As Calgary's Chinatown evolves, those who love it hope some things never change

Danny Luong's favourite childhood memories of Calgary's Chinatown in the '90s are of dashing through the narrow alleys and streets, playing with shadows and light, chasing his brother and cousins and never caring about the traffic. 

Drivers there knew to expect people on the roads, he said. Because it's Chinatown. 

"Jaywalking is kind of an inside joke, right?"

Luong spent most of his childhood in Chinatown after his family was forced to flee Vietnam during a period of upheaval. They had Chinese roots and were no longer welcome. In Calgary, his father owned a butcher shop, Leung Ky Meats. Today, Danny is an artist and photographer who works in the area.

To him, Chinatown is a place for bootleg Pokemon stuffies, great bubble tea, unexpected murals in obscure back alleys and a constantly changing assortment of new businesses.

"I hope that Chinatown can always be a place where things are a little bit different and offer people things like cheaper food or inexpensive items.… That's the most culturally important thing that it can offer. It's a safe haven for many different people with different views, religions."

You could say Chinatown is at a crossroads. Since the pandemic, several core businesses have shut down or moved to the suburbs, including the grocery store, butcher shop, bakeries and long-standing restaurants.

It mirrors the struggle in many Chinatowns, like those in Toronto, Houston and Vancouver, which are fighting gentrification while trying to stay true to the communities that founded them.

But the story of change here is complex.

Calgary Chinatown proponents are quick to point to a dozen new businesses that outnumber those lost. They include a Vietnamese cocktail bar, fusion dessert shop, vintage clothing stores and new restaurants.

It also has a solid core of cheerleaders now — groups like Friends of Chinatown, which lead dim sum tours, support events such as the Lantern Festival and advocate for the area in general. That's building momentum and may bring new investment from the city.

After years of consultation, Calgary city council passed a set of new planning documents in 2022 and is expected to review community funding requests for new infrastructure this fall.

Don't assume neighbourhood needs saving

The neighbourhood sits on both sides of Centre Street, just south of the Bow River. The narrow streets have red lanterns and red benches. They're often busy with pedestrians, many of them seniors who live in the local non-profit housing and practise tai chi in the park.

There are papered-over windows and empty shops. But on a recent weekday, the air is filled with the sounds of construction. Crews are fixing entranceways and installing new signs.

Alice Lam said that when she first started volunteering and working around Chinatown, she was worried about businesses shutting down. She's an avid volunteer with Chinese-Vietnamese roots who helped start Friends of Chinatown and also works in commercial real estate.

"I was like, 'Oh my gosh, what is the longevity of this neighbourhood? We got to save these businesses.'" 

Lam now says she was wrong.

"They welcome promotion. They welcome people to come and shop. But don't make an assumption the neighbourhood needs saving.… It's always been this place of a lot of activity bustling over the past 100 years of different businesses, different community groups."

Chinatown is not like other Calgary shopping areas in that the majority of business owners are the property owners, too, Lam said. That's in part because of their history of being pushed out of other areas, but it leads to this misunderstanding.

"It is a misconception that just because the business is closed, it means that they're not doing well or that Chinatown is not doing well," Lam said. 

"In fact, there's quite a bit of new energy in the neighbourhood. There's new businesses starting. And, quite frankly, the ones who own the storefronts and decide not to open because they don't feel like it, that's their prerogative because they own the shop." 

"That's the type of lens shift that I like to give to people through our Chinatown tours.… Chinatown is really unique in that 90 per cent of the business owners own the shops that they're in."

In Lam's view, Chinatown has never been stronger. And she'd love to see the city support the momentum by funding better signage, decor and perhaps a welcome gate for the area. She's also hoping for support to build capacity among local leaders, and for funding for arts and culture.

Lam was on a committee of a dozen representatives of businesses, residents and Chinese fraternities who prepared an investment plan and submitted it to the City of Calgary this summer. It would build on the Cultural Plan and the Area Redevelopment Plan that council passed in 2022.

Terry Wong, the city councillor for the area, said he hopes council will look at these requests during the budget adjustments in November.

The city's downtown strategy calls for investment in these specific cultural destinations, he said. 

"Part of the downtown strategy was to identify amenities and destinations that activate the downtown, not only for people who live there but for people who come as a visitor," said the Ward 7 councillor. "There needs to be investment to showcase that unique cultural area."

'We need to evolve through time'

Grace Su has been involved in these discussions as chair of the board for the Chinatown Business Improvement Area.

She said the pandemic was hard on Chinatown and many visitors stayed away out of fear as soon as the virus was tied to China. But the area had already been changing as it competed with large format Asian supermarkets and other stores that opened in neighbourhoods across the city.

Today, she believes visitors come to Chinatown primarily for the experience — the shops, the setting and the events. 

"People like to come to Chinatown. There's some unique stores, for sure, but also they like the cultural characteristics and also the heritage of Chinatown," she said.

"I see even the dog-walking groups like to gather at Chinatown. Groups of runners gather, and young people come at different hours, evenings and weekends. That's a great thing."

"We can't assume we can preserve Chinatown 50 years unchanged, right? We need to evolve through time." 

The next big event is the Lantern Festival on Friday (Sept. 13). It runs from 4 to 11 p.m. with music, food trucks, merchants and hundreds of lanterns in the community.

'The customers like the new ideas'

Over the past two years, Kristy Yu opened Mama Rice Roll and Mama Dessert, a shop that blends dessert ideas from across Asia. She makes everything fresh in house, her tiny dessert kitchen busy with staff peeling fresh pomelo and making Japanese mochi and coconut noodles.

The shop fills up and spills out into the mall after 8 p.m. with customers from all ethnic backgrounds, maybe only 20 per cent of them people of Chinese heritage, she said.

It's the novelty and flavours that are drawing people in, she said.

"We're really happy here and the customers like the new ideas. In Calgary, we just need more new ideas."

Tanner Ennis and his family are also opening multiple new businesses in Chinatown. His in-laws were Vietnamese refugees who lived in Chinatown when they first arrived in Calgary. They used to have a Vietnamese restaurant in Bankers Hall. 

In 2020, they opened Paper Lantern, an underground cocktail bar on Second Avenue with authentic Vietnamese food and edgy cocktails.

"We have one that's like a cucumber salad. It's like a culinary drink … Sichuan gin, cucumber vodka, sesame oil in the drink. That's a cool one. It's super good."

Chinatown has been a great place to try out something new and he hopes that never changes, Ennis said.

"I just hope people see the opportunity with Chinatown; come here and have businesses here, have a thriving environment," he said. "I hope it doesn't get crazy expensive … that would really inhibit people being able to open businesses here."