montreal to increase its appeal.
I suggest we start with a few little things. One would be to try to stop irritating drivers unnecessarily. So we could start by getting rid of unnecessary red lights and stop signs. It's a small thing. People have a legitimate need to drive cars and the city seems determined to poison their lives by making them sit at red lights all day long. The off-island suburbs, which are hugely popular, aren't afflicted with the same stupidity. So let's scrap the unnecessary red lights, sure it's a small thing but small things add up to big things in our bid to attract people to the city.
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Commodity boom lures Quebecers westward; About 12,000 bolted province last year, including an unusual number of immigrants; [Final Edition]
ALAN HUSTAK and ROBERT GIBBENS. The Gazette. Montreal, Que.: Jul 21, 2007. pg. A.10 Even though she can't speak English very well, Virginie Boudreau left her hometown of Saguenay last year and moved to Calgary.
The 23-year old, fresh from earning a degree in communications at UniversitE Laval, discovered her French-language skills were in demand out west, where she could make twice the salary she could in Quebec.
"There are lots of francophone organizations in Alberta, lots of people who speak French ready to help you," Boudreau said yesterday. "Although it costs more to live in Calgary, I am still ahead of the game."
Boudreau is one of an estimated 12,000 Quebecers who quit the province last year. That's more than double the number of Quebecers who left in 2005.
"In the last 18 months, things have turned rather negative for Quebec when it comes to interprovincial migration," Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies, said yesterday.
"Our analysis suggests last year Quebec incurred its worst single net loss in the past seven years. That's 150 per cent higher than the number of people who moved away in 2005.
"Alberta is clearly a draw. About one-quarter of those who left Quebec moved to Alberta. Fifty per cent left for Ontario."
While Quebec's increasing birth rate and immigrant arrivals offset the number of people who left, Jedwab suggests a disproportionate number of Quebec's immigrant population is also taking part in the exodus.
"When you examine the statistics, the rhythm in migrants ... it appears we have an immigrant retention problem," he said. "Because of the degree in the increase, there is likely a connection between the two.
"What that is attributable to is anyone's guess. The Quebec economy is booming, unemployment is down, so it's hard to explain what's behind the migration to other provinces. It could be greater challenges, or in the case of immigrants, it could be the result of the debate over
reasonable accommodation."
Jedwab's analysis also reveals while Montreal still attracts most immigrants coming to Quebec, many new arrivals are settling in smaller centres outside Montreal.
Sherbrooke, for example, last year recorded a 35-per-ent increase in its immigrant population. Trois RiviEres enjoyed a 30- per-cent rise.
Another study, by Quebec's largest investment dealer, comes to many of the same conclusions.
But the report by National Bank Financial indicates while Ontario compensates for its population losses by taking more than half the immigrants coming to Canada, Quebec can't lure enough newcomers.
The soaring loonie has delivered successive blows to the manufacturing provinces of Ontario and Quebec, paralyzing economic growth and creating heavy pressure on jobs, while the commodity boom is making the West boil, NBC senior economist Yanick Desnoyers said in a new study.
"But when you look at inter-provincial migration and international migration patterns together, Ontario has the largest outflow of people to Alberta and the West, but emerges as the key welcoming ground for the vast majority of new arrivals," he said.
"Quebec also loses a considerable number to the West, but La Belle Province significantly lags Ontario in its ability to attract international immigrants."
An estimated 25,000 Ontarians headed west last year.
Desnoyers does not touch on the reasons Quebec is less able to persuade immigrants to settle in the province. Some observers have cited slow growth, fewer job openings, language and education difficulties and high taxes. But French-speaking Europeans also tend to stay at home.
Desnoyers compares today's imbalances with the 1979-81 energy crisis, when there was a similar shift from Central Canada to the West.
In 2006, 70,000 people flooded into Alberta and British Columbia. That same year, Ontario took in 109,193 immigrants out of 212,746 nationwide.
"That means Ontario gained an average of 95,000 net new arrivals a year since 2005, providing precious support for economic growth," he said.