Photos

The Toronto area has several Chinatowns. The main one is downtown, centered on the corner of Dundas Street and Spadina Avenue. There's another on the east side of the city, at Gerrard and Broadview. The newest is just north of Toronto proper, in Markham.

The city even has what one might think of as a "ghost Chinatown" at the location of City Hall. This was where the early Chinatown stood, only to be forcibly moved (against the will of its inhabitants) to make way for our new City Hall when the old one became too small. The site was actually chosen in 1946, which might explain the gross cultural insensitivity. Things hadn't improved enough by the early 60s, when construction was begun, for there to be an effective protest. The building was finished in 1965. It's a unique structure, and I like it, but I wish they'd located it somewhere else and left the community where it was.

In any case, this picture was taken in the Markham Chinatown, north of the city, where a large proportion of Toronto's many Chinese immigrants now choose to settle. Personally I prefer the older Chinatowns. The northern one is a little sterile, but in one of the ignored corners of a huge mall I found this man hard at work.

Footnote: At least two of these "Chinatowns," the one in Markham and the main one, might really be called "Asiatowns" by now, since significant populations of Vietnamese and other Asians have also taken up residence and/or opened businesses there.

This photo is a partner for, and a contrast to, another one, The Pharmacist II

Tech stuff: cropping, curves, a layer, and some very very minute cloning to remove unintentional effects caused by the other adjustments.