VANCOUVER | It’s festival season in Vancouver and this weekend is no exception.

The fifth annual Chinatown Festival, the largest daytime summer event in Vancouver’s Chinatown, begins Saturday in the 500-block of Columbia Street, between Pender and Keefer.

Though it’s not highly publicized, it will feature two days of entertainment for visitors of all ages.

Highlights include a heritage and food-tasting tour. In addition, Chinese folk art demonstrations by artists from Beijing, children’s games and activities, and a youth talent showcase. Finally, an extensive night market featuring everything from jade carvings to light bulbs – all within the city’s downtown core.

And admission is free.

While it does focus on Chinese-Canadian culture, it’s more about celebrating multiculturalism than celebrating the Chinese-Canadian community in isolation, said Albert Fok, chairman of the Vancouver Chinatown Merchants Association (VCMA).

“Perhaps that’s how it started,” he said, “but in today’s terms we are here to serve everyone – the mainstream and other ethnic minorities as well.”

Fok said that in recent years, the event has been opened up to a variety of participants.

“For the past couple of years the first nations were invited,” he said. “They were able to sell some of their arts and crafts … do demonstrations.”

The initiative appears to be a success, with attendance rising each year since the festival began.

Though not as big an event as the Chinatown New Year’s Day parade, it drew more than 38,000 people last year and this year even more are expected. “The festival is only [in] its fifth year,” reminded Fok, “so in a way it’s still new.”

Despite its multicultural aspirations, the Chinatown Festival is also very much about the history of the Chinese community.

“Chinatown is a heritage community,” Fok said. “We’ve been here since 1885.” But he noted that in recent years, many Chinese-Canadian youths have begun turning to the big suburban malls for their social interaction and entertainment.

“We tend to view the [Chinatown] community as serving the older generation,” he said.

To help counteract that, the festival includes a youth talent showcase (largely musical and pop-oriented) – specifically designed to draw teens.

Fok described the festival as being real, live and dynamic, as opposed to just being a theme park. Its dynamic nature means, “people are not only invited to see or to show, they’re also invited to try,” he said.

Whether it’s taking a stab at martial arts or trying out lion dancing, those attending can participate in workshops set up “so that people can have a real hand in what they’re seeing,” Fok said. “It’s a hands-on approach to seeing how things are made, how they’re done.”

Fok said the event was specifically conceived to combat the public’s largely negative conception of everything associated with the Downtown Eastside. “We felt we needed some kind of a rescue plan to revitalize this part of town,” he said.

In the past seven or eight years, the neighbourhood’s retail area has dried up considerably.

And Fok said the area’s vibrancy “has been on a steady decline” ever since Woodward’s department store closed.

So has its reputation. For Chinatown, the most crippling effect of this has been the major decrease in pedestrian traffic.

The problem is “perceived safety,” said Fok, adding that the festival is aimed at dispelling this perception.

By bringing people in on foot for a lively summer event, the VCMA and the Chinatown Revitalization Committee hope to show that the neighbourhood is still worth a visit.

“It may take some time,” said Fok, “but my own vision for Chinatown is [similar to] Granville Island … but with an Oriental touch.”

A version of this piece on “Vancouver’s Chinatown Festival” was originally published in the Vancouver Sun, August 6, 2004. The original headline was “Youth talent a highlight of Chinatown Festival.” See below.

More pieces about Vancouver can be seen here.

Published August 3, 2004 in The Vancouver Sun, 1/2.

Published August 3, 2004 in The Vancouver Sun, 2/2.