Chinese in Niagara Falls ON

Although most of the Chinatown buildings have disappeared from Erie Avenue and Park Street, we who experienced life in Chinatown carry its essence forward. Erie Avenue 2007: 568 to 584 Erie Avenue - Photo Courtesy of Loy Chong 2014 : Across the street from 568 Erie Avenue, once the Sun Sui Restaurant, a group has assembled to mark an event. Much of what remained of Chinatown on Erie Avenue - the east-side stretching from Bridge to Park Street - is being, or has been, torn down. In the background, 568, most recently known as the Sun Sui Restaurant,  is to be included. Its usefulness outlasted storefronts already boarded up in the 2007 photo. Out of the faces,  I see Loy Chong. I have also come to know other faces and names now. Moon and Fung Chong as the owners/operators of Charlie Hing Laundry (Post #5), and James Lau as a long-ago Park Street resident, and his wife, Patty (Post #22). Michael Wan, I knew as a  Niagara Falls Chi...

Sam Lee, my father immigrated to Canada in 1918. In China, the country was divided. Soldiers of warlords looted and extorted ordinary Chinese. Poor crops, floods, and droughts added to the overall misery. Immigration was an attractive option. My father first came to Niagara Falls around 1922/1923. Why he chose Niagara Falls is unknown. He may have had acquaintances there, or someone he knew was going too, or perhaps Niagara Falls seemed like a place of opportunity. Jack, my brother, believed our father was drawn by the hospitality industry. Shifting to more contemporary times when reasons can still be recalled and related, the Chongs tell how they came to Niagara Falls and its Chinatown.   JOSEPH CHONG came to Niagara Falls primarily for business reasons. He says, I came to Niagara Falls in 1973, opened a bean sprout company. Later in 1977, [I] opened a paper products [company] in St. Catherines until 1982. Then combined the two companies into one. Close...

M y brother died in February 2012. With the exception of time in Toronto to attend Ryerson, he had always lived in Niagara Falls. First on Park Street, then on Gail Avenue and finally at St. Paul Avenue in the defunct restaurant. When I returned from Victoria, BC with my husband, son and his family in the spring to pay our final respects and see the grave marker in place, I believed it would be my last visit to Niagara Falls. At the gravesite, we planted hardy perennials and friend Robert Wong volunteered to water them regularly until they took hold. I lit joss sticks, bowed three times each in front of the plot for my father, my mother, and my brother. I was good to go: leave and not ever come back. I believed that there was nothing left for me in Niagara Falls and yet over the intervening years, memories of my parents and my brother have filled my sleep and tugged me subconsciously back to Niagara Falls: to attend Ching Ming in June 2017 and to begin this ...

This photo of CHICK LEW , wife JEAN , and their children – DIANE, NANCY, & GEORGE – represents how I remember them. I don’t know the year of this photo but this is about when we kids played together in spite of me being older. It was a treat when my mother brought me to visit them as their house was the kind of house I saw in books and on TV. Their home was not in Chinatown: thereby, western and exotic. At the same time, I think our visits were infrequent, brief and formal as there was a long-standing rift between the families. My father and Chick’s father , FRANK LEW , had been in business together at the New World Café  (Post #14) and had had a falling out. What it was about I never knew. FRANK LEW (b.1888, d.1973) immigrated to Canada in 1918. According to an article in the Niagara Falls Gazette (January 8, 1967), Frank Lew worked in different cities at various jobs. His wife, JIN SWE LEW (b.1893, d.1968) and sons (Jack and Chick) came to Canada some ti...