41. PRESERVATION

Neighbourhoods change. Some evolve. Others decay, are scraped away, and vanish . . . except by those who remember. Chinatown of Niagara Falls is one of those neighbourhoods; it’s only a memory now. Archival records, photos, snippets from a willing few contribute to my own picture – of times that came before, during, and after my time there.

At the same time, what persists in memory or even records may be flawed. For instance, this watercolour created by Anton N. Akkerman is titled “Erie Ave at Zimmerman” but I think it is not.

Courtesy of Niagara Falls (Ontario) Public Library Digital Collections

I believe the white building at the far left – 190 Park Street stood on the corner of Zimmerman (formerly Clifton). According to the Vernon Directories that I have copies of (1950 to 1960), the building was vacant in 1950. From 1951-1952, it was occupied by J.A. Newport & Co., Custom Brokers and the Boy Scouts Association. 190 Park St. was vacant by 1953 and remained so until 1956 when Niagara Paper Box occupied it for the next three years.

The building across Zimmerman/Clifton Ave. – 212 Park St. – the Niagara Paper Box Co./Pakfold Continuous Forms is absent from the painting. In the Vernon Directories, it is listed as being on that corner from 1950 until 1960.

At the far right of the painting, the building is 232/234 Park St. A doorway led upstairs to the residence of Jim Low whose name is listed at that address in the Vernon Directories from 1950 until 1957. The storefront – 234 – accommodated a Chinese laundry: Lee Grand (1950-1955), Lee Ming (1956-1957), Lee Chung (1958), and Ing Harry and Lee Ming (1959 -1960).

The red brick building in the middle is my old home: 224 Park St. My family owned it from 1950 until 1972. At some point it was acquired by St. Jude’s and used as a shelter for homeless men. Later in 1975, the building was sold to the city and in 1976 both 226 and 232/234 were demolished.

Courtesy of Niagara Falls (Ontario) Public Library Digital Collections

The architectural similarities between Akkerman’s painting of the building (1983) and the only photo I can locate – 226 Park Street as a homeless shelter (1975) – are evident.

Regardless, in my mind 224 Park St. had neither the watercolour softness suggested from Akkerman’s angular view or the starker desolation frontal view captured in the photo.

My recall of 224 Park St. is from an inner view: shadowy, warm and safe.

With the neighbourhood of my childhood gone, these blog posts are my commemoration of those times. My family’s two grave markers in Fairview Cemetery are a touchstone with my parents and brother. The annual ritual of Ching Ming is the thread that has drawn myself and others to assemble and mark some sense of connection to people and place.

I wish I had more to tell about the lives of the people who lived in Niagara Falls Chinatown but I don’t. Since the death of my brother in 2012, I have had no reason to return to Niagara Falls except to attend Ching Ming in 2017. I await to feel that emotional pull again.

I have nothing more to blog about the Chinese in Niagara Falls unless others want to share their stories. That’s the problem – things (such as my own Niagara Falls experiences) run out. I hope the Ching Ming Festival doesn’t do the same.

I’ve been studying the Niagara Falls Ching Ming Festival website. The Gallery of past festivals (https://niagarafallschingming.weebly.com/gallery.html) includes photos of my brother helping. His image is captured along with faces of many others who are connected to the Chinese of Niagara Falls.

Jack, James Lau & a friend: Ching Ming 2009

I am grateful to my brother for assuming the Chinese community responsibilities that I was too distant to be involved with.

I am grateful to Robert Wong and the Ching Ming volunteers who tend the graves of my parents and brother – now that he, too, is deceased.

I am grateful to Loy Chong for his work on the Niagara Falls Ching Ming Festival website and esteem for history. Thank you one and all!

The Gallery spans forward from 2007. The audio-video recordings of the Ching Ming Festival begin in 2014. In the 2016 Gallery recording, a request is made for younger members of the Chinese community to volunteer for the Ching Ming Festival.

In 2018, Loy Chong announced he was stepping down from his Ching Ming Festival position to “allow the younger generation to take it over after 55 years of participation.” A younger person did step in for a short time but in 2019, Loy Chong is Chair again. A time will come when he, too, will run out.

New and/or younger faces are increasingly evident in the Gallery photos; some come from beyond the Niagara Region (Markham, Toronto, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Kaiping, and Taishan) to pay their respects. Not only is participation as part of the Festival’s core organization group from afar difficult, communication can be as well.

As with the rest of Canada, the diversity of the Chinese diaspora is increasing. Unlike much of the early history of the Chinese in Canada, Chinese no longer come from the same/adjacent villages or provinces.

The 2016 Census Profile reports Niagara Falls as having 595 people who identify Cantonese as their first official language, 585 for Mandarin, and 130 speaking another Chinese variant.

The audio-video recordings of the Festival suggest that English is already the mediating language and may make the proceedings inaccessible for some participants.

Each year from 2014, speakers make reference to honouring ancestors and their sacrifices. When I was an adult and asked my mother about the past, she would look weary or frustrated; she’d wag her finger and say I would never understand. I think she was telling me that I couldn’t possibly imagine. But having lived the kind of life she and my father provided, I have an inkling.

Others who attend Ching Ming may also have more deeply considered the “sacrifices” that are only spoken about in generalities – vagaries – and left for us to construct based upon our education, experiences, and media influences.

For example, Burton (charlesburton.blogspot.com, June 5, 2016) provided his thoughts in “Sweeping the Tomb of Charlie Woo”:

Even though I am not Chinese, I was educated in China. I have been a member of the board of the Chinese Cultural Association of Niagara for 10 years now. . . . I arrived at the designated meeting point in the Fairview Cemetery marked in Chinese on the Cemetery map. I assembled a team of four. Myself, my wife who is ethnically Chinese, our 12-year-old son, and his friend Sean from Beijing. . . . Our first grave is a small stone. At the top is the name “Charlie Woo.” The rest of the information is in Chinese. I read it out to my son.

His name is Hu Zhenguan. He come from Chonglou, Taishan County, Guangdong. He was born in 1888. He died in 1939. . . .

I tried to imagine what Charlie Woo’s life had been like. I suppose he likely worked long hours in bad conditions in a Chinese hand laundry or cheap Chinese restaurant catering to the Niagara Falls tourist trade. Was he very homesick for China over his years in Canada? Why did he die young at age 51? I suppose he lived in crowded and poor lodgings. Maybe it was untreated tuberculosis that killed him when his lungs gave out? How bad was it for him to realize that he would die “bare branch” with no descendents?

In this reflective account, Burton wonders aloud about Charlie Woo’s life – about his sacrifices.

This past Ching Ming Festival, 170 pots of geraniums were purchased for planting. There are at least 170 stories to be told: some about the event, some about the deceased, or even more about those who live on and feel the connection to the Chinese experience.

My impetus for this blog has run out. I invite others to take up where I’m leaving off – to write of other Chinese in, and of, Niagara so that they live on in our stories.